{"id":2768,"date":"2018-04-09T18:50:09","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T18:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/?p=2768"},"modified":"2018-04-09T18:50:09","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T18:50:09","slug":"tstc-students-place-third-in-statewide-talent-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/?p=2768","title":{"rendered":"TSTC Students Place Third in Statewide Talent Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>(ROSENBERG) – Texas State Technical College students John Ward and Brandon Felts competed at the college\u2019s annual talent competition finals in Waco on March 21 and placed third statewide. TSTC hosted the talent competition in conjunction with \u201cTexas Music Cafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students advanced to the finals after being chosen to represent the Fort Bend County campus.<\/p>\n

Ward said the experience offered him a chance to see more of TSTC and learn more about the college.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a great experience,\u201d Ward said. \u201cBeing with a bunch of other students from different locations in Texas definitely allowed me to get a sense of what the overall TSTC community was like. I liked seeing all these young adults and adults wanting to better themselves and also tap into their hobbies, things that they don\u2019t necessarily assume they\u2019ll be involved in at a technical college. It\u2019s great because it goes to show that TSTC can appreciate more than just technical minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Ward on guitar and vocals, and Felts on drums, this year was the first time students from the Fort Bend County campus competed. Ward hopes they can inspire others to join in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrandon and I were the only ones (from TSTC in Fort Bend County),\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully what we\u2019ve done this year can inspire and kind of get people to bring in the things they love, as opposed to just going to school and following the routine. I just want to inspire those to not be afraid, because what these types of opportunities do is allow you to network.\u201d<\/p>\n

Felts agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish a lot of people could step up because I know there\u2019s a lot of talent out there, but people are kind of shy and timid,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt that John and I could kind of be the first to excite people, and maybe it might start a change in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The duo, both HVAC Technology students, only began playing together a few days before the first competition. In the four days before the mid-February competition held in Harlingen, they wrote the song they performed. They had just the weekend before the final competition to complete their second song.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the finals, we got such a late notice — we only had three days to practice,\u201d Felts said. \u201cWe wrote the song on Friday, practiced it Saturday and Sunday, went through it again Monday, and the show was on Tuesday. It was quite a challenge because not only did we have that, but we also kept up with school. It helped us succeed and achieve. It just proved to us how good of musicians we are on such a short notice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ward draws influence from funk, soul and R&B artists and cited Jack Johnson and Allen Stone as some of the artists who inspired him to learn guitar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something about the interpretation of soul music,\u201d he said. \u201cYou listen to the greats who did funk, and you hear the pain or the joy in their voice when they sing. There\u2019s so much more than just a simple vibrato — there\u2019s raspiness, there\u2019s pain, joy, love, hate. All of that ties into what soul and funk can do, and that\u2019s my preferred genre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Felts appreciates rock music. He enjoys artists such as Chevelle, Breaking Benjamin and Avenged Sevenfold. He named Avenged Sevenfold\u2019s late drummer Jimmy \u201cThe Rev\u201d Sullivan as one musician who has made a big impact on his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the day when I had bands, I wanted to be just like him,\u201d he said. \u201cI wrote everything. I wrote guitar parts, I wrote drum parts, I wrote lyrics. Not many people know that drummers can do stuff like that, and that\u2019s what Jimmy did. He inspired me to do it all. He sang, he drummed, and he wrote most of the music. He\u2019s my biggest influence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third-place winners took home a microphone, a DJ set and headphones. But to Ward, it wasn\u2019t about the prizes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m for the experience and the people that I\u2019m able to make connections with,\u201d Ward said. \u201cI just enjoy being around people who do what they love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Felts said he was happy to have built a friendship with Ward over the experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying with someone, you have to have a certain type of energy, and you just have to feel it with each other. And that\u2019s how we felt — even in just that short time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are planning on starting up music and hopefully writing something. We just want to play and enjoy and have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTexas Music Cafe\u201d is an hourlong, magazine-style PBS program that is recorded all over the state of Texas in front of live audiences and broadcast nationally on radio, TV and the internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(ROSENBERG) – Texas State Technical College students John Ward and Brandon Felts competed at the college\u2019s annual talent competition finals in Waco on March 21 and placed third statewide. TSTC hosted the talent competition in conjunction with \u201cTexas Music Cafe.\u201d The students advanced to the finals after being chosen to represent the Fort Bend County […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fort-bend"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2770,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2768\/revisions\/2770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}