Heininger,+Alec

Alec's Page

Three goals for this Year:

Goal one: teach the Drumline Victory zone and have it ready for them to play next year

Goal two: Achieve red band in the District Jazz festival

Goal three: Prepare for an audition with the Penn State Blue band next year

I am planning on introducing Victory Zone at our next sectional and will hopefully be able to look at it before the Halloween parade on Saturday. Pookie, Aaron, and I have a decent understanding of it but it will be interesting to see how it is handled by the rest of the drumline. I will go over the selected music for the audition and will focus on the funk and latin portion of the audition. I will need to improve my fills and solo ability for the concert because they tend to choose songs with an intense amount of solos I will try to acquire the music for the tenor parade order so i can have a grasp of the work i will need to put in. I will work on my rudiments and chops. I need to go over the techniques used on the tenors by the tenor core. I recommend you contact Jason Burkel and get some lessons in the Spring! He is one of the best teachers in the area for drumline rudiments.

These are good goals! Keep up the good work and keep practicing!

Great essay!!

My most significant musical experience occurred at the President’s Own Marine Band concert. This was an eye opening experience for me because I had not been exposed to the level of talent the band contained. They were excellent in every aspect of musicality. They conquered the difficult task of playing with emotion and exceeded it by flowing emotion into every member in the audience. I entered the concert with the expectation of seeing a good concert. I had heard that they can be considered the best band in the world but I would not believe it until I heard it. I had previously thought that the band was composed of musicians that joined the Marine Corps with the intent of serving overseas. I did not realize that these members were carefully selected to perform specifically with the marine band. This slightly rose my expectations. I arrived early in order to capture a good seat in the auditorium. Thankfully for those that didn’t, there were no bad seats. They began playing. I was astonished at the quality of sound that filled this vast room. They played with such strength and vigor. The low brass played notes that were jaw dropping. I remember looking at Nathanael Joseph Zeek the 14th multiple times only to see him shaking his head in awe. They were amazing. The gentlest of flute runs and the darkest of chords were played during the concert. The hands of the clarinets moved in a robotic fashion. Then the percussion blew my mind. The mallet players were playing solos of insane difficulty. I would not have been able to play a third of the notes in succession that they were. The wind chimes and suspended cymbal made every climax that much more exciting. Everything was perfect. This concert was the most significant event in my musical career. Every concert I had participated in combined did not compare to the energy of this one event. I had witnessed what many will not. The greatest band on Earth.