BOTB stands for Battle of the Bands

Me playing in a band

This is the video of me playing in a band. The second song being the best. It is Paranoid by black sabbath and it starts at 5:27.

So this is the big day for our band, Petrol Penguins. How our band was born is a very short and fun story. The guitarist of the band wanted to play in a band and so he asked me if would like to join ad so I did. The three first members were the bassist, the drummer (me) and the guitarist. The other members gradually became a part of the band. Some members that were there in the beginning weren't there in the end anymore. We came up with that weird name once in a pub as we all wrote down names of names and this was maybe the funniest.

This is our first live show as a band. There were posters of our band around the school and we were hoping to have a lot of supporters and we did. We had to play for about 25 minutes so we performed 7 songs: Blizkrieg Bop (Ramones), Paranoid (Black Sabbath), Nothing else Matters (Metallica), Hybrid Moments (The Misfits ), Hey Bulldog and I'm so Tired (The Beatles), Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple), Smells like teen spirit (Nirvana). My absolute favourite song to play is 'Smells like teen spirit' because it sounds good when we play it and it's fun to play on the drums. The other songs are a bit more boring to play but playing infront of an audience it's one of the best feelings ever. I enjoy playing the drums like any other instrument so much that just being able to play in a performing band is great. Even though everyone did some minor mistakes, the show ended up being a success. I dropped my drums sticks, I didn't always here well enough the singer and the snares were turned off at the right beginning. Nevertheless I managed to keep it going and our band really had a connection amongst us. We managed to get the crowd going and that feeling when someone is enjoying your music!

My ambitions and my future plans/dream future

Since a small age music has been my passion. Now being in the last year of secondary school, the time to go to university is getting closer by the day. Since I've been six, I've known that music was the thing I wanted to do in the future. It's the one thing I'm really interested in and I'm willing to work 150 % to be able to work in the music business.

My plans for the future are to hopefully become a professional musician and I would especially like to be a performer, a drummer. I'm most interested in playing popular music and rock in a band as a profession but I would also like to use my wide range of instruments to widen the perspectives of the groups I play with. I like several different styles and enjoy experimenting combining different styles and improvised parts into written music.

Performances

• I played in a band for a year called Petrol Penguins and we performed in our schools band competition. Our style was rock.
• I performed in the Dutch-speaking parliament playing trios for accordeons.
• I played the accordeon in the City Hall of Brussels, I played with two other accordeonists.
• I played the timpani in the academy's orchestra at the concert celebrating the academy's birthday.
• I performed in the music hall called Flagey again with two other accordeons.
• I played in a Russian music festival organised in a big park in Brussels called the Cinquentenaire with one other accordeonist from my academy.
• I performed in several concerts with the improvisation groups in different places such as the concert hall called Espace Senghor, where I played both the piano and the accordeon.
• I took part in an accordeon course which lasted for a day and at the end there was a concert at a small theatre in Brussels.
• I participated in a music course for the accordeon in Finland twice and through that I've performed at the Finnish folk music festival called “Jutajaiset” in the city of Rovaniemi.
• I've taken part in a music band course in Raudaskylä, Finland where for one week one practices with a band that the teachers create and one plays rock, pop, R&B and all other styles one wishes to play. I've been to this camp 5 times and at the end of the week there is always a performance for everyone willing to come and listen.
• I've performed at two different weddings with the accordeon.
• With all instruments I've had performances in the academy and also every year there are exams in all instruments.
• I sung with one of the choirs at school events and with the others in different places such as the Grand-Place.

My instruments and other musical studies

First of all I've completed all the required years of music theory training in the Belgian music academy system. The last two years being the two most important years, I scored 88 % and 85 % respectively in the end of year examinations of the (French-language) music academy: Académie de Musique Jean Absil. I started off my theoretical studies in Institut de Rythmique Jaques Dalcroze, which used a different pedagogical method in teaching music theory and in addition all students were obliged to take a weekly lesson of so-called “rythmique”. This lesson was based on rhythms and making participants understand how these rhythms are related to each other and by using your body distinguish rhythms.

At school music is one of my main subjects. This year I will graduate from the Finnish-language section of the European School in Belgium. For the last two years I have concentrated on music as one of the strong subjects and it will be a part of my European Baccalaureate examination. The music course includes composing, performing, music theory and music history. We are judged on all this topics and at the end we get a mark which is as important as for example my maths, mother tongue or second language (English) marks.

Alongside theoretical studies, I started my first instrument at the age of six and this was the piano at the Dalcroze Institute. As I was still young the school proposed me to take an improvasation class, which meant that I could explore the sounds of the piano before starting to lto play from a score. I played the piano for seven years in music academies and then I had a break from music academies and carried on playing in my free-time. One year I took part in a class meant for adults to learn how to improvise music for silent films on the piano. After a few years' break I started the harpsichord this year, so that playing a keyboard instrument would flow again.

Early on I was eager to try various instruments. When I was about 8 I played a year of djembé in a group. I also played a year of the recorder in primary school as an after school acivity. I started the accordeon when I was ten in Dutch-language Rijksmuziekacademie F. Chopin and now I've reached the last year meaning H3 (this is the 10^th year in theory but in reality my 8^th year). As for the percussions (drums, snare drum, timpani, marimba and xylophone) I started when I was 11 and I'm now in level H1 (in theory 8^th year in reality 7^th year). On top of this, I've sung in the school choir for two years in 4^th and 5^th primary and then later a part of music theory studies was to sing in a choir during the last two years of study.

I took part for two years in a “improvisation group” where people who play different instruments can play together improvising. Nothing is prepared and every time the improvisation is different. In this ensemble I've mostly played the piano and the accordeon and sometimes the percussions. We also play inside the piano and use the piano as a percussion.