This post is way past due. I've been meaning to write about my experience and adventures at PASIC shortly after the trip, but with the crazy schedule last semester I never found adequate time to do so. Almost three months later, here it is!
PASIC stands for Percussive Arts Society International Convention; which essentially means a percussionists heaven for four days straight. Early last semester I was asked if I wanted to go to Indianapolis with a group of percussionist from my college, in which we would compete in the college small group division. Of course I said yes, I had been wanting to go to PASIC since I was in high school. After the group was formed, a practice schedule was set and we started working towards an end goal.
A few months of hard work and determination paid off as we traveled to Indy for performance and fun times. The first night was spent settling in to our hotel rooms and catching up on some much needed rest. The following morning was our own time to walk around and get acquainted with the area and the convention center, and that night was our performance. The last performance in competition was the best we had done; we left the room in excitement, not caring what we placed because we knew we had given our best and that was what mattered.
We didn't place as well as we thought we did, but we where proud of ourselves and how we did. We had raised our score a considerable amount compared to previous years competing at PASIC. The last few days were spent celebrating and enjoying the convention and guest speakers/performers.
To keep this post a reasonable length and not full of unneeded details, I'll just bullet a list of everything else we experienced:
- We stayed in a five star hotel in downtown Indianapolis, fully paid for by the university. I have never stayed in a hotel that was that nice.
- Explored the city and all of it's beauty. I'm not a city person to say the least, but Indianapolis is one of my favorites! If I had to chose a city to visit, it would be this one.
- Walked around the expo center and visited over a hundred percussion booths that were selling and advertising some of the best instruments, equipment, and accessories.
- Played on multiple different drum sets, marimbas, and other percussion instruments I could get my hands on.
- Spent too much money on mallets and other percussion goodies, but came away with every set of mallets I've been wanting for the past few years.
- Bought two solos that I'll be playing this semester on my Senior Recital.
- The concerts and clinics I experienced:
- Chad Smith, the drummer from the Red Hot Chili Peppers gave a drum set clinic.
- The Chain Marimba Trio in concert.
- Saw an amazing Tabla concert by a group from an Indian Drumming School.
- The Eastman Percussion Ensemble from the Eastman School of Music. I didn't know this until I sat through the concert, but the director of this group is Michael Burritt, who is one of my favorite marimba composers and soloist.
- I later got to meet Mr. Michael Burritt in person, shake his hand, and watch him solo on a marimba up close.
- Indiana University Percussion Ensemble in concert. (This is where the awesome Dr. Hill attended school.)
- Bob Becker and Yurika Kimura in concert.
- And the highlight concert that all of us attended the last night there, Dave Weckl! I had never heard of him until that week, but was enlightened at how great his musicianship skills were on the drum set. I had attended his drum set clinic earlier that day and learned quite a bit on soloing across the entire set, and have been trying to apply what I learned then to my playing now.
Overall this was a great experience for me and I hope to go back someday.
