Recently, the small house that I live in had it’s once-a-term party. It was a great party, and one of the things that I enjoy most about our parties is the live music. It’s something that is unique about Lawrence, in my opinion. Here on campus, we have a number of bands that students have formed, and they are all very unique. Some of them have recorded CDs of original songs that they have made, which is really awesome. I’m in a couple of bands here at Lawrence, one of them is a brass band, and the other one plays hip-hop. The bands both create a completely different atmosphere, and are totally different but great groups of people that I really enjoy growing as a musician with.
The first time that I was introduced to a student band on campus was at a party in the house that I now live in during my Freshman year. I thought it was really awesome that they were able to create such a great atmosphere for people to dance and have a great time in. I enjoyed the music a lot, and thought that it was a really cool thing to be a part of. During my first year here, I realized that it was the norm at a lot of parties to have live music. At most of them, there isn’t just one band playing, but a few different ones in a row. It’s awesome to be able to see people performing with people that are great musicians that they enjoy performing with–and to be able to hear and experience something that is completely unique.
The first band that I got involved with on campus is a hip-hop band. I love performing with them, and it’s got an interesting mix of instruments. I sing in it, but there’s also a trumpet player, a saxophonist, a drummer, bassist, keyboard player, guitarist, and rapper. We started out playing mostly covers of songs, even though they weren’t all very well known. Now, we’ve branched out a lot and have quite a few originals. I love performing both types of music with the group, and even with the covers, we create a sound that is completely our own and do something different with the song. It’s a great group of people and they’re all talented musicians. Most of us play more than one instrument, so that brings a different aspect into the band, and allows us to see things in a different way than we might otherwise. We performed at the party in my house last weekend, and it was a blast. I’m looking forward to whenever the next time that we perform together, and also to our rehearsal which is in less than an hour!
I play in a brass band here on campus in addition to the hip-hop group that I’m in, and it’s a lot of fun, too. We play a lot of New Orleans style brass band music. I play trumpet in that group, and it’s great to be able to perform on the instrument that I am majoring in in a different setting than I do on a regular basis, and to be able to play a different style of music, too. Getting the opportunity to have people dance and have a good time to brass music is something that I particularly enjoy about this group. In the Midwest, it’s not a very common thing to experience on a regular basis, and it’s good for people to see brass instruments in a different way than only at the orchestra and band concerts!
There are so many other bands on campus other than the two that I am a part of that I love to enjoy–I probably couldn’t count them all, and I’m sure that there are bands that are being created now, too! As musicians, it’s a great thing to see what other people do with music in a band setting–it helps us all grow as musicians. Having live music at parties and events is a great and unique thing that I enjoy about being at this school, in addition. As a music performance major, I love being surrounded by music, and it’s great to be surrounded by it in my every day life with required rehearsals, but I also love to be surrounded by it in my life outside of academics and the conservatory. I’m so grateful that I get to share music with the people that I do, whether it is during a performance in the conservatory, at a party on campus, or otherwise!