At a young age, senior Connor George became interested in playing an instrument, so he made the decision to play the drums and began his journey of developing a new skill. Since starting, George has learned so much, felt many emotions and experienced new adventures.

When discovering his interest in wanting to play an instrument, he spent time thinking about what he wanted to play and considered many other factors.

“I didn’t want to play the same instrument as my sister, and she played the saxophone. I was like, ‘I don’t want to play saxophone that sounds stupid,’ so I picked up the drums,” George said.

Officially beginning in the fifth grade, he started to play the snare drum and then received a full drum set for Christmas only two years ago which allowed him to further advance his skill in playing the drums.

“When I first got my drumset, I was super excited,” George said.  “I got it when I was around 15 years old. It was more of an excitement to shake up my experiences because up to that point, I’ve only played marching band music.”

To improve, George continuously practiced and acquired help from Mike Baker and Larry Detwiler, Altoona Area High School band teachers, who taught him in school. As he learned, George became more and more educated on the drums.“I did take lessons for the first two years that I played. I took lessons in fifth grade, after school lessons, and I also played in school lessons with the rest of the drummers. We just worked on rudiments and stuff like that.  Then I moved in sixth grade, and I did not take lessons after that because all of the lesson instructors were an hour away, so I just dropped lessons after sixth grade,” George said.

Even though he had teachers who gave him lessons on snare and bass, he started to teach himself how to play the drum set once he received it during the holidays.

“I never had an instructor for drum set which is a bit different from just playing snare drum because with drum set you have multiple drums and cymbals and a base drum and you do all of this stuff with your feet,” George said.

For years, George has been obtaining this skill and gets to play many songs with his drums.  He enjoys playing several different types of music, especially the Blues. 

“I love playing any song that I find fun or interesting and playing different genres is just really fun,” George said. 

When George joined the marching band, he had the chance to experience his first ever concert and perform in front of an audience. For this performance, he and the other drummers had to bring their own snare drums with them.

“Oh I was so psyched,” George said.  “I was super happy about showing off my cool snare drum cause it was all shiny and silver, and it was a blast.  Of course I was nervous, but it was a blast.  I think I was more excited than nervous.”

Being a part of the marching band has allowed George to travel places and experience playing the bass drum for several school activities.  He has gone to numerous towns located in Pennsylvania, such as Chambersburg, Central Dauphin East and Hollidaysburg.

“I haven’t really gone anywhere too crazy.  Recently we went to Carlisle for the football game, and we’re planning on going to State College next,” George said.

Since he is a senior, he hopes to continue playing the drums as a hobby and gives advice to those that are interested in playing.

“My advice to people who want to start playing is to start getting lessons,” George said.

The journey he had taken to become a drummer contained challenges, but he enjoyed a good challenge and had fun throughout his experiences. As this is his last year in the marching band, he will keep playing for fun and remember this phase of his life as he played for the past seven years.