Timpani

Although many music librarians come to the position via performing, my career included several additional layers of being at the right place at the right time. Despite years of violin and viola lessons, I wasn’t dedicated enough to play professionally, and I knew enough about myself not to go into teaching; since I assumed those were the only two jobs in music, I went to college intending to become a radio producer. Job-hunting with the impressive-sounding “special interdisciplinary degree in audial

I attended the University of Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and Symphonic Wind Ensemble concert on Thursday, October 8. The concert was located at the Ruth Lily Performance Hall in the Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center. The venue was calming and comfortable. It is a very nice set up, but not extremely fancy. People arrived in anything ranging from suits and dresses to jeans and t-shirts. The environment was welcoming and approachable for all the guests. I was able to see almost all of the parts of

Last year I had the privilege of seeing the Philadelphia Orchestra perform Gustav Holst’s: The Planets Suite. The piece as a whole is one that pulls the strings of your heart from the first pound to the last mystic moment of silence. It has been a year since I heard the orchestral piece in full, and ever since, I have been awaiting to get an opportunity like that again. It is unfortunately a rare occurance in my generation to feel so strongly about a piece of art. The world is at our fingertips,

In every cilché high school drama movie, the marching band is depicted as dull and its students are often characterized as outcasts. Being a naive middle schooler who has seen several of these types of movies, I believed every word of it for the longest time. Despite this stigma I had, I still joined our school’s marching band program, and every opinion I had built up about marching band completely changed within a single year. I now know that the decision I made to join marching band completely

Eric Fang, Wind Symphony Concert Report     On Friday, October twenty-second, Simi Valley High School had their fall concert, however, they only had two bands so there was not much to write about. The concert band opened up with, Apparitions, by Brian Balmages, which was a song with a very mysterious intro with the percussion. The song is later developed into a soprano winds melody which was very well balanced with its counter and support. Unfortunately before a very beautiful, yet eerie flute solo

Most people think marching band is just a bunch of band nerds running around on a football field. Little do they know is how they got there. It’s 7:45 am in the middle of June and the band room is filled with excited and scared students. As everyone prepares for their 8 hour day of marching they make their way to the football field. Freshman walking in not knowing what to expect, Sophomores talking about their memories they had last year, Juniors coming in wishing they were seniors, and Seniors coming

Should Marching Band a sport, or Not? When you think of something that should be considered a sport, marching band is not necessarily something that comes to mind. For one, it fits the definition of sport being physically exerting, so much so that some members have even fainted due to exhaustion. On top of the members that march, there is also the color guard. The color guard is a group or section in the band that not only marches, but uses other items in the show. Most times they can do as much

The Invention of Percussion Josh Crowell World Civilization 1 Brian Rafuse April 6th, 2017 “The use of drums has been recognized as being able to put people into spiritual trances throughout history. The drum is a musical instrument with great power and presence that gives the "pulse" or backbone to the music it is incorporated with.” 1 This quote from the article The History of the Drum - Early History, describes how much impact the musical instrument has on human beings, as well

The version of “Stormy Weather” I like best was the cover by the Reigning Sound. In this version, the song is updated from a classical style to an alternative rock and roll from the 50’s. The Reigning Sound uses different instrumentation than the covers done by Lena Horne and Royal Crown Revue. The instrumentation used by Reigning Sound, includes guitars, electric bases, keyboards, drums and possibly other instruments. Using these types of instruments gives the song more appeal to the young generations

The evolution of the drums has varied from being made from a simple wood log, to having a hollow object covered in rawhide, to being completely electronic. Like any instrument, each one produces a different sound. Some may sound light like a snare, deep like a bass, or metronomic by simply producing a clicking noise to keep count. Some are completely electronic, even. Starting from one of the oldest drums in the world, the slit drum is an instrument originating from Africa that is made from a hollow