Jazz Band

I have been in the Marshall Jazz Band for three of the last four years. My sophomore year I took a hiatus from it because I thought I would not have the time. Music has always been a large part of my life in some shape or form. For a long time it was in the form of band. I started band in 6th grade and was in it until 11th. I played the percussion. I decided not to continue band my senior year because it had become more than just a way to have fun and play music. It had lost its fun. Jazz Band, on the other had, has always been an extremely enjoyable and challenging aspect of my music-oriented self. If you haven't realized it yet I play the drum set. I began playing set around 7th grade. I started with lessons from Jeremy K, a music teacher at St. Scholastica. I enjoyed playing set because it was a challenge for me. It made me become coordinated in ways I would have never done otherwise. I also had to learn how to count beats better.
I used to play piano. I played fro years when I was younger, and it is something that I will always regret not continuing. Part of my downfall with piano was the fact that I had almost no sight reading skills and I played by ear. This style of playing and learning music helped me when I started learning set. I was able to not only play the beats but, for the most part, feel the music as a whole. Being able to feel the music means that I don't always play exactly what is written, in fact I almost never do when it comes to the harder rhythms, but I was lucky enough to find an instrument where coming up with your own music is allowed if not encouraged. Some songs, in fact, have only measures with lines indicating the meter and small notes indicating accents; they leave it up to the drummer to figure out what he or she wants to play. This flexibility on music is what makes me love Jazz Band so much. Well, that and the fact that our Jazz Band is made up of some of the most interesting and fun people at Marshall, in my opinion. Because we have so many different instruments, we have different personalities that go along with them. But as different as some of us can be, we all still love music, and this common ground lets us get along. I will always remember my experiences in Jazz Band as some of my best in high school.