Me, College

Ahhhh college....

So I finished high school and did the Beatles Tour with the Cascades. That summer was very intense and forming on my young mind. I read somewhere that the two most influential times in a persons life are their first two years of life, and then their college years when they move away from their parents. I took my opportunity full force!! I got back from tour and worked full time for almost 2 months until the Fall quarter started, that was good for me! It solidified my assertion that I didn't want to (yet) be working full time. College saved my butt! My first experience of college was the Husky Marching Band. I went to pre-school drills, AKA band camp, and learned traditional marching style. I already knew how to march pretty well, so this was not difficult to adapt to, but the other social aspect was a completely new thing to me. I wasn't a drinker, and it seemed like partying was a big part of it. I had some trust issues based on my childhood experiences and these weren't people I would trust myself getting trashed with... Anyway, Husky band didn't turn out to be the super intense marching experience that I expected. I thought college has smarter people, it'll be way better than Drum Corps because of that. Nope. I did however meet what I thought was going to be the girl of my dreams, she didn't agree... If she reads this, she knows who she is. Hi! =) The equal sign and end parentheses was specifically for you, because I know how much you like it as a grammatical tool.

So I had a little experience with college having done running start, and I knew a big part of what I was going to do included music, so I started music theory and history classes and then built the rest of my schedule around that. Which made for some craaaazy class schedules! I auditioned for the jazz bands but didn't get in, and my goal for that quarter was to make my trumpet teacher (also the jazz band director) Roy Cummings tell me that he wished he had put me in the jazz program instead of this other person that was particularly unpleasant... I did meet that goal, and when I told him of my goal, he handed me my major declaration packet. Music Ed. I didn't waste ANY time declaring the major and didn't waver once the whole time I was there. I could do an entire blog (and I'm sure you've noticed I write long ones...) about Roy, and I might do that sometime. Huge influence on me. Anyway... Winter quarter that year I got into jazz band, and Spring quarter I got into Wind Ensemble. My first piece in Wind Ensemble was Grainger's "Power of Rome and a Christian Heart." I talked in an earlier blog about musical experiences... woah... So my freshman year I had already decided my career path, and I was well on my way to getting there. First year music theory and history, I had (including running start credits) one of 5 years of my college "path" done, and with frequent visits to my advisor, I had the rest of 'em planned out.

College is a lot about the new people you meet, growing and making mistakes (like drinking and doing things you regret), stretching your mind, gaining skills, and easing into the adult world with more coping mechanisms than your average high school grad. I had all of these experiences, but I feel like I did miss out on some things. I lived off campus with my grandma in Shoreline. It was WAAY cheaper, and did often allow for some separation that gave me thinking room, but it also discluded me from a lot of social things that are common. I didn't go to many raging parties, I didn't meet very many people outside of the school of music, and I didn't have the dorm experience that most people have. Would my life now really be that different if I had? Who knows, but it is something I will recommend that Sam (and the younger sibling) do when they go to college.

That summer the Cascades took a year off of tour. I was still very involved. Back then the Corps still met at the Bingo hall, which happened to be down the street from my grandparents house. So I went to board meetings! The only person there that was old enough (by that I mean young enough) to march. I mostly just sat there and kept my mouth shut, but I was involved. Other than Cascades Board meetings, I found a job at another oil change store on 125th and Aurora. That where I learned about the potential for dishonesty in car repair. I was considering not doing Husky Band again, but it was a great excuse to end that summer with that employer.

Sophomore year I did marching band again, but as I said, grudgingly. My first year I played mellophone (marching french horn) because the director heard that I played mello in drum corps and he wanted a stronger mello section. I was not doing that again. I played trumpet, and I went to the trumpet section. The second year, knew what to expect more, but it still didn't really give me what I wanted in the marching band experience, but I finished the season, and even did basketball band that year ($20 a game! The only way for me to see basketball is for you to pay ME). So with marching band, I got into the first jazz band that fall, and then wind ensemble, and practicing, I was playing trumpet about 8-12 hours a day... ahh the good 'ole days... What I wouldn't give for that now!!! Winter quarter I started playing lead in the second band (which was a sort of promotion, 4th trumpet in the first band to 1st in the second) and I was doing my classes, I had started working for the UW medical center my freshman year, and I got a new position with a nice pay raise so I was working a lot too. Busy Busy Busy!!

That summer the Cascades came back with the Chicago show. This year was a serious let down for me for many reasons... I was now one of the few "super vets," the other super vets weren't music majors (weren't yet, for Mike) so I felt more so than I had in the past that I could do a better job than the people that were currently running things, at least in the music department. The younger members just thought we were all old, crusty, and trying to relive our glory days. They had little actual respect for us and it personally drove me crazy. At one point I even thought about filling a hole with the Santa Clara Vanguard and bailing on my peeps, but I didn't in the end. I also had one of my first longer-than-3-months relationships as a sophomore, and I was away from that. THAT was tough. 'Nuff said on that!

Back home in August, worked at the UWMC for a month ($$$$) and this year, I was done with marching band for a while. With my job, I felt comfortable enough to move out and onto campus. I rented a room on the bottom floor of a house with Mike. The top floor was all girls =) Sounds fun huh? Nope! I was trying to be a good boy that year seeing the way those girls (and Mike) behaved made being good hard. That's ok tough. I said in an earlier blog that girls are yucky! I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa were a little bit relieved to have their house back too!

I played lead in the second jazz band, wind ensemble, and started doing brass ensemble stuff. I was improving really fast, and winter quarter, I kind of hit a wall. Roy saw it in my trumpet playing, but really it was a lack of understanding and context for music in all aspects. I had contracted drum corps disease... all I could think of was technique and how to play trumpet, and not why play music or to what end. I started to drift a little bit. I took mallet percussion lessons, stopped practicing trumpet so much, got kicked down to third in the second jazz band, and spring quarter I didn't make the wind ensemble. At the very least it was a good opportunity to fulfill my choral credit with the University Singers... whew! If I had only known that I needed a few more years of choral training then... oy ve... The good thing about my junior year was finding the brass ensemble thing (Gabrielli Guerrilas, a good joke if you're a music geek like me!). Reading music FINALLY clicked in my brain. A whole new world opened up to me! Now if I could just figure out how to play musically, I could start to treat my drum corps disease.

That summer I worked at the Medical Specialties clinic. Good stuff. $$$. I could have marched one more year of drum corps, I even tried out for Santa Clara Vanguard, and made lead soprano (first trumpet), but mentally and emotionally, I had aged out. I was done with that crap, and it turned out for the better too! I didn't work full time, and I took 15 credits of summer school which ensured that I actually graduated in 5 years and not 6, like most music ed majors do. Again, whew!

Senior year #1. I finally got back into the 1st jazz band with a BAD ASS trumpet section. Man that was awesome and we did some damn cool shit. Ahhh college... I was still not very musical though, and I wanted a treatment for my drum corps disease, welp, I asked for it, and I got it. Roy Cummings, my trumpet and Jazz Band teacher, a very caring, loving, supportive, and guiding person in my life, a recovering alcoholic, and a recovering asshole, died of a major heart attack the first day of Winter Quarter in 2000. At his memorial service 2 weeks later, we played a big band arrangement of "Can't Stop Loving You," by Ray Charles. This was my first non-marching musical experience, I could argue that it was my first actual "musical" experience. The hardest lesson for me to learn, how emotion plays into music, and what the purpose of music really is, was still taught by Roy and it came in the form of his passing. I went through a lot of crap as a kid, but this was my first experience with death. Today, I'm not the best trumpet player in the world, not by a long shot, but I am a damned good musician. I attribute that to Roy.

That seems like it should be the end of this chapter of the story, but real life doesn't work like that... I finished the year in the first jazz band with a couple different directors. I started my music ed classes, and met Christy in the music library. I learned so much about my budding musicality from Christy, I will cherish that. The way she would question me on why I thought the things I did was awesome! Thank you for that Christy. I also had the opportunity to study trumpet with Allen Vizzutti for the last 3 quarters I was at UW. That opportunity was too good to pass up, and it was life altering. Vizzutti told me that he thought I had what it would take to make it as a trumpet professional. I didn't necessarily want to do that, I wanted to be in charge, but knowing it is enough for me and my confidence. My growth and personality on campus was noticed. The Husky Band director asked me to audition to be section leader for the trumpet section for the next (my last) school year. I was floored by this suggestion, but I did. I got the position and I was back for my third year of Husky band next year and my final year of college (by the way, Mike had convinced me drinking wasn't that bad, and I had learned how to party college style, so marching band could be different for me now...). Wow. The Wind Ensemble director was also taking a sabbatical next fall, the teaching assitants asked me to be the principal for the Wind Ensemble! Holy Crap! But to finish this first year, I had found my musicianship, I found my confidence, music ed classes were going great! I felt good about moving forward, and I was looking forward to getting out there and doing it. One year left...

My final year! I ran the Husky trumpets. I wasn't well liked, but I didn't really care. They saw me as a deserter who came back with no knowledge of what the trumpets were about now. My thought was, I'm better than you. Shut up. =) At the end of the year, we got most improved section and I got a scholarship for most musical band member of the year. Praise Bob for that! I was 3 months behind on my rent (oh I was living with dream girl back from freshman year, platonic-ally, of course, in Wallingford)!!! But the point was, I did a good job, even if the peeps didn't like me. Good training for my future career... I got my part-time student teaching assignment at McKnight Middle school down the street from the housing projects I grew up in (that was weird!). My cooperating teacher had kidney failure at one point, and I had 2 weeks of teaching on my own!! I didn't have to do it, but I did two weeks there all day, all by myself. That was a HUGE wake up call. Spring quarter I met Rich Sumstad and student taught at Nathan Hale High School in the Seattle School district. He was a former student of Roy, a former Marine, and an awesome teacher. I had to quit my job at the UWMC because working hours were generally the same as teaching hours, and I just couldn't bring myself to go to the clinic after a day of teaching. Brutal. I got a job at the Spaghetti factory waiting tables! That was some gooooood times!

I feel like full time student teaching with Rich is really the end of my college life. I knew I was done and going to graduate, I wasn't in any ensembles at school for the first time since my freshman year, and I felt ready. So I think the adult life blog should start with Rich and I at Nathan Hale high school. Time to be a grown up! As if I hadn't already grown up... psh!