After regretfully neglecting this blog, I hope to resume writing on a regular basis now that I have returned to school at BGSU. After all, my intended purpose of this is mostly to write about my thoughts and experiences as I go through my undergraduate studies.
This semester, as I have completed all the basic core music courses, I am moving on to what I think will prove to be crucial, higher-level studies. In addition to one final Music History course, which covers the 20th and 21st centuries, I am now entering classes on ensemble conducting and music classroom methods. For quite some time, I have been very excited about reaching this point in my education. While I have grown to thoroughly enjoy the theoretical and technical aspects of music, my real passion is to teach music.
Most exciting to me is my Band Methods course, which includes a field experience portion as well. Twice a week throughout the semester, myself and 3 other classmates will be spending a couple of hours working with students in a nearby middle school band program. We get to meet the middle school teacher and students tomorrow morning, at which point I will find out exactly how involved we are going to get. This will be my first experience working with students in an actual classroom setting, so naturally I’m both very excited and a little nervous!
On the performance side of things, my audition placed me in Concert Band and the Wind Symphony (BGSU has three concert bands at different levels; Concert Band is the second highest, and Wind Symphony is for the best instrumental musicians in the College of Musical Arts). I am the percussion section leader of Concert Band, which I’m happy about. However, I may not be able to participate in the Wind Symphony after all because of a scheduling conflict. I hope to have that resolved soon.
I will also be performing in the percussion ensemble group as always, since this group consists of our entire percussion studio. One piece I am performing in is “Crown of Thorns” by David Maslanka; it’s very difficult but very beautiful. I’m also participating in a marimba band that our doctoral student is starting up this year. This is an ensemble that general plays ragtime music, with a soloist on the xylophone and four other performers playing accompaniment on marimbas. It will be a very different, valuable, and fun experience. [For an example: Click HERE to watch a video of a marimba band playing a rag.]
Anyway, I hope I didn’t drag on too long with this update about my personal life. However, this is my own personal blog, after all. As I said, I plan to keep the posts coming, and most of them will not be like this one! Thank you for reading, and feel free to leave me something in the comments section!
