Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Naturalization Ceremony


This past Thursday, the Trinity Wind Ensemble participated in one of the four semi-annual naturalization ceremonies that our university hosts. This was truly an incredible experience to witness. There were new citizens from eighty nine different countries and over eight hundred new citizens being naturalized. The Wind Ensemble performed eight different pieces at this ceremony which included the
"Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America."

Attending this ceremony was a truly moving and exciting experience, because all of the people there were either becoming official citizens of the United States, or they were supporting their loved ones who were becoming citizens. This fact made the moment everyone was officially a citizen a very emotionally moving moment for the entire room. There were even speakers who were new citizens who volunteered to write speeches for the event about how happy and proud they were to finally be Americans. It was an excellent experience and I would highly recommend going to one of these ceremonies just to feel the energy and new pride in the room.

Now, you may be wondering, this is cool and all, but what does it have to do with being uniquely percussion-related? Well, something  you would not have known from just attending the ceremony is that the percussion section at the back actually got in trouble with the stage manager. We were using a hole in the curtain that was clamped shut because it was much more convenient than going to the middle of the curtain to get in front of and behind it each time. But, it turns out "The clamp is there for a reason" and we were not supposed to be doing that at all. Leave it to a group of percussionists to get in trouble on the one of the proudest and happiest days of some people's lives.

All in all, the ceremony was a huge success and the entire performance went very smoothly. I would love to perform at another ceremony in the future to see if I still have the same emotional and proud experience that I did that day, and if I do, I will continue to attend more ceremonies, performing or not.

Note: The unorthodox sand blocks were unfortunately NOT used in the actual naturalization ceremony. Instead, a cabasa was used.

Creative Commons License
Cabasa by Margita Perecca is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Creative Commons License American flag by Kahunapule Michael Johnson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Unorthodox Sand blocks



This week in Wind Ensemble class, we were sight-reading a piece of music called “Suite of Old American Dances” in preparation for the upcoming Naturalization Ceremony where we will be performing. On one of the movements of this piece, the part called for the use of sandpaper blocks. However, despite the plethora of percussion instruments that can be found in and around the percussion cabinet, we did not have any sandpaper blocks. There were woodblocks, but none of them had sandpaper attached to them and there was no sandpaper in sight. As a result, the percussion section was forced to improvise.

Instead of using an actual pair of sandpaper blocks, we found a box in the corner that contained some blue, plastic, Styrofoam-like substance with rough edges. After a bit of experimenting, we discovered that if you rub the correct sides of the packaging together, it sounded just like a sandpaper block! So, due to the percussion section’s collective creativity and resourcefulness, the sight-reading of “Suite of Old American Dances” went on without a hitch.

Now, whether or not Dr. Worman will be in favor of using these makeshift sandpaper blocks at the actual ceremony is yet to be scene, but regardless, it was a fun and fulfilling experience to utilize the true essence of percussion: Making the sound the director wants by any means necessary.


Creative Commons License
Makeshift Sandpaper Blocks by Tony Vieira is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.