I've had many interactions this first official week at MTSU: I've seen all my professors, met some other music majors and other majors (mostly through the Band of Blue). The interaction(s) I want to use for this weeks assignment/blog are ones I've had with people I knew from my High school years and from the Drum Corps International Tour this past summer with Music City Drum & Bugle Corps (It's MCDC for short, that will be a real important thing to know).
I'll start off with the first week I was here, the Band of Blue Band Camp, the week prior to the first week of school. It's Sunday afternoon and there was a lot of rain about to go down, it was around 9 a.m. and the sky was dark grey, it wasn't raining just yet. Now for the funny part: I'm literally entering the sidewalk and, one of the guys I know from MCDC is already walking next to me, didn't even see him coming. The situation was interesting to say the least.
We talked, "Hey" I said to him surprised to see him all of a sudden out of nowhere.
"Oh, Hey", he said back
"It's kinda weird, I end up walking next to you in less than a second after I get out of the car... anyway, long time no see." I said.
"I think its been a week, and yes it is," he said. MCDC got back from Indianapolis in the previous week, after 6 weeks on the road around the US, that's a different story.
I do admit it was an awkward meeting, but it was the first I made on campus with another student since CUSTOMS. .
So back to this first scenario, Me and Chris, that's his name, walk into the Wright Music Building. There, we see that we aren't the only ones there. I see some guys from my high school Drum line as well as people from last years Band of Blue, and some new people. Before every Band camp, the percussion meets a day earlier to have their auditions for Battery positions ( a more popular term would be, The Drum-line), and the Front Ensemble (The keyboard and aux percussion). I was auditioning for Tenors and so was Chris. I ended up meeting the other Tenor players from last year's band of blue that were coming back for this year.
"Nice to meet you," and "Hey how's it going" were said there, from whom I do not recall exactly.
We also met the Drum majors for the Band of Blue, and one of them was the head drum major for MCDC. We were handed information sheets, and some other audition sheets and that was about it for that morning.
I'll fast forward a bit, and yes I am on the Tenor line, there's six of us. (only five at the first home game, one will be out of town).
A majority of the interactions with people I knew during Band Camp went something like this:
Walking down the hall to the practice zone, "Hey Colton," me: "Hey". We did a lot a band camp so short interactions like that were understandable.
Another notable of interaction happened during the first week of school. Here's a little background info on this scenario: I went to Ravenwood, which is in Brentwood, TN, just a little north-west of MTSU. In the Marching Band and Winter Drumline, all of the instructors go to MTSU, and many are music majors and, like me, are in the percussion studio. Some of them have been around all four years I was in high school, some were for parts and others, but basically I've seen them before as my Mentors/Teacher/Instructional Staff. Two of them were actually on staff with MCDC.
Now for this sequence: It's Wednesday and Salsa Band is coming to a close, I'm playing piano tentatively for them, and three of my former Instructional Staff/Mentor people were in the room as part of the ensemble. We played some awesome music that night, and this happened after Professor Davila, he runs the Salsa Band, dismissed us.
"So Colton, Isn't it weird being in a class with three of your former instructors?" said one of them.
"Yeah, I do think its weird you guys aren't teaching me like before," I replied.
"Yeah man, I had to get used to seeing him in the halls regularly, it is weird," said a different one, whose name was also Chris, but this was a different Chris. He was right, seeing past instructors as fellow students in a much larger organization did feel weird. That interaction, as well as others but this one in particular, gave the realization of the fact that I was in college more of a foundation to build on, which means "Dude, your're in college... COLLEGE!", and that recent interaction added the "COLLEGE!" to it. Anyway, These interactions with people are probably the first of many to come in my college career. Professor Davila, the Percussion Director here at MTSU, told me in a one-on-one conversation that, "The first week of college is always the hardest,". I agreed with him on that one, but now that this week is over, I can really begin start a routine, plan out what I do, and be a college student, a MTSU music ed major, a percussionist who is as a good a piano player as percussionist, a composer, "that kid with perfect pitch" and have more "Close Interactions of the Blue Raider Kind"- that's one way of putting it. Interactions are what got me here, and interactions will be the key to my success here at MTSU. With that statement, I end this first official post to the first blog.
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