Thanksgiving Break

This past weekend was thanksgiving break, my family was already on break since the beginning of the past week.  Monday, we had our last rehearsal in the Band of Blue as we prepared the "Soulsville" show for halftime last Saturday.  Rehearsal went by quickly that day and we finished before 2 pm.  Later that day, the auditions for Wind Ensemble/Symphonic Band went underway for the percussion.  I auditioned at 5:15, and it went fairly well, better than last time.  Overall, the school week was really short. 

Wednesday night, I got my stuff packed up for the break coming up.  I didn't need much because I was going to return that Saturday morning for the last home game.  Anyway, that Wednesday night, my dad came and took me home, we went to Kroger to get some groceries first.  After that, we headed to the house, I put my stuff up and hung out with my brother for a while.  I played some video games, watched some TV, and did other things that night.  I had a chance to get some eight hours of sleep that night.  The next morning, I practiced some music for Salsa Band and for my lessons.  I also had a chance to listen to my brothers and sister play their piano pieces as well and help them out with what I could.  I also had a chance to watch X-men first class for the first time, and Captain America: The First Avenger also for the first time.  Both were really good movies.  The Avengers will be coming out next year as well featuring Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, and the Hulk.  From watching movies to playing Call of Duty and practicing piano and percussion, there was not much else to do until we left for our Grandmother's house later that Thanksgiving evening.  It was my mom's side of the family at the get together, all of her siblings, six brothers and sister and their kids/my cousins, and some other family and friends.  We played some more videogames and watched the San Fransisco 49ers at Baltimore that night.  We also had thanksgiving dinner.  It was a fun evening, we also ended up watching an English Subbed Chinese originated movie called "Kung Fu Hussler", so we had to read the subtitles instead of listening to the sound delay of the dubbed version.  It was a good/funny movie with an interesting storyline.  We got home that late that night and we went straight to bed.  The next friday morning, the routine was generally the same, only this time, I went outside and fed the dog: half Border-Collie, a quarter Pit-Bull and a Quarter Black-Lab.  We have a term for this, and it is a hand-full.  The dog has gotten more organized with time, knowing the back-yard and where everything is.  I went back in and did some more practicing and TV watching.  This was probably the first time I had made my own breakfast in a while also.  My brother, the one in high school, having his permit managed to drive with mom and dad to take him to his job at Brixx.  I think mom and dad went Black-Friday Shopping that night, leaving me to babysit the other three kids.  The kids watched a movie or TV, while I practiced for my Music City Audition as well as other music stuff.  I helped out one of my brothers with his midstate music and piano recital music.  That night when my brother got back from his job, we decided to drum on some drum pads. Being the center snare for our high school's drumline, he practiced a lot, even when he wasn't the center last year, his sophomore year.  We played some of the exercises that they're doing this next indoor season and some stuff from last year as well.  It was good going home that weekend. It won't be long until I'm home again.

The next morning, Dad drove me to school for the last home game.  We talked about a lot of things, mostly about college and what to expect as well as some good advice.  He dropped me off at the music building and I put my stuff up in the practice room.  I practiced for a little bit until it was time to get ready for the game.  It was the last home game that was recognizing the 4+ year students.  At practice we went through "Soulsville" a few times and headed to raider walk.   After raider-walk, we had a break and went into uniform as we began to warm up.  They began recognizing as the band walked in, so we didn't play the cadence that time around.  The usual pre-game happened and we headed into the stands.  There weren't a lot of people at this game from the home front, but a lot of us expected that since it was near exam time.  However, the half-time show was one of our better runs of the full show.  We did lose the game, but the Band of Blue still did our thing.  Getting positive feed back about how we sounded that game and other games as well.  The band banquet will be on December 2 for the Band of blue.  

This was a good weekend.  Next weekend, I go back to Music City Drum and Bugle Corps for auditions.  Last summer, our show was "Let's Dance" that featured songs like "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady, "American Bandstand" from back in the day, as well as "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire, "Singing in the Rain", Jackson 5's "Dancing Machine", "Dancing Queen", and many others.  This year, the show is entitled: "Phantom of the Grand Ole Opera".  A play on words for Opryland's Grand Ole Opry as well as "Phantom of the Opera".  As the title suggests, we'll feature music from "Phantom of the Opera" as well as from stars like Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, and others.  250+ people have signed up for this next camp, being a veteran member, it will be interesting to see how this corps will improve.

Band of Blue at Louisiana

 This week, a lot went on that was related to my old high school and the MTSU Percussion studio.  My old high school band went to the Bands of America Grand National Championships this Friday in Indianapolis; their performance time was 7:45 PM.  Instead of last year, when we went on late at 10:45 Thursday night.  They ended up doing well, they didn't make semi-finals though, however Father Ryan High School did make Semi-Finals, and they placed in Second for Class AA, first place Class AA being Merrian Catholic High School, known for having the most championships.  However, this year's winners was the Broken Arrow High School Marching Band, from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.  Here is a link to a montage made by BOA, Ravenwood is on the last eight seconds of it.


Indianapolis hosted another major event along with BOA.  It was host to the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (P.A.S.I.C).  A majority of the Percussion Studio at MTSU went to the convention that lasted for three or four days (thursday through Sunday.).  Experiencing masterclasses, competing among other things happened in this time span.   A quartet as well as a soloist competed in the Collegiate competition at P.A.S.I.C.  I don't know how they did, but they did great performances at the recitals and masterclasses here.  I didn't go to P.A.S.I.C this year, however, there was a football game going on that the band was going to. 

 Despite most of the percussion being gone to P.A.S.I.C, the only noticeable difference in the drumline was the quad-line, there were only two of us at the Friday Band of Blue practice.  Nine of the 11 snares and 13 of the 14 cymbals were also at the practice, only the multis and the Bass drums had full sections.  Since we had Wednesday off, we did our practice on Friday.  We worked on the Veteran's Salute show for all of the practice time.  After that, those of us who were going to Monroe, Louisiana met up at the front of the stadium to meet about what is going to happen.  Less than half of the band was selected to go on this trip, and that was about 150+ out of 380+.  After practice, the battery that was going, the six snares, three multis, all seven basses (need all seven for the music), seven cymbals, and one (me) quad-player (the other one had to go to an exam), put our drums in the cases so that at 11:00 p.m. that night we will be able to load the buses; and we did just that.  After we got loaded, we began the 10-11 hour bus ride down to Monroe, Louisiana.  I slept all the way until we stopped for breakfast.  It was a rest area sort of town, so me and some other people walked down to Kroger and picked up some food. The buses then went down to the stadium where the game was going to take place.  We got dressed, lined up, and we marched to the cadence towards the stadium.  It was definitely something to play the solos in the cadence by myself, as well as the stands tunes and the "MTSU is hot" cheer.   The first half, the ULM Warhawks scored 30+ points on us. At half-time, their band went on and played for the student section.  We also played our show, but we played it from the stands. The game ended with ULM 42, MTSU-14.  We then marched back to the buses with the cadence.  As we marched back, we went to the lot where the busses were at, and the front of the line began walk in a circle.  It went on for a while, until the circle got too condensed.  We then changed and left ULM to go to the hotel. We were to drop off our stuff at the room and go back on the bus to have some Cajun food.  It wasn't a long ride to the Cajun restaurant.  It was reserved for us that night and they had a buffet laid out for us.  Not even half of our band filled up the entire restaurant.  The food was really good, starting with the fried fish, followed by the shrimp and chicken tenders.  with the sides of fries and Hash-Browns.  We then left for the hotel after dinner.  The next morning we had Sonic for breakfast on our way back to Murfreesboro.  After a few hours, we made a lunch stop in Memphis for about an hour at a mall, it was similar to the mall here in Murfreesboro.  We only stayed for about 45 minutes and went straight back to MTSU.  On the way we watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 along with other movies.  The only other movies of the series I'd see was the Chamber of Secrets and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I didn't read the recent book, however I did read the second book.  Other movies we watched on the trip was the Hangover, Anchorman, Tangled, and the Big Lebowsky.   Once we got back to MTSU, it was 7:45 at night, I put everything up and made my way to the dorm.  It was a fun trip, also my first time going to Louisiana.  Now we have another home game where we will be doing the Veteran's Salute show next Saturday. 

Week of Clash of the Tennesseans MTSU vs UT, Knoxville.

The Band of Blue shouldn't be too hard to find.

The only thing that really stood out this past week was a Sunbelt Team going up against an SEC team, from the same state.  MTSU was UT's homecoming opponent.  The last time UT played MTSU was in 2002.  I've known about this since day one of school, even before then.  THis past week, in the Band of Blue, we were working mostly on the Vet's Salute show, as well as the pep-tunes for Saturday's game.  Saturday morning, I woke up at around 6:45, I didn't want to wait for three hours so I went ahead and went to the music building to practice.  I left my dorm and I saw fog everywhere.  It looked like something straight out of one of those haunted monster ghost movies (Probably the omen of us losing to UT). With that thought, I thought it was funny and cool.  The fog was really dense, I couldn't even make-out the buildings I usually see outside of Monohan.  Anyway, Being a music major, I could use my card to get in and practice. There were other people there as well.  I worked on two pieces, Over the Moon, and Cattelin, both by Daniel Berg.  I practiced for about two and a half hours, after that I decided to get ready to head out.  That morning, I also had a chance to watch someone tune steel pans; we were talking about how I had perfect pitch and what I heard when the pans were being tuned.  This guy had been doing it for a while and he knew what he was doing; it was a good experience to meet with him.  So after that, I went ahead and loaded the drums and my other stuff to the buses.  Eight buses for 380+ people lined up in the street between the stadium and the music building.  We left at 9:40 to begin the trip to Knoxville.  It was a good day for football, after the fog lifted, rain wasn't on the schedule, however, it was going to be cold later that night.  Our first official stop was at the West Mall (I don't remember the proper name of it, apparently there is an East Mall also).  There we had lunch, and a majority of the people had UT paraphernalia.  I wasn't wearing my MTSU Band shirt just yet, but a lot of other people were.  It was cool watching 300+ people enter one entrance with almost everyone wearing the same shirt that said "In your SOUL: Big, Loud, and Funky" on the back.  After the lunch, we left for the stadium, got on our uniforms and warmed up for about 20 minutes.  We then formed the parade block/formation and marched into the stadium, making an entrance.  We played the Cadence as well as "Hey Baby" once we were all on the street.   It took us a while to get into Neyland Stadium, we didn't have that much room for the number of people we had.  We still managed to get everyone a spot.  On the way in I saw on the other side of the stadium, UT's Pride of the Southland Marching Band already there getting ready.  Once we got settled Professor Cornish said, "Hey, how about we let them know we're here." And we played the fight song.  There was music already playing in the stadium.  The teams were warming up, and when more of UT's team showed up, the Pride Band played "Rocky-Top", their fight song.  We also heard the speakers turn down the already playing music, and heard the band playing through the speakers.  They were miked throughout the stadium speaker system, which was pretty neat, and that was for all of their pep tunes.  They then did their pre-game show and in the middle of faced us and played our fight-song, which was one of their traditions: Playing the opposing teams fight song as a sign of respect.  We then played our fight song.  We also pulled out two new songs for this game: "Cupid Shuffle" and "YMCA".  We didn't do half-time since it was homecoming for UT.  However, bringing the all of the winds and percussion did give a good representation for MTSU.  People watching the game on TV could hear the Band of Blue playing.  When we did "MTSU is hot" Drumline groove, which I did one of the solos for at the UT game (the link from  the Western Kentucky Game),  more and more people from the UT crowd did the hand motions each time we did it along with the MTSU crowd.  We did end up losing 24-0 against UT though, our defense did have its good moments, as well as our offense.  They had three touch downs with field goals, and one 3 point field goal.  At the end of the show, we did play part two of the show, "Soulsville", in the stands.  We then did the MTSU is hot cheer one last time after everyone left.  We then formed a parade block at the end of the game inside the Concourse, marching to the Cadence as we left.  That was one of the highlights of the night.  It was a good day for the Band of Blue despite the loss of the game, the day after, we got positive reviews from people on both sides, and from viewers at home who watched the game.

Tuesday during master class hour, we had a guest come in an explain how she wrote out drum charts.  She gave a backstory of how she was asked to go through 96 songs and play them as they were on the CD.  She then formulated a way to make writing out the charts easier and made it into a book.  Some of the other percussion students purchased the book.  This was a trial run for her since she was going to do the exact same thing for the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Thursday prior, during the Student General Recital Hour, a lot of the percussion studio did performances that hour.  Two of the performances are also going to play for the PASIC Competition, one was a marimba soloist, and the other was a percussion quartet.  PASIC occurs from Thursday 10 to Saturday the 13th and most of the Percussion Studio is going to there, I won't be since I couldn't afford it; I'll be at the Louisiana-Monroe game with the pep-band instead.  That is also the weekend of the Bands of America Grand National Championships, where 90 select Bands from across the nation compete for the National Title.  My high school accepted the invitation last year, and we placed within the top 40.  The other bands from Tennessee were Dobyns-Bennet High School and Brentwood High School last year. Semi-finals consists of the top 25 while finals consists of the top 12, but that is next weekend.  This week ended with a great display of musicianship from the BAnd of Blue at UT.  This won't be the last time we play in a big stadium, we were made aware that on November 27th, we were invited to play half-time at LP Field, home of the Tennessee Titans. 

Fall Break and the 50th Contest of Champions.

This week began with a two day break of school.  I left to go back to Brentwood that Friday Night.  That night, it was probably the first time that it would stay cold for a long time.  I didn't do much over the break.  I pretty much slept in as well as get to hang out with my family.  What we did do was what we usually did: Take care of the dog-a black lab/pitbull/border-collie mix whose name is Knuckles,  take out the trash, do dishes, go hang out at Brixx Pizza (where my brother works at), and play some video-games and watch TV.  The weekend went by pretty fast, I had a chance to practice for the show on the next Saturday: October 22nd, the Contest of Champions. 


Contest of Champions occurred the past Saturday.  It is the oldest competition in the United States as well as the world, on its 50th commencement.  If anyone was wondering what all of that music that sounded like bands and drums playing anywhere on campus this last Saturday, that was it.  The Band of Blue was host to this event.  The 380+ of us had jobs and shifts to do that day; my shift occurred at 7:00 at night at finals, but I'll get to that later.  Since my job was later, I had a chance to do my morning work, the Drumline was going to get together for the costume contest.  A little back-story: since Contest of Champions is near Halloween, everyone in the band dresses up in a costume; the different sections- the Snares, Tenors, Basses, Cymbals, and Multi-toms- in the drum-line have their own theme.  My section- the tenors- came up with our theme the Friday night before Contest of Champions, and our theme was Ghostbusters. We had four Ghostbuster costumes, so two of us had to be the monsters they go up against in the movies.  One of them was the Slimer, and I "drew the short straw" and was the "Stay Puft Marshmallow Man", which I thought was hilarious seeing as how certain characteristics about me would make it all the more funnier (in a nutshell, a lot of makeup).  It was 2:45 and we made our costumes.  We then headed to the other side of campus to go warm up for the costumed show.  The other costumes that the drumline had were: Green Army men-Snares, Amish men- the Multi-toms, Colonel Custard's last stand-The Bassline, the zoo- Cymbals.  The band of blue did both parts of the show for the Band students that competed in the preliminary round of the Contest of Champions, followed by the fight song.  After the show, the announcement of the finalists- the top 8- was announced and an exhibition band. The finalists bands were: Halls High School, Brentwood High School, Franklin High School, Columbia Central High School, John Overton High School, Siegel High School, Barren County High School, and McGavock High School.  The Exhibition band was Decatur County High School.  On the way to my first shift, I saw a number of people I knew from Music City Drum Corps, as well as from Governor's School for the Arts, and from Ravenwood HS.  My job was front ensemble entrance monitor.  I didn't stay there for long, since the drumline had to go to warm up.  We wore our regular uniforms for the night show which was more formal than our usual halftime show.  The drumline marched towards the front of the field, and we played the cadence as the rest of the band marched into the back of the field.  At the end we went to our opening set.  After we did the show a second time, the crews set up the field for the finalist bands.  Each band did a passing review, where they march on the front of the field as they are announced and play a segment of their show for the crowd.  The bands then lined up on the field.  At the center of the field, there was a platform that the drum-majors of the finalists stand on, in placing order.  The other drum-majors and their band directors from the non-finalists were there for the awards ceremony, since many awards were given to non-finalists from prelims.  The results: In 8th place-Barren County High School, 7th Place-Columbia Central High School, 6th Place-Brentwood High School, 5th Place-Halls High School, 4th Place-John Overton High School, 3rd Place-Franklin High School, 2nd Place-McGavock High School, and 1st Place-Siegel High School.  The contest ended with the groups breaking ranks, which meant the bands could meet with the other bands and vice versa.  


After the concert last week, the Symphonic Band has new music we will be working on, one of the pieces I played in my high school Wind Ensemble called "Night Dances for Wind Ensemble". Another piece we are playing is Vaughn Williams's "English Folk Song Suite.  We might be playing more, that is to be determined.


We began to get more music in the Band of Blue for the Veteran's Salute show in a few weeks, we plan on playing the themes to the different branches of the Military: The Army, the Navy, The Air Force, The Marines, and the Coast Guard. As well as other Patriotic songs.  We are still doing our halftime show "Soulsville" for the other games as well, including this one next Saturday.



.

Here are clips of the finalists of DCI 2011.

PART 1:

 PART 2:

Nights of Music

Alright, it's time to reflect on my third week.  In Band of Blue, we got back to work on "Soulsville" so it's ready for the Troy game (See "Saturday Night Lights").  Last Wednesday, the percussion studio, Fork's Drum Closet, and Zildjian Cymbals presented Keith Aleo, who works with Zildjian and is an educator and performer himself.  He presented two cymbal masterclasses last Wednesday, one at day and one at night.  I went to the night masterclass since I had class during the day.  He went over technique and execution and presented many of Zildjian's Cymbals along with someone from Zildjian's advertising department.  The Zildjian is a family owned business and has been around since the 1600's in Turkey when it was still the Ottoman Empire.  Zildjian did move to the United States in the 1900's and is the oldest family owned business in America.  It has a unique history.

Friday was one of my MTSU related highlights, it was the day that preceded Constitution Day.  In the Keathley University Center Knoll (KUC Knoll), there was a reading of the United State Constitution.  My history class had be in line to read it for attendance credit to that class.  I liked the idea of reading the Constitution.  A lot of people were walking by, and the President of MTSU stopped by to see the event.  Reading the US Constitution wasn't hard, everyone read a sentence or two, and the Constitution had some short sentences and some really long sentences.

Later that Friday night, I had my first gig with the MTSU Salsa Band.  That Friday was Mexican Independence Day, and a celebration was being held at the Discovery Center in Murfressboro.  Professor Davila told me about this the day before.  Professor Davila's Steel Drum band also performed at the Discovery Center.  We met at the campus at around four o'clock.  I went and had my keyboard ready.  I also helped load, unload, and load with the instruments.  This was a good opportunity to really get to know the rest of the Salsa Band.  I knew most of the percussion from being in the studio with them, as well as high school.  We had planned to play three peices of music, but during our sound check Professor Davila says, "Hey, let's play something we didn't rehearse.", and we were cool with that.  It was a good warm up for both the crowd and the band.  To get a taste of what we were in for later.  We played a piece called "Pa Gozar" (as oppose to the video, our group has two trumpets, two saxes, a trombone, a drumset player, three/four percussionists, a bassist, a guitarist, Professor D is the singer, and then there is me, the keyboard player.  We officially began later that evening.  There was a nice sunset, not much wind was blowing, and there was a moderate temperature where it wasn't too hot or too cold.  We settled under or around a tent in the corner of the outdoor courtyard.  We opened with "Yumbambe", followed by Professor D's arrangement "Maria", and last was "Co Co May May".  (There is some difference in how we play it and how the people in the video play it).  It was a great experience playing in front of the crowd, while it wasn't my first time playing keyboard playing in front of a crowd I don't know, it was still a good thing to be with these other really good musicians.  They really enjoyed the music, and some people even began dancing to the music.  With this kind of music who can't dance to it?  There were a lot of kids running around our set up.  They wanted a close up of us.  It was a good time.  After us came the Steel Band, and they did their arrangements as well.  We stayed after we performed for the rest of the program events and had some good food as well.  Some people left early, others stayed.  After the program that night we put up all of the equipment.  The night was still young so most of us headed to Old Chicago in Murfreesboro.  Old Chicago has some really good food, I was told.  We had a good time that night, had conversation, talked about other stuff, and I can't remember exactly though since it was at night and I was tired through most of it.  It was good to get to know some other people in the percussion studio. 

The following Saturday, my high school hosted the annual Williamson County Exhibition of Bands.  It is where the 8 Williamson county high school marching bands and the various middle school bands perform in the stadium.  A lot of RHS alumni from MTSU, Belmont, and even Ole Miss and other people on the band's staff from MTSU were there.  I left that Saturday morning with another student from here who works with the Ravenwood Band.  Before the exhibition and while the band was practicing I managed to get some practicing done as well as spend time with my family.  That night I helped people get to where they needed to go, and I saw some of the bands perform that night including Ravenwood, the band I'm from.  The mass performances at the end featured all of the bands in williamson county.  It was a good night for music.

This week was pretty good, Friday and Saturday were definite highlights of the week.  I wonder what this next week will bring when we go to Troy this weekend for football with the band, as well as my high school's homecoming.  This next week will be interesting.  Regardless, I liked how this past week turned out to be, it was a fun week.

Saturday Night Lights

     Now that my internet works the way it should, this can get posted/published without any problems.  The experiences this second week of school were significant to the university as well as myself since it was the 100th anniversary for Middle Tennessee State University and my first home football game with the Band of Blue Marching Band.  We rehearse on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 1:00 to 2:45.  We started working on the 100 year celebration halftime show last week along with the pregame show and the music we play in the stands.  We also have our actual half-time show that we will perform next game.  That Saturday was one to remember, knowing that there will be more similar like that is worth looking forward to.  Walking through the part of campus around my dorm, I see a lot of cars and blue and white tents.  There was a lot of tailgating to say the least, many alumni, students, parents and their kids gathered around their grills and games having drinks and food. It was a sight to see.  After I got my breakfast, I was walking through all of this as I was heading towards the Band of Blue Practice.  We rehearsed the Celebratory Half-Time show as well as the pregame and the Tennessee Waltz.  It was a very quick and productive practice, we managed to get it ready for the show quickly, and with 380+ members, it was very efficient.  The temperature was good, not very cloudy, and crews were getting set for the game as the band was leaving the  practice.  We, the drumline, were putting the gear we needed for the stands in the stands before we left the field so we could be ready when time came.  After practice, we got ready for "RaiderWalk".  The drumline was in front so we were the first seen.  I saw the crowd getting lined up around us as we played the cadence towards Peck Hall.  We kept playing until the all of the band was there.  The drum majors had signs so that the band can know what to play.  We played most of our stands tunes like "Stuntin' like my Daddy", "William Tell",  "Flashlight", "2001", and many more (look them up on youtube).  We then played the fight song as well as segments from the halftime show.  After that was done, the drumline played the cadence as the band was leaving.  The band had an hour break, in that hour we were provided dinner and were handed out our uniforms.  The uniform has a lightning bolt in the front of it separating blue and black, with the logo on both the front and the back of the jacket, and we wear ball-cap hats with the logo on the front and "Band of Blue" written on the back strap. Underneath, we wear our show shirt for this year, and it is called "Soulsville": we play music like "Soulfinger" and "Soulman" as well as "R.E.S.P.E.C.T" and the theme from "SHAFT" in part one. We had to bring our own marching shoes.  After the break, the Drumline began the warm ups earlier than the rest of the band, something they always do.  When we got ready, we  lined up and played the cadence for the band, and continued to play it inside the concourse to the tunnel.  There were a lot of people there before the game started.  Some from Georgia or are Georgia Tech Fans, and the rest from the area.  During the Pregame performance, I saw the screen in front of us as we were facing the end zone.  Then was when I realized how big this group really was from up top.  Seeing the different sections that the students and fans were at, and Lightning with a flyswatter, was a sight to see. That night at halftime when we began the halftime show, reminded me of the night MCDC (Music City Drum and Bugle Corps, aka the group I toured the country with this past summer) performed here at MTSU in July.  I had that same mentality from July here in September.  It was a really cool night, after the game, the band played the Fight Song one more time followed by the Tennessee Waltz, which preceded segments from the show.  After that, the drum-line lined up on the field and we played the cadence all the way back to the Wright Music Building/Saunders Fine Arts Building, which was across the street.
        Other things I want to mention were the private lessons.  Being a Music Major period meant I had to have private instruction.  I like the opportunity it brings.  Professor Davila is my Snare and Timpani instructor, this was my first lesson with him where we mentioned the expectations as well as performance. He also mentioned very good information to me while I was practicing throughout the week.  Practicing and preparing for lessons is very important for us music majors like getting homework done and assignments are for other classes since they are credited like others are.  Professor Davila also heads the MTSU salsa band, the group I play piano for.
       Being a Music Education Major, the introduction into Music Ed Class went to observe John Pittard Elementary School's 1st grade music class.  There, we took notes on what the teachers were doing and how the kids were learning.  What methods of Music education were being taught to the kids as well as what and how the kids behaved and responded to their lesson.  This experience was also in one way or another rewarding.  Music Ed majors do these observations as well as teaching to get ready for the occupation that is teaching music.
      This second week of school was highlighted by Saturday Night Lights, the football game.  It was an encouraging experience to perform and have a good time with the Drumline and the Band of
Blue.  Getting an understanding of how the rest of this semester is going to go is really exciting.   I really look forward to the rest of this semester along with the school year