{"id":11124,"date":"2026-10-05T20:15:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T20:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/?p=11124"},"modified":"2026-10-05T20:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T20:15:14","slug":"students-continue-musical-growth-through-concert-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/2026\/10\/05\/students-continue-musical-growth-through-concert-band\/","title":{"rendered":"Students continue musical growth through Concert Band"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">TROY, Ala. (<a href=\"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">TROJANVISION<\/a>) \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.troy.edu\/academics\/colleges-schools\/college-arts-humanities\/departments\/john-m-long-school-music\/sound-of-the-south\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Troy University\u2019s Concert Band<\/a> took the stage at Claudia Crosby Theater on Sept. 30 for a performance focused on developing students\u2019 skills as musicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Throughout the semester, the band works with music that gives students room to build their skills before moving on to more challenging pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joseph Milks, a master\u2019s student in music education, said that progression plays a role in how music is selected for the ensemble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re picking music that is designed for them to be attainable, but also have something to work on,\u201d Milks said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Milks said the ensemble builds on those skills each semester with the goal of introducing more challenging music as students progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe goal for the concert band is for everyone here to come out of it having played fun music that is engaging and educational,\u201d Milks said. \u201cWe want to continue to build upon skills that the students already have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/2026\/10\/05\/symphonic-band-kicks-off-fall-series\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>SOUNDS FROM THE STAGE: Symphonic Band kicks off fall series<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After experiencing that growth as an undergraduate, Milks is now seeing it from a different side, helping lead some of the same musicians he once worked alongside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was a little strange at first,\u201d Milks said. \u201cWhen I was in my undergrad, I was working alongside some of these people, and then we got into the master\u2019s position and now suddenly we\u2019re in charge of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Concert Band also gives students a way to continue performing even when music is not their primary field of study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jarriatou Ceesay, a freshman psychology major from Birmingham, Alabama, has played in bands since she was around 11 or 12 years old and continued playing clarinet after coming to Troy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI played it for years, and I\u2019ve made so many friends through playing clarinet,\u201d Ceesay said. \u201cAnd the songs that I\u2019ve played on clarinet have been really fun since high school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ceesay said moving from high school band to a college ensemble brought a new environment and a new group of musicians to perform alongside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Music has remained an important part of her college experience despite Ceesay pursuing psychology rather than a music degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMusic is like a universal language, and I think that everyone should do something in music at least once in college,\u201d Ceesay said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She pointed to ensembles, choir and individual music lessons as different ways students can become involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION) \u2014 Troy University\u2019s Concert Band took the stage at Claudia Crosby Theater on Sept. 30 for a performance focused on developing students\u2019 skills as musicians.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the semester, the band works with music that gives students room to build their skills before moving on to more challenging pieces.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph Milks, a master\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"a-button\" href=\"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/2026\/10\/05\/students-continue-musical-growth-through-concert-band\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":11150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1127],"tags":[3408],"topics":[],"class_list":["post-11124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","tag-troy-concert-band"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11124"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11149,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11124\/revisions\/11149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11124"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=11124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}