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Saturday, November 02, 2024
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Playing While Learning: UB Bands Pull a Balancing Act


The stage goes dark. The curtain pulls back. The audience screams. The band is on stage ready to rock. The lead singer steps up to the microphone, and then suddenly, like a shot in the dark, he remembers, "I've got homework due tomorrow!"

Being a member of a gigging band is a serious time commitment. Being a full-time student also requires much of a person's time. Between practices and shows, classes and tests, students who form bands have to pull off one of the hardest balancing acts.

Jon Skowron, a junior undecided about his major, is a guitarist in the band Fish's Eddy as well as a full-time UB student. Skowron and his band have been together since the eighth grade, but for the last two or three years, they have started to play seriously. However, since the beginning of the Fall 2003 semester, Skowron has found little time to practice with his band.

"[Practicing] gets really tough once school and work start for us," said Skowron. "All throughout the summer we practiced and played shows. Now we are lucky to get one day a week to practice."

Skowron is not UB's only hopeful rock star who has had less time for his band since the new semester has started.

Ray Fulton, a senior media studies major and a member of the band Sleeping Kings of Iona, has seen his band's practice time drop significantly since starting school.

"Our band only has two or three days a week to practice now," said Fulton. "I go to school, which cuts down our time, and everyone else in the band works, which limits our time as well."

According to Fulton, he and his band members formed Sleeping Kings of Iona in October of 2002, but did not become serious until the addition of their fifth member in February of 2003.

Members said schoolwork not only limits the band's time to practice, but also decreases the number of shows they can play each month.

"During the summer we took trips and played at venues all over the state," said Skowron. "Now we stay local and look to get about three shows a month."

Nick Mesler, a senior computer science major and member of the band Casting Lots for Judah, said it is becoming increasingly difficult to find time for things band related with all his other responsibilities.

"It's hard to commit even one day a week to the band now," said Mesler. "Along with school and the two jobs I have, it gets really difficult."

Though school and work tend to diminish practice and playing time, the band members insist that the pleasure they receive from playing has not diminished.

"I think now that we are playing more and we are all dedicated to the band, it has become more fun than it ever was," said Skowron.

As difficult as it is for the bands to find mutual times for practice, it is also difficult to find mutual times to schedule performances. According Mesler and Skowron the most convenient times for shows are on the weekend, because the weekend is the most opportune time for them in that they can play on a Friday or Saturday night without having to get up early the next morning.

Though only playing on weekends limits the number of shows the band can perform, according to Fulton, fewer performances may be a blessing in disguise.

"If we play more than two or three shows a month we could over-saturate ourselves and the local fans," he said, "and then they likely won't come out and see us more often."

While the majority of the local bands in UB are formed by students, faculty members are not totally out of the loop.

Jonathan Golove, an assistant professor in the music department and the director of the Contemporary Student Ensemble at UB, has spent many of his years playing in bands and directing them as well.

The Contemporary Student Ensemble is a group of students that perform music that differs from the standard orchestra or jazz ensembles. Golove directs and guides the students, but to also encourages them to keep pieces of themselves in their music.

"With the ensemble that I direct, I try to show the students that they can be independent of my direction of the group," said Golove. "But, students that form bands on their own already get the independence that is crucial to a bands unique styling."

Since Golove arrived at UB, he said he has been amazed at how many students he meets who are in bands. He said that students sometimes try to give him demo CDs to critique and comment on.

Golove's one piece of advice to students forming their own bands is to stick with it.

"The bonds that kids can form with the members of their band is life changing, and can be the greatest experience in the world," said Golove.





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