Spartans make All-State band

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Charlee Baugh, Andy Bracken live for practice and performance.

It’s not easy to play marimba if you live on a boat.

But that didn’t stop Andy Bracken from going to school an hour early to practice on the school marimba.

Likewise, long commutes didn’t stop Charlee Baugh from playing in three bands, teaching piano and saxophone and taking saxophone lessons in Seattle while carrying a full load of classes at Bainbridge High School and Olympic College.

“They’ve made huge sacrifices to develop their skills for sure,” said Stephanie Dupuis, BHS band director. “They have the can-do attitude all the time. They’ve always won when dealing with adversity.”

Won, they have.

Bainbridge High School seniors Baugh and Bracken were two out of 200 chosen to play in the Washington All-State Orchestra and All-State Band this March, from a pool of 2,000 applicants. This is the seventh straight year that Bainbridge High School Band members have gone to All-State.

At All-State, musicians will rehearse 32 hours over four days culminating in a gala concert at 2 p.m. March 13 at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma.

The melody

For Charlee Baugh music is very much part of life.

Between high school and band on the island, lessons in Seattle, studies and two bands in Bremerton and teaching at the homes of her six music students, the family car has racked up over 23,000 miles in one year.

Baugh, who was accepted to All-State for alto saxophone, also plays piano.

“I knew since I was little that I wanted to play sax,” Baugh said. “The only downside is I like orchestra, and sax doesn’t have a place there.”

Although as a child she may not have liked practicing that much, now “I don’t know how to live without practicing. Playing your instrument is like an obsession: ombrature, intonation, tonality, technique, breathing, phrasing…”

Her saxophone teacher, Dennis Zeisler in Virginia, opened the world of saxophone to her, by introducing her to other players and opportunities to play.

Baugh’s current focus is on teaching, and she hopes to become a band director.

When working with her piano and sax students, Baugh says she tries to get students to see beyond the music, but also how music pulls people together and is a world of its own.

“I get so much enjoyment from music, and I like to share it,” Baugh said. “I think it’s so important to pass it on.

“Working with people, it’s really rewarding to have that teacher-student connection no matter which side you’re on.”

Instrumental in her future plans is Dupuis, who took Baugh, a new student at BHS this year, under her wing and helped her find teachers and schools. BHS band assistant David Johnson lent her recordings and literature.

Dupuis sees a bright future for Baugh.

“She’s going to be a great band director because she’s got good intensity about her and is always positive and helping those around her. She’s a confident teacher to other students in the (BHS) program.”

Next fall, Baugh plans to attend Central Washington University, known for its excellent music program, to hone her talents.

When her playing goes well, “I feel all my hard work has paid off,” Baugh said. “If I messed up, I know that I’ve tried the best that I can and that’s just something to go back and fix.”

The beat

Andy Bracken returns to All-State for his third year in a row as a percussionist.

Although he plays snare drum and other percussion in the school marching band and wind ensemble, and the Bainbridge Orchestra, his love is the marimba.

“The marimba is one thing I practice and really enjoy doing,” Bracken said.

He played piano for several years and in middle school toyed with the school marimba, whose bars are set up like a piano keyboard.

He didn’t have a marimba though, and when his family moved to Bainbridge four years ago, they lived on a boat while building their house.

Since BHS didn’t have any marimba players, Bracken went to school early to practice in the band room and sometimes in the afternoon, too.

His mother Liz Bracken is thankful to Dupuis and the music paraprofessionals in cultivating Andy’s interest and helping to find a teacher.

In two years, Bracken worked and saved up enough to buy his own marimba, kept in the garage. Then his mother drove him from houseboat to house to practice before going to school.

The hands-on nature and direct connection between hitting a note with a mallet, versus the more indirect key moving a hammer to hit a piano note, appeals to Bracken. Playing a chord might require rotating the hand to reach the notes.

“Playing (musical) intervals requires a lot more physical movement than placing your hands on keys,” Bracken said. “You can hit on a different part of the mallet to get a different sound, and just seeing what you’re doing gives you more control.”

Less than 100 years old, the modern marimba is still very much developing and music for it is all recent. Bracken studies with Miho Takekawa at the University of Washington, from whom he learned a four-mallet technique where each mallet moves independently — a technique invented less than 20 years ago.

In September, Bracken will enroll at Stanford University where he will study engineering, but he plans to continue playing percussion with musical groups.

For now though, he is looking forward to playing at All-State.

“It’s a lot of fun playing with a group of kids that are good at their instrument and enjoy playing it, too,” Bracken said.

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Band aid

Fund-raisers for the BHS Jazz Band and Wind Ensemble scholarships, which will allow students to travel to Anaheim, Calif., to participate in the Heritage Festival Band Contest include:

• A car wash from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 5 at the Chevron station on High School road. Suggested donation is $10.

• A special showing of “The Chorus” on March 6 hosted by the Historic Lynwood Theatre begins at 7 p.m. with the BHS Jazz Quartet performing at 7 p.m. and the movie at 7:30 a.m. Tickets are $8 adults, $6 seniors/children under 12.

All proceeds benefit the BHS band scholarship fund.