The band would like to purchase a professional level bass drum stand, as well as 2 pairs of professional level vibraphone mallets. We currently use a "suitcase" style stand for our bass drum, but would like to upgrade to a full frame system on wheels, now that we have enough space for it in our new band room. I recently was awarded a grant for my classroom through Excellence in Education for being the recipient of the Linda Brown Fellows award. I put this money, along with our remaining 2021-2022 budget, towards a brand new vibraphone ($5,000+). Therefore, I was hoping to also purchase 2 new pairs of mallets for the new vibraphone, as our existing mallets are nearing their end of the life, but our annual budget has been exhausted due to the large vibraphone purchase. These budget items could wait until next year, but it would be really nice for the graduating Seniors to finish up the school year and perform at our Spring Concert with these percussion upgrades.
The percussion students who play vibraphone and bass drum would directly benefit from this grant (about 10 students this year). However, it will actually affect all the students in the music room, as well as the community members that attend our performances. The bass drum will be able to be positioned at an angle that is more conducive to sound projection while on stage, which will increase its presence both while listening in-person, as well as in our audio recordings. The vibraphone mallets will allow the new vibraphone to be played with maximum tone quality and projection.
Success for this grant can be measured in the amount of passion and meaningful experiences our music students will gain from these percussion upgrades.
The initial implementation of this grant can be observed at our Movie Soundtrack concert on Thursday, May 26th at 6:00 PM. It can also be heard at our Spring Concert on June 7th, at 6:00. Both concerts are in the THS theater and are open to the public.
The use of this grant will be restricted to music students in TTUSD. If needed, we are happy to share our equipment with other music programs in the district should the need arise.