High plains band camp

I am off to teach steel drum class for a solid week at the High Plains Band camp at Hays, KS. It is one of the oldest camps around having started in 1949 or so. this will be my 8th year teaching at the camp and I also teach percussion and play in the faculty concert band.

the classes consist of both high school and middle school students coming to my 30 minutes class once every day for 5 days. We basically prepare one song to perform on the saturday concert at the end of the week. the students are not necessarily percussionists, in fact, vary few are. the class is open to any camper and is limited to 11 students per class (because that is all the pans i can bring. a large percentage of the students are repeaters from year to year and it is a first come, first served situation.

Having just received the new basses and having had them freshly tuned, it should be a great week. BUT it is to be over 100 every single day of the camp. yippee

new arrangements

got "sugar bum bum", "eleanor rigby" and "Another Saturday Night" finished. Now working on some Christmas arrangements before it gets too late.

Having some drums tuned tomorrow by darren dyke. my new basses, new dbl 2nds, set of guitars, and my mannette lead.

new dbl seconds

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when the Gill dbl seconds showed up from Trinidad. they were by far the best pans i had ever received from them...it looked more like a mannette finish and sounded great...although a couple of notes were out of tune from shipping. good thing darren dyke will be in wichita soon, he will make them sing.

got the videos done yesterday and got a lot of work done on "sugar bum bum". summer is slipping away but i feel that i have got a pretty good grasp of my time.

now i have to start to address the new school year, marching band and all.

video central

I am shooting some new videos today for a customer but i needed to anyway because the others on the website were very old. It's always nice to get fresh stuff on the site.

The sound of hammers is in the air today as they put on our new roof (hail damage)...there is also a lot of fire cracker noise in the hot summer air. it has been over 100 for several days now.

i have also been working on a couple new arrangements like "sugar bum bum" and "another saturday night".. lots to do yet on those too tunes.

Darren dyke is coming to tune my basses and several other pans next week. then it will be off to FHSU band camp for a week. bri is feverishly practicing her french horn audition. she has transformed into a very salty player, playing with the hutchinson municipal band has really seasoned her.