Texas A&M University will soon welcome a new home for the sounds of Aggieland. The Music Activities Center will accommodate more than 1,300 student musicians from the university orchestras, choral groups and bands, including the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band. The facility will feature more practice spaces and amenities, including soundproof rooms, lockers for instrument storage, an artificial turf drill field and state-of-the-art rehearsal halls. The center will also offer students, former students and visitors an opportunity to learn about the music traditions of Texas A&M.



Learn how you can support the Music Activies Center with a gift to the Texas A&M Foundation.

The Texas A&M Foundation is a nonprofit organization that receives major gifts and manages endowments for Texas A&M University. This year, the Foundation will provide $77.9 million for scholarships, faculty support, leadership programs and construction projects. Request your A&M Support Kit to learn how you can make a difference at Texas A&M through a gift to the Foundation.

The money is nice, but kind of sad there will be no more EV Adams bandhall or Joe T Haney drillfield. Those were great ways to honor great men, and great ways to keep the memories of their contributions alive for every class.

I wonder what kind of a BQ would think themselves more important than that legacy.

The lobby of the new building will pay homage to the musical traditions and history of Texas A&M.

There are also a number of naming opportunities available in the Music Activities Center, and we welcome individuals to honor those who had an impact on their time at Texas A&M or programs that are special to them.

See the naming opportunities available in the Music Activities Center.

Agree with "A Person" that the new Drill Field should bear Col. Haney's name.
Also concur that the Aggie Band Rehearsal Hall should bear the name of EV Adams.

This is easily resolved if folks want to do right.

The Col. Haney Drill Field, sponsored by [An Ag with 3M].

The EV Adams Rehearsal Hall, sponsored by [An Ag with 3M].

Otherwise those donors may face the same skepticism on naming issues as
1) Gov. Perry with regard to the Academic Building, and
2) those folks who put their name on the Flag Room, which is still, regardless, the Flag Room.

Giving opportunities provided are too rich for me.

That would be the way to approach it. This happened in the MSC, where a rich donor paid to have the Student Programs Office named in honor of J Wayne Stark, who made the MSC as a student organization what it is today. The donors were honored in the plaque, but the Office bears the name of a monumental person in the organizations's history

Maybe that is why the building/drill field are being relocated to George Bush/Coke St. So that way someone can donate the money and get their name on the new structures and not step on toes and make alot of people upset by renaming existing structures even though the new facilities will serve the same purpose as before. Bye Bye Duncan Field, hello Duncan Garden.

My concern with all this is that the FTAB will just be sharing a building that will be 'controlled' by some Liberal Arts music department types. Losing control of your building and practice drill field smells to me like initial/small steps towards the 'transfer' of what we all used to think of the Aggie Band from the Corps of Cadets to the College of Liberal Arts. Which, at that time, the Aggie Band as we know it will cease to exist.

And that I do not, will not, forgive.

The party line is that 'nothing will change'. We will see. All these non-reg musical organizations have existed for years on campus and now they get a 'home'. What organizational/directional pressure will this new 'home' put on the FTAB? Who tells who what to do? And how to do it? When campus/political pressure starts a push for not requiring Aggie Bandsmen to be members of the Corps of Cadets THEN you know why.

Marketing/Financial forces at A&M seem to be trying very hard to create a Kyle Field experience that looks like every other college stadium out there. I don't need to list items. March In seems destined for the dustbin. The FTAB is one of the last vestiges of Old Army left and has a big 'X' target affixed. Some folks care about things like this, more and more folks don't as the years go by.

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My concern with all this is that the FTAB will just be sharing a building that will be 'controlled' by some Liberal Arts music department types. Losing control of your building and practice drill field smells to me like initial/small steps towards the 'transfer' of what we all used to think of the Aggie Band from the Corps of Cadets to the College of Liberal Arts. Which, at that time, the Aggie Band as we know it will cease to exist.

And that I do not, will not, forgive.

The party line is that 'nothing will change'. We will see. All these non-reg musical organizations have existed for years on campus and now they get a 'home'. What organizational/directional pressure will this new 'home' put on the FTAB? Who tells who what to do? And how to do it? When campus/political pressure starts a push for not requiring Aggie Bandsmen to be members of the Corps of Cadets THEN you know why.

Marketing/Financial forces at A&M seem to be trying very hard to create a Kyle Field experience that looks like every other college stadium out there. I don't need to list items. March In seems destined for the dustbin. The FTAB is one of the last vestiges of Old Army left and has a big 'X' target affixed. Some folks care about things like this, more and more folks don't as the years go by.

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Wow...just...wow...

Lemme ask you a question: who is currently the director of the our Symphonic Winds? That would be...oh yeah, that's right Capt. Almany. And he also directs the concert band. Director of the Symphonic band and the orchestra? Dr. Sikes (who, you may recall, was associate director of FTAB before he left to become "Dr." Sikes). And Dr. Rhea is still in charge of the FTAB.

So all, not just some, but ALL of the major "non-reg" musical organizations are led by men who have strong ties to FTAB. I think you're getting a weeee bit paranoid. Incidentally, where do you think these ensembles practice? They've been in Adams Band Hall for years, so it's not like this is a new development. This is a project that's needed to happen for a long time. You can barely fit FTAB into the hall as it is, and there's simply no storage left.

Now, in a move that may surprise you from a non-reg, I WHOLE-HEARTEDLY agree that it should retain the name of E.V. Adams, and Haney Drill Field. These two men are pillars of the musical heritage of A&M. Not just from the standpoint of FTAB, but ALL of the music played at A&M. I am very disappointed in those decisions. But I think we can put aside the fears of a liberal arts takeover of FTAB. I don't see that happening at ALL.

Naming fields/buildings is a PR money deal. Doesn't mean much to the kids who actually use them. The drill field next to Dorm 11 lasted decades without a formal 'name' and it worked just fine. LTC Adams would have scoffed personally at the idea of naming a building after himself. This only happened after he had been dead for at least a decade. It was my privilege to know the man, you did not.

Dunn, Adams, and Tolar were the only Directors of the Aggie Band who were actually real military officers; Haney and Rhea were TSG 'shake and bakes', receiving a honorary 'rank' as a purely ceremonial gesture from the State of Texas. I don't know much about the other/current guys leading musical organizations but I suspect they are much more closer to profs than anything else. Good for them. Profs come and go, and are almost always more loyal to their academic, not the school.

As someone who never spent a minute in the Aggie Band you miss the point of what my concern is. Which is what is the long term 'chain of command' or in civilian terms, organizational structure, of the Aggie Band in the future? As long as the Aggie Band is part of the Corps of Cadets and the Director of same is accountable to the Commandant, I am fine. If, at some time in the future, that the Director of the Aggie Band is accountable to the College of Liberal Arts, then I am not fine. Tim Rhea is walking a fine line currently, trying to appease both factions - those who want the Aggie Band to exist like it is forever and those who would rather it look/act like some generic college band a la EA NCAA 2014 football.

I am sure our current Commandant, who is a former bandsman, understands the politics of all this and is working to keep the Aggie Band the way he knows it should be. He is not the only 'player' at the table, however. He has my absolute support. As does the Aggie Band.

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Naming fields/buildings is a PR money deal. Doesn't mean much to the kids who actually use them. The drill field next to Dorm 11 lasted decades without a formal 'name' and it worked just fine. LTC Adams would have scoffed personally at the idea of naming a building after himself. This only happened after he had been dead for at least a decade. It was my privilege to know the man, you did not.

Dunn, Adams, and Tolar were the only Directors of the Aggie Band who were actually real military officers; Haney and Rhea were TSG 'shake and bakes', receiving a honorary 'rank' as a purely ceremonial gesture from the State of Texas. I don't know much about the other/current guys leading musical organizations but I suspect they are much more closer to profs than anything else. Good for them. Profs come and go, and are almost always more loyal to their academic, not the school.

As someone who never spent a minute in the Aggie Band you miss the point of what my concern is. Which is what is the long term 'chain of command' or in civilian terms, organizational structure, of the Aggie Band in the future? As long as the Aggie Band is part of the Corps of Cadets and the Director of same is accountable to the Commandant, I am fine. If, at some time in the future, that the Director of the Aggie Band is accountable to the College of Liberal Arts, then I am not fine. Tim Rhea is walking a fine line currently, trying to appease both factions - those who want the Aggie Band to exist like it is forever and those who would rather it look/act like some generic college band a la EA NCAA 2014 football.

I am sure our current Commandant, who is a former bandsman, understands the politics of all this and is working to keep the Aggie Band the way he knows it should be. He is not the only 'player' at the table, however. He has my absolute support. As does the Aggie Band.

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You're correct in that I didn't know LTC Adams, but I don't see where that has much to do with anything. I also appreciate the clarification regarding the ranks of the existing directors, that had confused me a little bit.

But I believe I do understand your concern, however poorly I may have approached it (and I apologize for the "snark" in my original post). One does not have to be a former member to understand,and appreciate, the truly unique nature of the Aggie Band. And given some of the recent changes to the game day environment at Kyle Field that I read about (1500 miles away makes it tough to attend anymore), I can understand apprehension regarding FTAB's identity. My counter to your concern is/was that while the building may be new, the situation is not. The University Bands and FTAB have co-existed in the current band hall for quite a while now, and BOTH have thrived quite successfully. I believe the current evidence shows that FTAB is as large as its been in quite some time, so the notion that this co-existence is detrimental to the Aggie Band is false.

It is true that we cannot predict who will be calling the shots in the future, and there is no way either you, nor I, nor the Commandant can promise that some bonehead won't try to "de-regulate" FTAB. But I feel that it would be a significantly more complicated endeavor than just saying "FTAB is under liberal arts." And there are enough Aggie Bandsmen (and non-regs) who'd raise all 9 levels of hell over such a move, I don't think anyone will try in the foreseeable future. Why would they want to? I would submit that the Aggie Band is, in its current state, far too much of a draw/attraction for University PR for anyone to want to mess with. You would be giving up a huge PR tool and money maker by losing that uniqueness.

As a former member of quite a few of the University Bands, the Aggie Band has my full support, as well. I sometimes get this feeling that some here feel that non-regs are the enemy. We're not. Most of my friends and I respect the hell outta FTAB and what they do, and do not want to see them change from what they are now. And I do not believe that this new building will lead the demise of FTAB.