The First Week at Penn State!

Day 6

August 23, 2010

Today I woke up and got a shower and got dressed and went on my way to my to my first college class, Music Theory I. I walked over to the Music building for class. I found my friend Audrey, and we met the professor Tom Cody. He seemed like a pretty chill guy. We talked about some basic things about theory and music and the like. Then I went over to Audrey’s suite. Who happened to be suite-mates with Ali. We hung around there until it was time for my Freshman Music Education Seminar (or FMES!). I think I’m going to really enjoy that class. It’s basically going to be the transition from student to teacher. J. At the end of this class, I called my parents, who had just picked up my brother from the airport after his 3-month stay in Germany! It was so good to know that he was safe and sound back in America! Then I went to get lunch with an old Tamaqua Crew. Myself, Corey, Bheff, and Geoff. Geoff brought along his roommate too, who is also named Geoff. What are the chances? On the way to lunch it poured rain on Bheff and me. We got there and found Corey, Geoff, and Geoff. We talked about classes and such. I then went home and hung out until it was time for me to leave for blue band. Since it was raining we were inside in the band room. We worked on stand music and chasers. After Blue Band I went to rescom so that I could finally get on the Internet and I went back to my dorm to surf the web since I hadn’t gotten to do that in a long time. I went to bed early because I had to get up early for my 8 o’clock class on Wednesday. Ugh.

Day 7

August 24, 2010

ONE WEEK! It went by to quickly! I had Sight Singing this morning. The professor is a Teacher’s Assistant. He is hardly fluent in piano skills. I don’t know if he was nervous or what, but he could hardly play simple triads. It was kind of frustrating to be taught by someone who didn’t seem like he knew what he was doing. Hopefully it will get better. After that, we went back to the girl’s suite in North Halls. We all had about an hour off until our next class. We hung there for a while and then set out to find our next class The Science of Music. We got there after taking the long way and getting a little off track and we walked in 5 minutes early and we saw 100 people looking at us. We had to sit apart from each other because of how packed the class was. The class itself seems to be very interesting. We would cover topics from every sense of scientific music. From acoustics, to the anatomy of the ear, to using electronic music. By the end of the class I was feeling it. I was tired. Tuesdays are going to be a long day. Audrey and I had World Literature right after Science of Music. We got into class and sat down. The professor was very very nice. She expects a lot from her students. But it you take it seriously, you will be fine. It was so hard to stay awake. It wasn’t even fair. She gave us 50 pages to read for the next class. UGGHHH. That’s a lot to do. After that class I went and met with the Tuba Euphonium Studio Freshman and some upperclassmen for lunch. I met Corey Durham, a Euphonium/Tuba performance major. He would be teaching us in a master class about playing our instruments and everyone would give feedback. Then I went back to my dorm to organize and rest myself before Blue Band at 7. We were out on the field. It was a fairly cool night but I managed to start sweating. We rehearsed our first half time show for most of practice. At the end we lined up in pregame fanfare block and ran through pregame. Blue Band seems to be all about digging in deep when you are most tired. After practice I went home and passed out for the night.

Day 8

August 25, 2010

I’ve been away at college for one week, and my parents already have to come up to check on me! I’m just kidding! They were on their way bringing my brother Aaron up. I went to 9 am Music Theory and then went back to my dorm to start on my homework. I read most of my World Lit reading and passed out on my bed around 12:30. My mom called me around 2 and told me that she could see Beaver Stadium. I got dressed and went to meet my family at the Bursar’s office. When I got there my mom and gram gave me a big hug. My dad and brother went in to take care of some business. I waited anxiously to see my brother. When he finally came out, I gave him a big hug and swung him around a little bit. I was glad he was up here with me. We then went to his apartment above the Starbucks above College Ave. (This will be my headquarters after this year J) We started to unload all of my brother’s new IKEA furniture up into the apartment. After about 45 minutes of loading I had to leave for Blue Band. My dad drove me to my dorm to change and then took me to the field. About halfway through practice, my family showed up to watch me march around and play. We were practicing the half time show so it wasn’t as exciting as pregame was, but it was still cool to have them watching me. After rehearsal we all went to Five Guys! YES!! So good! It is also within spitting distance of Aaron’s apartment. After we were all full of greasy burgers and fries, we said goodbye to my parents and gram, and then Aaron and I went up to his apartment to chill out. I helped him build his desk and some tables. I really like IKEA’s furniture. It’s so simple, yet so cool. After we were done, some of his friend’s stopped over to say hi and welcome him back to the USA. Soon after they left, I left to walk home. It only took about 25 minutes to get to my place. I finished my World Lit readings, did some theory homework, and played around on Sibelius. I passed out around 1:30. Crap. I have an 8 AM class tomorrow.

Day 9

August 26, 2010

I woke up this morning tired. Not good considering that I have a ton a classes today. I went and got some breakfast and went to my sight singing class. It wasn’t much better than what Tuesday was. The prof was a bore and I felt like we as a class could be doing so much more if he would be more fluent with his piano skills. Whatever. We went back to the girl’s suite for a little then left for Science of Music. We got there early and got decent seats together. The class started out fun. We talked about the history of acoustics. It was really interesting. He even had videos and pictures of people playing the first forms of instruments. We saw the evolution from primitive flute type instruments, to drums, and other instruments. I was starting to feel tired an I knew that I would have to get through World Lit before I would be able to rest. World Lit was like a mental work out in order to get through. After that class we went back to North Halls and just chilled out. A bunch of people ended up coming over and we watched the first season of Hey Arnold! Great times. We ended up watching 5 or 6 different episodes of Hey Arnold before we kind of gravitating away. My brother called me and we decided to go for dinner. We met at the hub and walked to my dorm commons. We ate and then Aaron had to go to a meeting. I went back to my dorm and hung around until I left to go to Champs with the Tuba/Euphonium Studio. It was a great time and I met some new people. I got to meet our professor while Professor Brown is out on medical leave. He is a 2006 graduate of Penn State and he is a really nice guy. After we had a great meal we came home and I tried to fall asleep while the rest of my floor was blasting music. I’m a little upset.

Day 10

August 27, 2010

I went to my morning theory class and then waited for my parents to show up. They were bringing my brother’s mattress and my computer chair up for me to use. After that, we all went out to eat and I went to Blue Band. I came back home and got ready to go out with the baritones. We went over to our friend’s house and chilled out there until we decided to go home around 2 am.

The First Weekend

Saturday I slept in until noon. Wow did it feel good. I woke up and Aaron called me. We took a road trip to Wal-Mart and then went out to eat at Applebee’s! Then Aaron went to the AT&T Store to buy a new iPhone. After that I went to the laundry mat behind Aaron’s apartment to do my first load of laundry! It took forever. The dryers were crap. It took about 2 hours all together. Then I went home and got ready to go out with some blue band friends. We went out on the town for the night and I got home around 12:30.

Sunday I woke up around 11 and decided to do some homework. I finished some music education seminar and then decided to go practice for a little bit. I walked over to the music building and went into a practice room. An hour and a half later I walked out feeling pretty good about my practice time. I went to check the symphonic band auditions. Still not up. Then I went to meet my friends Ali and Jess near the hub lawn. We walked around and went to the bookstore and I got a few things. Then we walked up to the music building to see if the symphonic band results were up. We got there and checked them. I am 4^th chair in the symphonic band. There are only 4 euphoniums but that’s still good! Then I walked home and hung and around and did my homework for theory and inart. I got done my stuff and decided to just hang out in my dorm for the night. I fooled around on Sibelius and wrote a pretty cool arrangement of You Are So Beautiful for baritones. I talked with some old friends on Skype to see how they were doing. It was good to talk to some people that I knew.

Penn State Blue Band!

This is about my time at Penn State University. At then end of most days I write about what happened that day. I don't have time to to write every day but I'm going to try and write as much as possible. I'll give you some back story.

I have always wanted to go to Penn State since before I can remember. I can remember going to football games when I was a kid and going to see the Penn State Blue Band. I always went to games with my Mom, Dad, brother Aaron, Gram, Pap, and Uncle Brian. I loved to watch the band come out of the tunnel during pre-game. And I knew that I wanted to do that one day. Then years passed and I was done my junior year in High School. I was an accomplished musician and was planning to go into the music education field. I knew I wanted to go to Penn State. I said that I wanted to go to other schools too, but I knew that Penn State was IT. I wanted it so bad. I auditioned for the Tuba/Euphonium studio on the Euphonium, and I was accepted. I knew that my dreams had come true. But there was one small catch. A Marching Blue Band Audition. I had done everything that I had to do. And this is what happened...

Penn State University

Day 1

August 17, 2010

Wow, It’s finally here. My mom, dad and I got on campus around 11 o’clock on Tuesday morning. We checked in at the blue band building and I saw a familiar face. Elly Graham, whom I had met a few years prior at Penn State’s summer music program, was one of the officers that was working as I walked into the building. She made me feel very welcome and quickly thrust a bunch of papers into my hands. I then proceeded into the hallway past the reception area and registered myself into the Blue Band Database. It was almost surreal, thinking that this was the beginning of my lifelong dream to come to Penn State and march out of the tunnel. I felt confident that I would do it. Before I left for Penn State people would constantly ask me if I had made the Blue Band. I was almost getting tired of explaining the audition process. Like a robot I would rattle off the schedule. “Tuesday August 17 I leave and go do a music audition and then Wednesday I have 3 three hour sessions on the marching and fundamentals that the Blue Band uses. At the end of that day is when most of the cuts are made. Then Thursday is the final day of rookie training/first day of Blue Band Camp.” I knew what I had to do. Clearly. I intended to treat it like any other audition but my brain thought otherwise. I was feeling nervous in the morning and as the audition time grew closer, I could feel my stomach turning over itself. But I didn’t let it bother me, yet. We got to my dorm, Pinchot, and started to unload everything out of the car. We even had these nifty handcarts to help out with the big stuff. Well about 10 feet out of the car disaster. My dad had spilled his box of hangers for my dorm room and as I went to help him, my cart went started to roll and hit a curb. Of course all of my stuff went flying. My desk lamp, broken. Damn. So after embarrassing myself in front of possible friends we finally made in to my room. 403 Pinchot Hall (the T is silent by the way). I walked in and I said to myself, I could dig this. I have suffered through worse conditions, such as my own attic J. After everything was in the room we decided that we hungry so we went to a sports bar that we had eaten at before. I remember what I got there before and I wanted to get it again. Then my stomach gave me a sign that it probably wasn’t a good idea. I wasn’t really hungry so I just ordered a appetizer of chicken fingers with a side a ranch dressing. The food came and there were 5 chicken fingers. I ate the smallest 2 and told my mom I was full. She looked at me with the most quizzical look that she had ever given me. She said really? Are you feeling ok? I quickly replied no. I felt sick. ME. SICK. At an audition. I couldn’t be my usual cool calm collected self today. My brain knew what was going on. This was something I wanted since I was a fetus inside of my mom. After I got a box for my leftover chicken fingers, we went to best buy to get a cable wire for my TV and an Internet wire for my computer. Well, my Internet still doesn’t work but that’s a different story. I went back to my dorm and set it up, then my parents said bye and I met up with some friends at the Blue Band Building. I practiced for a while and soon it was 3:55. Time to go. I went in. I did well. After I played my Etude out of my book, the auditioner said ‘ok, breath’, I was so nervous. The sight-reading was ok. So overall I felt good about it. I then waited for all of my friends to get done their auditions then it was time to find some food. Now that I was done auditioning I realized that I was STARVING. So my friend Eric and I set off to find some food. We went to my dorm in East Halls, to his dorm in South Halls, up to a different commons building, back to the East commons building, back down to the HUB, and finally ended up at the Creamery. All of these places had one thing in common. There was no food to be found anywhere. We finally had a dinner of Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches warmed up in the Creamery microwave and some lemonade for dinner. Ugh. So by this time it’s 7:15 and we have a meeting at the Blue Band Building at 8. We didn’t feel like waking farther than we had to, so we figured that we would just go straight to the meeting and show up early. The meeting was really informative and interesting. Dr. Bundy explained the ‘cuts’ process and why he couldn’t take everyone. After his speech, he turned in over to the officers of the Blue Band. The first thing the officer said was to get our phones out. Once out he said shut them off. Then they shut the lights off and told us to close our eyes. We did. He said “imagine that you just got done playing in the Bryce Jordan Center on game day, no game NIGHT. You are marching over to Beaver Stadium. People on both sides of you are all in WHITE. Screaming and cheering. I mean screaming. It’s Ohio State. People are going crazy As you enter the stadium you see people all around you. Now you are in the stadium, in the tunnel. The student section is so loud you can’t even hear yourself think. And then you hear this”… and then started a video of the Penn State Blue Band coming out of the tunnel for pregame during a whiteout game against Ohio State from 2007. Now during this whole thing, every hair on my body was at straight up at attention. My friend Nancy and I laughed the whole time. I couldn’t stop smiling. On my way back to my dorm I found another friend of mine Curtis whom I know from Region Band this past year. We had a good conversation and then I went up to my dorm and ate the rest of my chicken fingers because jimmy dean didn’t satisfy my hunger needs. AND THAT’S JUST THE FIRST DAY!

Day 2

Wednesday August 18, 2010

Last night they told us to be at the Blue Band field about 30 minutes early to make name tags and stretch and warm up. The initial report time was 8:30 so that pushed in back to 8. So naturally, my alarm didn’t go off and I woke up and looked at the clock. 7:49. After saying some expletives I found all my stuff and ran to the shower and got dressed and showed up at the field at 8:13. Good thing it seems like a lot of other people seemed to do the same. So then marching came. WOW. It was so hard. The first session was very intense. Just marking time in place. High step marking time. We learned facing commands and other stationary commands. It was so hard because you weren’t moving forward or backward and you were using the same muscles constantly. After the first session I ate at Pollock Commons Dining Hall. It was the only dining hall open on campus. I then went to my friend Ali’s dorm. North Halls. Where I WANTED to live. Let me tell you. It’s beautiful. Air conditioning, private bathroom, tons of storage, new desks. Beautiful. Then came Marching session 2. This was still very intense but the marching part was starting to become easier. Probably because we were moving forward and using different muscles. After some intense marching we broke for dinner. I went with my 2 music major friends and my other friend Eric and went and got my books at the bookstore. And after dropping some serious cash I left there with 60 extra pounds to lug around Penn State. After that we went back to Pollock to eat. After dinner I went back to my dorm to try and figure out my Internet. I went to my commons and sat down and picked up wireless. NICE. Opened the Internet up. Still wouldn’t connect. AHHHHH. It’s so frustrating. I went back to my dorm and put my computer away and then went up for the final marching rehearsal before cuts took place. I had the mindset down. And my stomach was settled unlike my first audition. So we get to the field and immediately go into sectionals. We worked for a while and then we just sat down because there was nothing that we could have done. We then started talking. Just about random things. Then we noticed that they were getting near. And it had been a while since we played. So we all got up and started warming up again. Then Dr. Bundy came over and said ok. Here we go. Got on my line. Tap tap tap tap Up 2 3 lift play. We were playing the music that normally comes right after the flip when the drum major does it during pregame. High stepping and playing is not a good combination but I feel like I did well with it. Then we sat and waited some more. Waiting and waiting. Clarinets and Piccolos went and then they called us into out block and told us to sit down. I imagine that Dr. Bundy hates this part of his job. I can’t imagine being the person that tells someone no to something that they want so badly. He started with the woodwinds. Piccolos, clarinets, and saxes. I was happy to hear my friends last names being called for clarinets. The sax section was sitting right next to me and I could obviously tell who had made it and who hadn’t. The girl next to me didn’t. I almost cried just by looking at her. Then trumpets, mellophones, and trombones. Then Baritones. This was it. The moment that I had been working toward for the past 2 days. The following baritones are being asked to report to band camp tomorrow in no particular order…. Bonner… BOOM mini explosion in my head. I didn’t even hear the other 3 or 4 names he called. He repeated them… BONNER. It was even better the second time. I could hardly move. I was numb with joy. He then read off the Sousa list. My friend Eric made it as well. He then reminded us that there could still possibly be cuts tomorrow and that we should come prepared to march and hit the ground running. Then he dismissed us. I walked home and talked to my mom on the way. I told her that I made the big cut and have Penn State Blue Band camp tomorrow morning. Then I came back to my dorm to rest my shock absorbers, I mean toes and feet.

Day 3

Thursday August 19, 2010

I woke up this morning and got a shower and sat in my room until it was time to leave. I met Ali and we walked over together. We talked about or chances about making. I walked into the blue band building and saw a friend from Schuylkill County, Mike Fries. He went to Pottsville and his father was the band director. I then went out on the practice field where we did some warm-ups and then we started fundamental marching. Ugh. High step marching is definitely one of the harder things to do. We were marching with returnees who knew their stuff. After a few different drills we stopped and Dr. B started talking to us. Then he said ‘this will be the 2010 Penn State Blue Band’. He said to come back at 2. Giving us an extra long lunch break. Thank the Lord. Then the baritones had a little meeting and decided to go to lunch together. We went to a great chain restaurant called Chipotle. It was so good. I had a chicken burrito with rice and beans. So good. Then we went back to the Blue Band building and waited for rehearsal to begin. We then started to learn pregame. This is what I’ve been waiting for! It was very cool. We didn’t start in the beginning but we started in the middle of pregame, going into the PSU. I’m the second person on the left line of the U! Then we started the Floating Lions Drill. It was so cool to be a part of the floating lions and the rest of pregame. Then I went and ate dinner and then came back for more rehearsal! YAY!

The Next 2 days basically fell out the same way as Thursday did. Sunday we had off. Kinda. I slept in (which was AMAZING). Then went to some meetings for the School of Music. Ali and I had to leave early to go for uniform fittings. It took me a long time to get fitted. Afterword, we had a performance at Be A Part From The Start or BAPFTS. I wore my Penn State Blue Band Shirt and Blue Band Wind Pants. Verrrryy Classy. It was basically a way for freshmen to get involved in different campus activities. It was fun playing the different fight songs and other stand music that the blue band plays. Like Hey Baby and Living on a Prayer. After BAPFTS, myself and other baritone players went out for ICE CREAM at the Creamery. Great stuff. Then I went home and got myself prepared for my first day of classes at PSU.