MusiCamp Memory Seeds

Hey everyone. I know I've said this (I'm sure it's been numerous times) before, but I can't believe it's already mid-July. During this part of the summer, I get nostalgic about a specific summer memory: MusiCamp. Each summer between 7th grade and graduating high school, I took part in a week-long camp where students would come together and make excellent music. I have a lot of good memories of my time at camp, whether it was choral or instrumental camp. Since I am thinking back on good times, I thought I could incorporate that into today's blog.

I'm not sure if I heard this phrase from someone or just made it up, but this seems like the time for memory seeds. I'll try to share little snippets of stories from camp, but I'll definitely keep them short so I'm not typing for 3 hours. In the spirit of Random Tuesday, I'll try to have a memory seed per letter. Here goes!


A - Auditorium. For every year of camp, choir just needed one auditorium, and band used both (one for the bigger ensembles, one for jazz groups). Since we were in the same building every year, those auditoriums came to feel like a second home for those summers.

B - Bowling. I'm not sure if it actually happened every year, but bowling felt like a classic camp activity. The mob of campers definitely took over the bowling alley and since it was towards the end of the week, it was a great way to just hang out with friends and be silly.

C - Canoeing. A summer or two, swimming time was replaced with canoeing time, since the college had a good collection of canoes and kayaks in their boat house. There was one summer where I had canoeing experience, the camper in front was new, and some stormy weather pulled our canoe out towards the middle of the lake. Nothing bad happened, but I got my arm workout that day.

D - Dr. Logan, Dr. Lyren, Dr. Pugh, & Dr. Konecne. Since the college put on MusiCamp, we were instructed by college faculty and I think it really helped me develop as a musician. Campers could even get private lessons and even if you didn't that, the professors still felt approachable.

E - Eggs. One of the activities in the earlier years was team games out in the lake. These included some type of relay element... including smacking eggs on each others' heads.

F - French horn section. MusiCamp really brought talented students together. Honestly, we were able to do a lot in the course of a week. I mention the French horn section but one musical motif that sticks out is the opening of American Overture where the French horns just rip into it (in a good way). Here's a recording (not us) to see what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr9Mzxs7-gk

G - Guest artists. The college brought in a special guest artist each band camp who performed along with the group for a song or two. The guest artist also did some work with conducting and with some of the small groups. Right now I can only remember a flautist one year and a tuba performer another year.

H - Heat. Camp was the middle of July and students lived in an older residence hall, so it should be no surprise that some nights were very warm and you always made sure to pack a fan that was powerful, yet not too loud.

I - Ice Cream. Not exactly the funnest memory in the moment, but it happened during a weekend between camps. Another camper and I got a bunch of games and food to have this awesome lazy night, including a pint of Cold Stone ice cream. Then the counselors found us and told us we had to join in on their activities since they needed to make sure we were okay. Sadly, the ice cream was not included in these plans and melted.

J - Jubilate Deo. This was the final piece my first year of camp, which included a brass quintet and organ. It turns out that there are a lot of musical arrangements with this name, so I still haven't been able to find the same one years later.

K - Kleenex. This was a memory that only popped up while writing this list. We had a lot of imaginative exercises for choir, and one of them included an invisible Kleenex box. As we saw, we would yank a tissue out and let it float to the ground (aka not be forceful with our voice).

L - Last days. The week would always go by so quickly and before you knew it, it was the final concert. Of course, since we had all spent a week surrounded by each other pretty much 24/7, it was always a sad time. I definitely remember making those rounds of goodbyes in the lobby after the concert or in the ensemble rooms while putting instruments away. There were some people that I only knew at camp so the goodbye could be for a year. Fortunately, this was not the case for everyone, but the final day of camp was always bittersweet.

M - Music. I mean really, we're talking about a music camp. I mean, it's shortened to MusiCamp, but you know what I mean. So much good music. There was folk/traditional, classical, jazz, pop... I do want to go through all of the years and make a master soundtrack. I know a lot of these memories have nothing to do with the actual music, but I have so many tunes that will forever be thought of as MusiCamp songs.

N - Neon Green. Every camper would get a camp t-shirt and there were a few years where the t-shirt pretty much stayed the same. Then there was the year of the bright neon green shirt that practically glowed in the dark.

O - O Canada. There was one year where we had a group scavenger hunt and one of the items was the Canadian national anthem. Since it was choir camp, I had all of my barbershop choir sheet music, which included a copy of O Canada. We got the points and I got an odd look or two from the counselors.

P - Predator/Prey. Oh man. One of the big evening games. I only remember playing it a couple of years, but it was so much fun. All of the campers were divided into wolves, weasels, and mice, and we wore socks on our hands to distinguish who was what animal. Our packs wandered around campus to find food, shelter, and water, and either hunt lower animals or avoid being hunted. I'm sure a lot of work went into making that game possible, but it just worked.

Q - Quiet Hours. As I've said a few times already, camp was a really fun time, and just because we needed to be on our floors for curfew didn't mean the fun had to stop. In other words, yes, there were several times counselors had to come to my room and shush the little group inside.

R - Roommate. I commuted to camp the first couple of summers, but then I started staying on campus to get the full camp experience. My first band roommate was... well, let's just say we had views on life and what to do in our spare time. That same summer I met Chris, who I hit it off with. Chris would also end up coming to both band and choir camps and he went on to be a band teacher in Iowa. I should reach out to him again and see how he's doing.

S - Sancho. Yeah, pretty clear choice here. I was between 7th & 8th grade my first year at (choir) camp and one of the Men's Choir pieces was "I, Don Quixote" from Man of La Mancha. This song includes a tenor solo coming from Sancho, Don Quixote's sidekick. The director gave me the solo and once the Men's Choir had our practice performance in front of the other camps, I was dubbed Sancho. Throughout the years, the nickname stuck which helped camp feel even more distinct than school or theater.

T - Talent Show. Another staple of the evening activities. In choir camp, each section was tasked with making a skit and it would take up a good amount of some sectional practices. A lot of the skits were parodies and poking fun at other campers and counselors. Band camp had more of a mixture of skits and performances, and I did a little of both.

U - Unison. This is less of a specific memory seed, but it was wonderful to feel how a choir or band was coming together over the course of a week. As the musical term indicates, it felt like we really came together as one voice or one sound.

V - VHS tapes. My camp years were in the first half of the 2000's so in the early years, every camper got a cassette tape or VHS tape of the final performance.

W - Water balloons. The best synopsis for this story is "counselors prank campers in the middle of the night. roommate gets pissed. I'm glad it's the last night of camp". I'll let you guess how the water balloons fit into that story.

X - Xbox. Bet you didn't expect that one. During camp, your schedule was set and most of the time, you didn't realize you were separated from technology. Then there were the weekends between choir and band camp (during the couple of years I did both) when I would bring my Xbox to campus (or invite camper friends over to my parents' house) and we would gang up on each other in Halo.

Y - Yoga balls. One night for a few years, our group took over the college rec center and went to town with volleyball, racketball, and other typical gym stuff. Well, little old mischief-causing me included "throwing a yoga ball at a friend" to the list of activities. My friend was a little startled but everyone got a good laugh in the end.

Z - Zzzzz. As in the sleep I didn't get because I was talking with my roommate (including some half-sleeping conversations) or just being excited for the next day.

I know that look back on camp with rose-tinted glasses and there are a lot of memories that didn't get on the list - positive and negative. Even if I take the glasses off, it was still an incredible experience when you put it all together. Speaking of Zzz's though, I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow is Shark Awareness Day. I probably won't be in contact with many sharks, but I'll make sure that I stay aware of their existence.

DFTBA