By Alex Graf
Managing Editor
Teddy the Toro finally gets to shake his moneymaker to live music, as a new CSUDH Pep Band has formed and is working to spread the word about it around campus and hopefully recruit new members.
Earlier this month, Pep Band Director Dr. Chika Inoue led a handful of pep band musicians in one of many impromptu performances across campus, in which it performed songs like “We Found Love” by Rihanna and the theme from “Ghostbusters.”
Inoue said the band is still in its early stages and wants to expand its roster and begin regularly playing at sporting events, if possible.
“We started [the pep band] last spring and it’s slowly picking up,” Inoue said. “We started off with just a few of us and now we’re trying to get more people in. We are done with basketball games, so we’re trying to figure out which athletics could use us.”
While the pep band is a new addition to CSUDH, it turns out our campus is not the only CSU with some kind of pep band. Cal State Fullerton has a university band for non-music majors and Cal State Los Angeles also has a pep band.
Pep band members play a variety of musical instruments, from brass instruments like trumpet and trombone to woodwind instruments like saxophone and percussion instruments like snare drums.
Jason Farr, a music major and euphonium player for the pep band, said the pep band is in the process of becoming a club in order to “open up more to the school” and “get more eyes and ears on the program.”
“You don’t even have to be a music major to be in the pep band,” Farr said. “If you love music and you want to play, this is the place for you. There are people who don’t know how to play at all, but they just want to learn, and we welcome those people with open arms.”
