The following responses were given by UNO freshman Jared Flanagan, a music technology major.
UNO freshman Jared Flanagan sits with the UNO Marching Mavs during the football game. (Andrea Ciurej/UNO)
What sparked your interest in music? It all started when my older brother started playing trumpet in elementary school, I though it looked fun so I though I would try it. I started out trumpet first and couldn't really play it. Then my mom thought I should try the trombone since we had one from when she played in band, that also failed. Finally, I just asked myself which would I rather play guitar or drums? I picked drums when I was eight and the rest is history.
What instrument do you play and what triggered your interest in playing this particular instrument? I play the drum and really all types of percussion instruments from the drum set to marimba. It was a lack of ability to play wind intruments that triggered my interest in percussion, basically.
What are you involved in on campus and how has it benefited your music career so far? So, I'm involved in marching band, percussion ensemble, and Pep Band. They each present their own unique challenges. With marching band, it's force me to learn how to sight-read and memorize music much faster than I've had to before. Percussion ensemble has been good for by exposing me to new types of music I wouldn't otherwise play on my own. Pep Band isn't so much challenging as just an opportunity to get more performance time and it allows to experiment more on the drum set.
What do you plan to do when you get out of college? I am hoping to get a job with a production company running soundboards. I would also not mind doing tech work within the theatre community. Maybe one day I could become a technical director, which would entail designing sets, light shows and other technical aspect of productions.
Being a true musician, what are you thoughts on games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero? I do enjoy playing the games, however annoying and frustrating they may be. Certain songs on the drums in Rock Band that they tend to sometimes make the parts ridiculously hard to play on the game, when on a real drum set, they are actually fairly simple to play. If I was going to rate the realism of the games, I would give them an eight out of 10.