State Mental Hospital

Psychology Club invited us last semester in one of Trinity's officer training sessions and it happened!

We sang some songs and mostly made things up as we went because we didn't know much about the hospital, what would be provided to us, or what to expect at all.

It ended up turning into a huge dance party. The patients have a DJ come and play music for them on Friday afternoons, and we were interrupting their dancing. They were really excited to dance with us and show off their moves. We taught them the electric eel! Overall, it was really fun and I hope we get to go back soon!

PR is tough stuff

Doing PR for the music department on top of all the president duties (and class work) is tough stuff!
1. Make a calendar for all the concerts for the entire year (this includes dates of events, deadlines for the Trinitonian, deadlines for designs, allotted time for redesigns, etc).
2. Design ads. This takes about 2 hours to make a realllly good ad. It's tough bc it's in black and white and you can't use colors to make words stand out. Tricky stuff. But Word is amazing and there are so many options now!
3. Contact faculty and see what they think of their ad. Make adjustments if needed (a bunch of emails and redesigning will occur)
4. Hang up fliers. Yay wandering around campus for hours!
5. Email CCI to print banners to hang in the student union and the dining hall and add the events to the whiteboard calendar. I'm envisioning lots of fighting with Mabee people to let me in to hang one poster.
6. Maintain contact with the Trinitonian- sign contracts, send them the ads for each concert and tell them the ad dimensions, etc etc (thanks Faith!)

If this was for a one time event, yeah no problem, but sometimes there are two per week or are one after the other and everything happens all at once and life gets crazy!

This is where all my Mu Phi attention has been going instead of planning fun things, so if you want to plan something fun, please do! I'll welcome the break!

Convention: Connected

After spending 3 days in meetings, workshops, recitals, and mingling sessions, I've come to realize what Mu Phi Epsilon is about.
I thought I understood the Music Friends and Harmony and took it as self explanatory.

There is so much more to it!


Did you know that there are
78 chapters?
531 new members from last spring?
1514 total members?

The theme of the convention has been Connected. There has been so much connecting and networking going on! I've met so many different people from all over the nation- collegiates and alums! But while I'm connecting with other chapters, how can you guys get the same benefit?
     Fan the official facebook page of the Fraternity and the Foundation's page.
     Register yourself as a member at http://muphiepsilon.org/ (great things are coming to this site!)
     Join the South Central Province facebook group to meet other Mu Phites in the state.
     Encourage your music friends at other schools to join their local chapter
    Find alum that might teach at your High School's district

I hope that the convention theme will continue through the following years.
Did you know that there are 15 active chapters of Mu Phi Epsilon in the state of Texas? Did you know that there are Mu Phi chapters at Our Lady of the Lake University and Texas State? Those are both so close! St. Mary's University is getting a charter this year! Also, the city of San Antonio has an Alumni Chapter & Dr. McNeil is the president! There are sooo many networking opportunities for us!

I'm envisioning a huuuuge Founders Day celebration on November 13th with all the nearby chapters. It's an event we'd all have separately, so why not have a joint ceremony/recital?

New Mu Phi friends from Michigan, UNT, TCU, Ohio, & Baylor!

In other news, I am ready to get back! I miss Texas, Mexican food, 100 degree weather, and all my Trinity friends that are there getting ready for the upcoming school year! It's going to be a great one!

Convention Day 1

4 am- wake up (and just as a warning, this is the reason for any spelling mistakes or crazed sounding comments that I might type right now...or for the rest of the week for that matter)
4:15am - eat breakfast
4:30am - go to airport
5:45am - finally check my bag and make it through security
6:00am - get on plane (next to mother and her infant...didn't sleep)
6:30am - depart for Chicago (delayed)
9:15am get to Chicago
9: 20am get on new plane to go to Rochester (thank the MOE Convention gods that the gate I just got off of was right next to my new gate, bc other wise i wouldn't have made it)
11ish? (time at this point was blurring together) - arrive in Rochester
At the airport- use my MOE jersey to attract other Mu Phi members- it worked. Five came flocking towards me after I got off the plane
Take shuttle to hotel
Check in to hotel and convention
Spend the afternoon in the hotel room telling myself i'm going to sleep, but instead my exhaustion told me to call Heather, so I rambled to her for a while about Mu Phi, Rochester (it's like 80 degrees and it RAINED- what is this miracle?) while going through my goody bag. MOE Chap Stick FTW!

Mingle time! Hang out with Elda (our district director who came to initiation). All the alum were mingling and chatting and new everyone else and all the collegiates were standing around awkwardly trying to meet people to avoid being all alone. Elda introduced me to the other Texas chapters that were there- the pres and vp from Texas State and the pres of Baylor. We all snagged a table at the back of the ballroom where we had our welcome meeting. There was music and there were awards and there was singing. Lots of Mu Phi songs. I made videos! I'll post them for you all soon. So fantastic. We should sing all the time.

Ok i'm going to sleep now. update later. fb pictures are up

International Convention tomorrow!

Hello everyone!

Tomorrow I'll be heading out to represent our fantastic Beta Kappa Chapter at the International Mu Phi Epsilon convention in Rochester, New York!

I just finished printing out the giant packet of Bylaws from the last convention in 2008 (the conventions are every 4 years with district meetings the two proceeding years and an off year following).

I've been looking at the schedule for the 4 day adventure and there is going to be A LOT of music. Basically every hour, we have a musical interlude. There will be performances during meal times, during business meetings,  in the evenings, basically all the time.

I'm hoping that I'm not the only music minor that just so happens to love Mu Phi more than anything in her major. I'm figuring that there has to be another chapter like Trinity's that is pretty chill with a wide range of interests.

A side goal I have for this trip is to find the representatives from nearby chapters (UTSA & Texas State mostly). How awesome would it be if we had a huge Founders Day celebration with the other chapters and alumni from all over the SA area? I think it would be fun to get to know other Mu Phi members and see how other chapters function.

Ok, now I have to go pack. Which will be a process because I still have clothes in my suitcases from just moving into my apartment, so unpacking, packing... story of any college student's life.

Then I'll get on a plane (at 6am. boo) and the next you'll hear from me will be from New York!

Mu Phi Lovin'
Alexa

The Calendar is coming together!

I am getting excited about Mu Phi for next year!
We have a huge club (largest our chapter has ever been) and there are so many wonderful members/leaders/ performers/musicians among us!

Here's a little glimpse at what goes on behind Mu Phi (for those who might want to be an officer in the future):

An officer has to know what's going on with the Chapter at all times.
This includes Chapter events, but before we can plan Chapter events, we have to know when the Music Department events and the University events are (which usually aren't set in stone until we get our Trinity planner the first day back). Then there are always the events that sneak up on you and makes Chapter events unable to happen. "then plan less events" someone might say - "NO!" Is what i have to say! I love Mu Phi and want to hang out with you all as much as possible!

The officers actually have to do paperwork. We don't function independent of the International organization- They're the ones that have to do all the difficult paperwork! We have to report all of our members (candidates, then initiates, then active members, then if they go inactive, when they graduate, etc) and then there are all the forms to get membership manuals, pins, certificates, all that good stuff. It's actually not difficult at all. The forms are easy to read and there aren't really that many of them. For most of them, when money isn't needed, I just email whoever needs the information.

Most of the time, we try to be two steps ahead of the chapter and the university. It takes a lot of planning to make sure deadlines are made to keep the International office happy, CCI happy, and events are at convenient times to keep members happy.

I love it! It's so rewarding to put in all that hard work and planning to have a successful event, semester, and year! And I get to work with fantastic people. I'm talking about other officers and members, duh! Seriously, you all are so fantastic!

Ok, now i'm ready to get back to Trinity bc i miss you all!

Officers are going to have our summer meeting Sunday, so you all will definitely hear from me soon with all the important dates for next year!

Here's a choir meme for funzies-

Nyan Nyan Nyan

For those of you who are enjoying summer, but find you don't have a lot going on, let this video fill the void. Playing this video at all times will make your life much more interesting.

You know a video is important when YouTube gives it its own custom progress bar. If you want, you can also combine the song with just about any video and it will make it better. It even makes Slipknot worth watching (zing?) as seen below.

You know you loved this.

Hand Symphony!

Hand Symphony!

It's really exciting! you pick the different hands and they do different rhythms and you can make your own beat. Change up the hands for a latin or hip hop feel.
I thought it was fun and hope you do too!

I asked Brian about Pooh Phi

Hey Brian, what ever happened to Pooh Phi?

Pooh Phi? Ohhh POOH PHI oh man. I had one. He was a Winnie the Pooh with a Mu Phi Jersey. You guys don't have him?

Nope

(pensive look) I don't know what happened to him! Someone must have took him!

I am contributing to this blog. Look at my contribution.

Okay, so a couple weeks ago, I volunteered to help make contributions to the Mu Phi blog we've got going on here. I thought, this is great; I've got a venue through which I can add constructive posts to our group and help add to discourse or something. In any case, I was looking forward to helping out and stuff.

Then yesterday, it came to my attention that I hadn't actually done anything. Not a single post at all. So I decided that I needed to contribute something. So then in between trips to Storage Mart, I decided to actually put something into this blog, you know, to show my dedication to Mu Phi and all that.

So for the sake of giving this blog post a point, here's a little behind-the-scenes look at how one of the most important aspects of your weekly Mu Phi meeting note emails is made: the YouTube video. Oh man, we're all so excited now!

So as most of you are hopefully aware, just about every weekly email I've sent you all since August has had a link to a YouTube video. There is no real reason that I do this. I think I did it once early on, and decided to stick with it. And if you remember correctly, since you all follow my emails that closely, when the new pledge class started receiving emails, I gave a short explanation as to what kind of videos I choose. Basically, I tend to go with either an 80's music video or just something completely stupid. Now the stupid stuff (Gimme Pizza, Baby Monkey Riding on a Pig, I'm sure you remember all of these) I'll get to later. I like my thought-process with those 80's music videos a little better.

Now I don't go with just any 80's song though. Again, for no real reason, I've come up with a certain list of criteria that these videos must follow to make it into the notes. First off, the video must be a song or somewhat music related. Go ahead and look back at my emails. They're all songs! Boom! That's right! I was keeping it in da music with mah videos! Bet you didn't even think of that!

Anyway, as far as the music videos go, the second criteria is that the song must be good. If you look at all those music videos, you'll see that at least in my humble opinion, all of the actual songs are all good. You may disagree, but remember, you do not write Mu Phi notes, so your opinion means nothing.

Now you would think my next criteria would be that the song must be from the 80's. But that's not completely true. I've let The Ramones, The Proclaimers, Metallica, and so on slide, just because again, they fall under the whole good-song thing, plus, they were close enough to the 80's.

Also, though I don't always stick with this, I like to go with an actual music video rather than something like concert footage. The music videos, especially those made in the 80's with their weird visual effects and forced plot lines are just more fun to watch. This is why ZZ Top made it into the emails multiple times this year; because their music videos are the best and are what all other music videos should aspire to be.

But you know, there are plenty of songs that I've considered putting into the notes, but refrained, not because they slightly miss meeting all of these criteria, but because they see the rule I'm trying to enforce, and not just fail to meet it, they completely destroy it and then laugh in its face. Take Devo for example. When you think of cheesy 80's music videos, Devo normally comes up. So why after going on about how much I like 80's music videos, did I neglect to include a single Devo video this entire year? Well take a look at this right here and tell me that you'd honestly be okay with me sending this out to all of you late at night on a Monday night. You know, just before you go to sleep.

And you have now lost the will to live.

So yeah, I actually put a lot of thought into what video I include in the Mu Phi notes email. But when I don't I give you this.

I think I've written enough now. To those of you who read all of this, congratulations. You could have spent this time studying or packing or doing something more productive. Instead, you read about 80's music videos and how much Devo creeps out the world. Good work.

Recital Week!

We thought last week was a busy one!

Last Saturday was the composition recital. Mu Phi members (of past and present) performed numerous Trinity composers' work, including work by Maria O'Connor.

Wednesday at 7:30, Lauren Falconi rocked her sophomore violin recital

and Friday was a busy day:
at 12:30, the Chamber Singers performed at a lunch for some of the biggest Trinity donors
at 5:00 Jessica Mackey had her senior piano recital
and at 7:30 Katie Burchfield gave her senior organ recital.


Great job to everyone this week!

Good Luck on Finals too!

PC 08

If you all managed to catch a glimpse of the slideshow back by the food, I hope you got to see some of the gems I found. I'm not going to lie, I creeped on all the seniors since the beginning of time (their Mu Phi time, that is). Here are some of the milestones for this group. (Just know that I creeped out of love <3) Enjoy!

Rush PC '08

Initiation '08

At the Symphony

Mu Phi Campout

Murder Mystery Fall '09

Senior Night '09

Initiation '10

Initiation '11

Senior Night '11

Mu Phi Lovin Seniors! You are loved and will be missed!

Katie, Cristina, Jessica, Ashley, Brent, Rachel, & Will                                                                                                                 

Seniors :)

Literally just back from senior night and I'm already thinking about how much I'm going to miss all of you.

I remember when I came to Trinity, I was always worried about getting picked on as a freshman. I guess it's just the paranoia in me. But that never happened. And going into my sophomore year I was even more optimistic about how much better this year was going to be than my last.

Everyone seemed so welcoming no matter what. Whether it was a wave or a smile or a conversation in the music lounge, things just always seemed to be bright.

The seniors that I got to know better this year inspired me more than I could have ever thought. First of all, you all are so talented and inspire me to be a better performer. I've always had issues with feeling like I was any good at my instrument, but after watching you all perform and seeing how hard you all work...I've wanted to be so much better. Also, each of you has shown me (and many others no doubt) how caring and compassionate you can be. I would really like to say some personal things to the seniors that I got to know better this year. I would tell them in person, but I'm so awkward. Let's face it...it wouldn't come out right in the slightest.

Jess-The moment I heard you play, I've always looked up to the way you perform. Flawless (at least it seems to be :) ). And then when we would have conversations with other people in the music lounge, I got to see how personable you were as well. You always listened to what other people said and genuinely cared. Just those smiles and waves when we'd see each other on campus went a long way for me. Especially on days that were a little more gloomy than the rest.

Rachel D-I had always known that you were in choir, but I remember I was stunned when I first heard you sing in one of McNeil's voice recitals. I guess it's just always an experience when you first hear someone sing, but you really do have beautiful and unique voice. Also, you are literally one of the sweetest people I have ever met. It was always so easy to have a conversation with you and I don't remember ever feeling uncomfortable around you. You always seemed open to speaking your mind and listening to others opinions.

Cristina-I honestly thought you were going to forget who I was when you went abroad for a semester :P I was always thinking "oh, she's too cool for me. It's not a big deal if she doesn't remember who I am." But I was so flattered when you did. You're always so much fun to be around and you have become one of my favorite performers to watch. You make all of it looks so easy and effortless. I love your happy-go-lucky attitude about things and I hope to be more like that in the future. It's like when you walk into a room, everyone becomes happier. Don't forget about me when you're a famous singer/dancer!

Katie-I have had such a great time getting to know you. I love your honesty and your willingness to just say what you feel and not care what people think about it. I also love how quirky you are and embrace it. Whenever I would talk to you, I'd always feel better about things I had been a bit self-conscious about or not willing to say before. Whether you saw it or not, you really gave me a confidence to embrace who I am and not sacrifice it for anyone else's sake. Your performances are mesmerizing to watch. You also make your playing look effortless and I hope that I can do that with my playing as well.

Brent-Brent, Brent...where do I even begin? I remember when we ushered some concert last semester and I didn't really know you very well, but you would still strike up conversation with me. For some reason, people don't usually do that with me so, it meant a lot. I wish I had gotten to know you better sooner because you really are such a down-to-earth and humble person. Those qualities seem to not be present in as many people as they should these days. You're especially humble about your playing. I love that. You're so talented, but it doesn't seem like you let that boost any ego that you have at all. And now...do I need to mention the laugh? Of course I do. Whether it was in the music lounge or heard from the 3rd story of the music building or in Rachel's case....across campus, it's so recognizable and brought a smile to me even on my worst days.

So, again...thank you to all of you for the way you've touched my life. I know you've done the same and much more for others throughout your time here. We're all going to miss you and wish you all the best as you continue your studies and careers. Thank goodness for Facebook so we can all know the great things you will accomplish in the future!

Recital Friday

First we had Brent's Senior Organ Recital at 5:00 in the Marguerite B Parker Chapel (the 'cooler spelling' according to the organist)
Congrats Brent!


and then the Disney themed voice recital of Dr. McNeil's Studio at 7:30 in Ruth Taylor Recital Hall
Great Job to:
Rachel D, Laura, Rachel L, Jonathan, Heather, Andrew, Kelley, (alum Lizzy, & faculty advisor Dr. McNeil!)!!

Followed by studio dinner afterwards (I still consider myself part of the studio even though I took a year off [due to being abroad and then having a super busy semester dedicated to Spanish], but I will return in the fall) that consisted of mariachi bands, the spurs game, and lots of laughs!




Congratulations and Great Job to all the performers today!

Theory in every day life

I geeked out a little bit when I stumbled upon this
(Yea, I do have a stumble upon account and have a common search of 'Music Theory')

Which one do you notice the most?

I know I'm guilty of the descending major 3rd

Katy here. So cool that we have a blog now!

My first post!

Hey Mu phiers! Carly here :) just wanted to say "hello" and write my first post to let you all know that I'm going to contribute to this blog too and hope to do a really great job. But I do need some help from you all, what would you all like to see from me on here? Comment and let me know! Anything to help would be great :)

1:26 pm

Will responded to an email

I made a Website!

At the Student Organization Training, everyone decided to go to the event planning session and I went all by myself to the Publicity and Publication seminar and I think I won.
Firstly, because it taught me how to do
THIS
I'm so proud of it!
I made a website with real pages and links and pictures and text and yea!
If you can't see it, it's because it's only viewable to those in the trinity.edu domain for now, but just imagine something beautiful and professional and awesome full of the Mu Phi love I poured into it.

The session was also worthy because I got the inspiration for this blog, learned how to do google forms (magic!), all the other 'googly' things that Tmail lets us do!

Best waste of time Ever

This is probably the most fantastic thing ever. I found it here- so thank you to whoever made it

In search of a mascot

In the early 2000s, we had Pooh Phi.

And now we have no mascot!

Mu Phi... Moo? Cow?
     No, it's pronounced 'Mew' like a kitten, not 'Moo'- this has been brought to
     my attention and i've been hounded to change my pronunciation.

Speaking of kittens, Emily has that adorable little tiger wearing a Mu Phi jersey. But Tigers are trinity's mascot, not Mu Phi's

Scooby Mu? That's another one that has been thrown around.

Meerkat has been suggested. Mu Phi Meerkats... I like the alliteration going on, but are meerkats musical? Was Pooh Phi musical?

I need to find the story behind Pooh Phi. Maybe I'll ask Beta Kappa alumni and current theory/composition professor Dr. Nelson.

We have a Blog!

Let me know if you want access to post about all the awesome stuff we do as a chapter!

-Tell stories about how cool the members are
-post pictures from our events
-ideas for future events
-share cool musical findings
-learn something neat? share!

The blog will help alumni stay in contact and see what we're up to (instead of them creeping on our facebook statuses) and connect with other, younger chapters that need ideas on how to become as successful as us!