About
Hola! I'm Juliana, a mechanical engineering student from Denver, Colorado at the Colorado School of Mines. I am in the McBride Honors Program obtaining a minor in Public Affairs, and studying abroad in Spain this semester (Spring 2023). As part of the McBride Honors Program, I am pursuing my practicum (a 3-credit hour independent study, through "learning by doing") while abroad in Spain by traveling around the country during my semester to learn more about and immerse myself in the jazz culture here. A bit about my musical background: I started playing instruments at the age of 6, starting with piano, guitar, drums, and recorder in private lessons. I then joined the band at my middle school, where I learned trumpet, and around that time also taught myself flute, clarinet, saxophone, and various auxiliary percussion instruments. I grew up listening to jazz, but had never played it until my first year of high school. I continued with the trumpet to play in the jazz band there. I fell in love with the genre immediately: the improvisation, the unconventionality, and that it was so unlike playing any other genre of music I had ever played before. Playing a jazz piece is never the same each time, and the musicians playing it together develop much deeper relationships with each other as they communicate both about the piece and through the music than they would with most other genres. Through my history playing jazz, I have become captivated by the community that this genre of music has created, and how much different it is compared to most other genres. After deciding to study abroad in Spain, I thought it would be fascinating to go to some jazz shows and see what it's like here. Then, once I joined the McBride Honors community and after a lot of brainstorming, I decided that I wanted to use this same idea and run with it as my practicum. Follow my blog to see what I've researched and what I'm up to!
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