Scholarship /
"Arizona Academy Drum and Bugle Corps" - Gates Millenium, involvement [2]
Does this fully answer the prompt? Well organized? Long enough? Expressed in a sophisticated manner?
Essay 6:discuss your involvement in and contributions to a community near your home, school, or elsewhere. Please select an experience different from the one you discussed in the previous question, even if this experience also involved leadership. What did you accomplish? How did this experience influence your goals?
On December 5, 2010, I was accepted into the Arizona Academy Drum and Bugle Corps. I was chosen to join one of the most elite visual ensembles in the nation. Out of nearly 300 people who auditioned, I was selected to play tuba as one of the 115 members of the 2011 corps. Drum Corps is equivalent to the major league of marching band. The world of competitive drum and bugle corps is an intense, choreographed musical experience staged on the football field. Students in World Class, the highest division of Drum Corps, are primarily college-age individuals who have surpassed and shown excellence in the performing arts. The criterion to earn World Class status incorporates a combination of aspects that include organizational stability, participation time, touring capabilities and financial stability. Most corps from this class follow an intensive tour schedule, traveling more than 10,000 miles over the course of the summer while performing at more than 35 sanctioned events. In addition, corps members learn self discipline, teamwork, and leadership skills through this achievement, which in turn is demonstrated and reflected in life experiences and challenges.
In order to establish myself in the drum corps world, I endured countless hours of physical and musical training, as well as manage my time to keep up with school, my family, and high school marching band. I was able to practice my leadership skills and my time management as the head of the tuba section in the Mayfield High School Trojan Marching Band. As a section leader, I am at all times a model for how the rest of my section should behave. While I lead by example, I must control scheduling in my section, reinforce rules and directions, and create specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals for the section. I was so determined to make the Arizona Academy drum and Bugle Corps that I began planning to audition for drum corps about a year prior to my audition. I took weekly music lessons and practiced my instrument at least an hour outside of school each day. In order to be in top physical condition, I began a forty-five minute daily exercise routine and maintained a healthy diet. My determined character allowed me to me to stick to my diet, exercise, and practicing routines for nearly a year and two months. Becoming a member of this group came with many financial struggles. During high school, I received little to no financial or moral support from my parents. Even if my parents had decided to support me, coming from a large family of eight, they did not have much to offer. Because music and the arts in general have a minimal amount of funding, there is a large price to pay for touring, meals, and housing while a member of the corps. The $2,000 dollar member fee is just the beginning of costs. While preparing to audition, I had to take lessons from a private instructor. These lessons usually cost twenty dollars a week, but I was extraordinarily lucky enough to find a local teacher willing to donate some of his time and knowledge to my dream of being in the Arizona Academy of Performing Arts. Because I live in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and the corps is based in Tempe, Arizona, there is a travel expense issue. Thus far, I have been able to share rides with friends who are driving to that area, but there is always a question of how I will get to the next camp. The generosity of my friends and my private lesson teacher has reinforced the way I value time, knowledge, and character. Due to my extensive fund raising efforts, I have raised half of the $2,000 dollar membership fee through garage sales, babysitting, yard work and other various jobs. I will raise the rest of the money by participating in fund raisers sponsored by The Academy.
Being accepted into the Arizona Academy Drum and Bugle Corps has provided me with a sense of pride and accomplishment. Throughout this process, I have remained focused, become more self-confident, and reinforced music as my passion. Not only has this incredible honor affected me, it has brought honor and prestige to my instructor, my band, my school, and my community. My hometown of Las Cruces, NM is a relatively small. Having a resident as a member of the Arizona Academy Drum and Bugle Corps brings attention to the prospective talent in Las Cruces. Since I was born and raised here, I am proud to represent my "family". In honoring this extended family, I only hope that I am also honoring my immediate family. Even though I do not have a strong relationship with my parents, I still appreciate what they have done for me, and hope to honor them with this and all achievements in my life.