This week’s Farmer Focus is on junior region band member and trumpet section leader Samuel Ahn.

SNAPSHOTS

Favorite color: Green

Dream college: Baylor

Favorite food: Anything Korean

Worst fear: Losing all my friends

Favorite sport: Basketball

ZOOMING IN

Q: How has band influenced your life?

A: “Band has completely taken over my life in a good way. I’ve learned so many life lessons that you wouldn’t think you could learn simply from being in band like leadership, teamwork and self-motivation. Especially being a section leader, it just has so much responsibility handling 20 to 30 people and making sure I do my job [while] teaching them how to march and to be better players in general.”

Q: What other instrument would you play if you didn’t play trumpet?

A: “I would probably play trombone because I like the sound of it better than the rest of the instruments. I haven’t heard any live professional trombone players playing, but I’ve heard a lot of good recordings and I feel like it is something extremely hard to play and once you can play it right, it’s one of the most beautiful instruments. When it comes to woodwind instruments, I don’t really care for them…they don’t sound appealing to me and in my opinion have no place in a full band setting.”

Q: Considering that music is really big in your life, what college do you want to go to and what do you want to major in?

A: “I plan on going to Baylor University and major in Biology and go into pre-med, but also plan to possibly minor in music performance or education. I want to find someway to keep music in my life after high school because it’s such a huge part of me.”

Q: What are your outside hobbies?

A: “My outside hobbies are sleeping of course, playing basketball or any sport in general/watching sports, and watching food network. It’s actually really exciting. Also drawing and playing music like piano when [there’s] nothing else to do.”

Q: What type of music do you like and what piece of music has been your favorite to play in a concert band setting?

A: “My favorite music to listen to is mostly classical and Christian oriented. But the selections we’ve played in school band have not been that exciting and if I have to pick a favorite, it would be Morning Star by David Maslanka. I’m also in a GDYO (Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra) which is like an outside of school band organization full of the best high school players in Dallas and I think my favorite piece from there is Tchaikovsky’s 4th symphony.”

Q: Do you have any music role models?

A: “A musical role model for me would be Witten Marclas because I envy his technique and tone. Also Ryan Anthony for similar reasons and mainly as a trumpet performance model.”

Q: How has music overall impacted your life? Where do you think you would be without music?

A: “Music has impacted my life by giving it direction, possible opportunities to where my life can go, what careers I can take and just who I am in general. I honestly don’t know where I would be without music because it’s just a huge part of me. I fell in love with music when I first started taking piano lessons and then middle school came and that’s when I took up trumpet and have been in band ever since.”