Senior Jake Rose can play the piano, all the saxophones, clarinets, concert percussion which includes the timpani, the marimba, the snare drum and sing. He is also a multi-percussionist, the captain of the drumline. Rose also does theatre, and he is playing the role of Mad Hatter in the school play “Alice in Wonderland”. He is the guy who brought back the music and composition theory class last year.

Rose played the piano and the saxophone, which he believes he is best at. He learned how to play the piano on his own. He started percussion in high school, did marching band and currently plays the marching quad. Now he focuses on practicing his vocals. Rose believes music is an emotion, and acting is understand and becoming the person you are playing. He even cried in the audition for Ball State. He tried not to cry, but he was fighting it like the character.

“You have to understand the tone, and the feel of the pieces you play so you can express them,” Rose said.

Rose plans to major in music, if not, he plans to minor in music and composition and theory. If he is not able to become a musician, and if he gets accepted at the Bachelors Fine Arts and Acting Program, he plans to pursue his acting career. It’s really hard to get into Ball State, due to the competition being hard, Rose says. People judge on physicality just as the acting talent.

Rose says that people make fun of him, because of the way he moves around while expressing music. For him, music is one of the best forms of expressing himself. He feels like it takes out the emotion if he do not move around and express those feelings, he says it’s like a machine just pressing buttons.

“Music is expression; it’s an emotion,” Rose said. “It’s pretty awesome. It definitely made me a better person. It gives me that outlet for whatever emotion I feel. It could be positive, it could be negative, it could be anger and more, but music is like a plug that lets your emotion out, and you can just lose yourself in it.”