This is about the Solo and Ensemble trip that took place on 2/22/25. The whole event is about getting judged on how well you perform a solo on your instrument and receiving a ranking based on your performance. There are four divisions: Division 1 is the best, Division 2 is also really good, and Divisions 3 and 4 are self-explanatory. The main goal is to earn a Division 1 or 2 ranking because those are the only ones that come with a medal. If you get a 3 or 4, it basically means you need a lot of improvement. The way I practiced for it was playing a song I listen to a lot and wanted to learn already and slowed the song down and broke the first part in to four pieces and got the tempo down and did the same for the second part but there is 7 pages long and a lot of tempo, chord, rhythm and finger placement changes that it will take forever to learn if it’s your first solo like it was for me.
From the start of my performance, I felt really nervous because my judge was very silent. However, she was kind whenever she spoke to me and patient, especially when we ran into a problem—I was playing my bass guitar, but the room didn’t have an amplifier or a cord to plug it in. We had to wait around 10–20 minutes for someone to bring them.
Once I finally had everything I needed, I started playing the song pretty well until I reached the end of the second page—the part I barely knew and struggled to keep the correct tempo for. At that point, I started to freestyle within the same key to make it sound somewhat cohesive. But she noticed. I was fidgeting a lot and had huge pauses, which basically screamed that I didn’t know that part and was just trying to fill the space. In hindsight, it probably would’ve been better to just stop playing entirely.
When I finished my performance, I got even more nervous because my judge didn’t give me any immediate feedback. That made me think I had done horribly, but I tried not to dwell on it. After I left the room, another bassist, Nicholas Watson, played after me. I listened to his performance, and it sounded better than mine. But when he came out, he told me he had stumbled at the end because he couldn’t read his own handwriting in time. That made me feel a little better because, even though Nick is overall a better bassist than me, it reminded me that everyone makes mistakes.
I started to ease up while chatting with Nick and other people who complimented my bass as I walked back to my band director to wait for my score. We were waiting for the results to be displayed on the big screen in the main gym at Bremen High School. When I finally got my score, I found out I had earned a Division 2 ranking, which was pretty good for my first time performing in front of a judge
