The
Title Run
Tiger HI-LINE
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Men’s basketball makes it to 4A semifinals, brings home 4th place Follow us on Twitter @ tigerhiline, Facebook at TigerHilineOnline and on our website at www.hiline.cfschools.org
Volume 53 Edition 22
CF students create own music The recent pops concerts have highlighted the many musical talents of CFHS students, but one still that may have gone overlooked is that many of these same students have also developed talents in writing the songs they perform. Evan Fairbanks, a senior who has been in a few bands and has even recorded two CDs, writes all kinds of music. “I have so much respect for nearly every genre that I just end up borrowing elements from all of them,” Fairbanks said. Fairbanks just loves writing music that can’t be labeled. “I don't like labeling my music because once you declare yourself to be a certain genre then you can get trapped and just end up limiting yourself, when in reality, music is selfexpression and nobody just feels one emotion their whole lives. The songs should be spectral,” Fairbanks said. Inspiration for music can come from anywhere. Sophomore John Nicol also loves to write his own music. He has written seven songs, including "You," "Papa's Song" and "Resolutions." “Probably my favorite song I've written would be called "Spotlight." My favorite lyrics I’ve ever written are from this song. They are, ‘I've been told and told, don't follow the broken road, but I went anyway.’ I wrote it after I had been told that music probably won't get me anywhere in life. I decided that I need to write a song to prove them wrong, and that's the theme of the song,” Nicol said. Fairbanks said he draws ideas from many sources. “Inspiration is everywhere. Literally everything in my life is inspiring in some way to write music. A lot of my music is written based on poems that I've made, but everything works. I'll draw a picture based on how the music makes me feel, and that'll
give me an idea for lyrics. Anything can be a song as long as it's passionate and powerful in some way,” Fairbanks said. Performing can be a really terrifying yet exhilarating experience. Especially performing original music. Junior Abigail Rowland wrote and performed an original song at the pops concert this year. “I wanted to perform the song because I wanted to dedicate the song to all the seniors, who I’m going to miss a lot next year. Performing it was a little scary. I had never played in front of so many people before singing my own song. Rowland got the inspiration for the song when she had to move away the summer before her sophomore year. “The name of the song is ‘you taught me how to dance,’ and I wrote it for all my friends in Colorado right before we moved away to Iowa,” Rowland said. Some students have found the songwriting process to be challenging. “Recently I've had trouble putting chords to go with the lyrics I write, but usually it's more difficult the other way around, putting lyrics with the chords. I would also say that another difficulty would be persevering. I often come up with a great set of lyrics, but then just give up on the song because I can't think of any more. Then it gets lost, or I forget about it. I hate when that happens,” Nicol said. Perseverance is key in writing music. “There's always that song that you just can't get to sound the way that you want it to. It just doesn't quite have that punch or that hook or that feeling that you want it to possess, but challenging yourself is always rewarding. Once you master a new technique or style, it's so amazing to realize how much you've improved,” Fairbanks said. Music can always connect with people in some way. “You shouldn't
worry about if somebody else might or might not understand it because it's abstract or really personal. The song is about what you're trying to convey, and there will be people who can connect with it. I mean, we've never been cheated on by any of Taylor Swift's exboyfriends, but we still feel for her when she sings about them,” Fairbanks said. All three of these students have a passion for music. “Music is how you amplify Submitted Photo your feelings in a positive Senior Evan Fairbanks has written songs for a number way. If you're of projects, including this band that is a member of. happy, you so incredible, and performing your own play happy songs and feel better. If you're sad or angry, you play sad or an- songs live is one of the greatest feelings gry songs and feel better. Writing mu- ever. Even if the crowd thinks you suck, they're wrong, because you rock. That's sic is a way to explain yourself in a way that.” that can't really be explained. You just feel it, and it feels so right,” Fairbanks By Staff Writer Lauren said. “The fact that you're creating NICKERSON something that you can be proud of is
After months of rehearsal, it’s showtime for the two jazz bands and two concert bands. The band pops concert will be held on Tuesday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m in the high school gym. “How to Train Your Dragon,” “Shrek Dance Party” and “Feeling Good,” which features CFHS graduate Rhys Talbot singing, are only a few of the many songs the band has been preparing for over two months. “Both of the bands have been sight
reading different music for a couple months now. Then we voted and decided which pieces we would be most excited to play. In one of the songs, there is some sweet choreography, so we have been preparing a lot for that,” senior Julie Doyle said. The most rewarding part of the pops concert for band students is the outcome of all the hard work put into preparing for it. “We generally put our pops repertoire together in a month, so getting it
to sound really good in a few months is always a challenge, but it is super rewarding when you play it and it sounds great. The applause afterwards is also awesome,” senior Bennett Ford said. The pops concert wouldn’t be as much of a success without the audience. “The best part of the show is always the interaction with the crowd. It’s awesome to hear when they really connect with a song or when they laugh at the emcees,” Doyle said.
Band pops concert promises fun
“We want to fill up the gym since this is the first year we’re doing one show. We highly encourage everyone to come out and hear two great concert bands as well as our two jazz bands who are really bringing it this year,” Ford said.
By Entertainment Editor Lindsey
DAVIS
2
The
OPINION
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Our View Beyond Pandora
Congratulations deserving for CFHS Regional Champion robotics team after recent successes in Duluth contest Cheering, loud music, packed stands and iPads? The Cedar Falls robotics team dominated this weekend at their regional competition in Duluth, Minn. Technology savvy Cedar Falls students program and drive a robot at the competition to win various points and awards. Freshman Seth Harwood is new to the team this year. “The game is played on a large field with walls at both ends and one pyramid on each side. At the beginning of the match, points can be scored into goals in the walls at each end there are three types of goals; upper, middle and lower, during a 15 second autonomous period,” Harwood said. “Frisbees can be thrown or placed in each of the three goals. Then comes the two-minute ‘teleop’ period in which we drive the robots to collect Frisbees and score points. Points can be scored by putting Frisbees in any of the goals, climbing the pyramids and also putting colored Frisbees in the special goals at the top of the pyramids.” Unlike traditional sports, Harwood explained the allied nature of the game. ”The game is played with
Tiger
one group of three teams, known as an alliance, against another.” Sophomore Lauren Harter has several important duties on the team. “I enjoy working with safety, outreach and award submissions because I can help not only our team, but also others.” Harter is excited about the team’s progress. “We partnered with FRC Team 2169 King TeC, the third seeded alliance captain, and FRC Team 3061 Huskie Robotics to become Regional champions of the first ever Northern Lights Regional.” Not only did they become Regional champions, but the team had other successes at Regionals as well. “We also received the Quality Award Sponsored by Motorola and the be FIRST award sponsored by FRC team 1816 for whomever best exemplifies the core values of FIRST,” Harter said. Harter looks forward to watching her team succeed in upcoming competitions this season. “We’re headed to the 10,000 Lakes Regional in Minneapolis next where we will be competing for the Chairman’s Award. We will also go to the World Championship event held in St. Louis in April,” Harter said.
Contact Us The Tiger Hi-Line is a weekly publication of the journalism classes at Cedar Falls High School, 1015 Division Street, Cedar Falls, Iowa 50613. Our website is www.hiline.cfschools.org. The Hi-Line is distributed to CFHS students on Tuesdays to read during their RCTs fourth period. Columns and letters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hi-Line staff or Cedar Falls Schools. The Hi-Line editorial is presented weekly in the editorial labeled Our View, and it is the view of the majority of the editors listed below. Reader opinions on any topic are welcome and should be sent to The Tiger Hi-Line staff or delivered to room 208. All letters must be signed. Letters must be submitted by 3 p.m. on Thursday for publication in the following Tuesday edition. Letters may not exceed 300 words and may be edited to meet space limitations. Writers should include their contact information for verification. Editor-in-Chief: Maya Amjadi News Editor: Katherine Mayhew Opinion Editor: Maya Amjadi Sports Editor: Jared Hylton Feature Editor: Sandra Omari-Boateng Entertainment Editor: Lindsey Davis Hi-Line Online Editor: Martha Hall Staff Writers: Ana Cunha, Amanda Harwood, Alyssa Jensen, Lauren Nickerson, Kaleb Bengston
HI-LINE
Many sites offering streaming music We’ve all heard of Pandora, that music streaming website and app on iPods, but not many hear of the competitors. I compared many of the most popular, rising and not so popular music streaming websites and applications for mobile devices, and came up with some critical differences between them. To start I’m going to give feedback on the top music streaming website, Pandora. I did a search of 10 songs on their site and found that they did not do individual songs, but instead played songs by artists and music/artists that they deem similar or of the same genre as those I searched. Pandora’s mobile app has all your favorite stations that you can arrange by date or by alphabetical order. The app still has QuickMix instead of the Shuffle, like in the computer app, but it does the same thing. Your stations tab is what the app opens up to, with a new station tab right next to that, which features the search box for other artists, genres or songs. I didn’t like that fact, because I like listening to the artist I searched. Also, they only let you skip so many songs per hour, so if you run into a lot of songs you don’t like and run out of skips, you either have to deal with it or switch to another station. On a more positive note, Pandora has a great range in music and a station for almost all genres and artists. They make the commercials between songs (when they do interrupt your music tuning) entertaining, and they aren’t too long so you can get back to rocking out soon. I also checked out a rising station similar to Pandora; SLACKER, and it is becoming a big competitor. In 2004, SLACKER debuted, but they struggled to launch. In 2006 SLACKER started to take off but still had a hard time comparing to Pandora, the almost monopolised Internet music streaming sensation. They had four million monthly users, but that was only a small fraction of Pandora’s 65 million users a month. SLACKER was even below the new iHeartRadio, which had nearly 50 million users on its app. To try to promote SLACKER, Craig Rechenmacher, SLACKER’s chief marketing officer released this statement: “We had to be honest with where we were in the market-
place. a song is even W e going to leave had to a discernible mark.) The Rdio be disruptive website, and I in the assume the app, m a r spam like crazy k e t with offers and updates on top place, picks and adverand we but needBy Staff Writer Kaleb tisements, ed someBENGSTON you can’t blame them for trying to thing that make some cash. targets our comOverall, Rdio is a good sepetitors and the holes in their lection if you have a song in service.” I enjoyed SLACKER more your mind, or just an artist, and it is free as an app and online than Pandora because it has sign-up and download (you do a wider range in music, and it not have to download the comstayed a lot closer to my search puter version). than Pandora did. I hope Collegehumor, the YouSLACKER will make it’s rise Tube sensation of comedy and and give Pandora a run for it’s parodies, but not solely music money. Vevo, the music video streaming, has its own website now, and it’s really entertainwebsite that Youtube tends to run on, is a great place to ing. It does have an app for find videos and lyric videos of any mobile device, but it is not strictly music. The site has skits, your favorite songs and artists. parodies and vlogs to choose It runs on a simple server that sticks to the search and gives from, but it does not list any serious songs. They are all paroyou the song you want. The dies, so if you are looking for a longer I played around with the streaming website, then this is Vevo app, the more I liked it. The website is very slick, and not what you are looking for. Songza, a site very similar to the videos that do load have Pandora, is a great choice for a excellent sound and video quality, but sadly, the Vevo app streaming website. It gives a search bar for stations that can does not play continuously, so be chosen through genres or you can’t listen to music on the artists, and they are grouped go. My interest quickly waned when I ran into long load- through like songs. Songza has a great range in music and ofing times and different songs than what I had chosen. Vevo fers even more if you sign up. They don’t spam too bad — a is strictly a music video app/ few emails here and there ofwebsite, and its main use is for fering music deals and other downtime entertainment. Rdio, yes it is spelled right, advertisements. Songza, howturned out to be my personal ever, unlike Pandora, does not list how many songs they favorite, and it offers a great have in their database, but search engine and a great range I did the best I could doing in songs and artists. There are an estimated 15 million tracks a wide search of songs from “Chocolate Rain” to “White on the entire website. Trash Party,” “Sound of SiThe sound quality is great, and the layout is simple. It’s lence” to “Downfall of Us All,” Dolly Parton to Lil’ Wayne. I got not hard to navigate the site because they offer a search bar hits on all and concluded that they have an impressive range where you type in the name of in music. It is free all the way the artist/song, and it gives you around, and the sound quality albums, greatest hits, singles is great. It lets you share and and playlists created by fellow Rdio users. The downside, how- connect to Facebook, Twitter and buy it from iTunes, unlike ever, is they spam your email if Pandora. The website is social, you sign up. It’s not really for mobile use, unless you get the but not the app. Pandora has multiple comapp, but according to reviews, petitors, some known, some they complicated the desktop, and they are also quite secre- just learned, and some to be discovered yet. The best is tive about the 320KB content, yet to be seen, and there are and it doesn’t disclose the a myriad of different ways to amount of memory each song get connected to your favorite takes up (though with today’s songs and artists. memory storage, I don’t think
The
Tiger
HI-LINE
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
SPORTS
Men’s basketball takes fourth place, sportsmanship award at state tourney The fifth seeded Cedar Falls Men’s basketball team didn’t quite have the finish to their season that they wanted, but they still brought home plenty of hardware. Cedar Falls won its first game Wednesday afternoon pulling out a 57-46 victory over Sioux City North, the Tiger’s largest lead of the night came early in the third quarter with Cedar Falls on top 35-20. Sioux City North came back to tie the game with just over three minutes remaining in regulation. Senior Kalehl Brown took this opportunity to put his team on his back, scoring eight points down the stretch for Cedar Falls. The second-team AllStater would finish the game with 23 points. The Tigers also got a huge defensive lift from both of their big men. Seniors Ike Boettger and Zach Harvey had four blocks apiece, adding to the team total of 10 on the night. “We’ve always prided ourselves on solid defense and size inside. The blocks really helped. I think defense is what got us this far all year. There weren’t many teams that scored 50 points on us, and [Dubuque] Senior was the only team to do that to us in the tournament,” Harvey said. In their semi-final game on Friday, Cedar Falls met undefeated first seed Bettendorf. The Bulldogs came back late in the fourth quarter to knock Cedar Falls off 39-36. With less than 10 seconds left and down one point, Kalehl set a pick for his twin brother Kalund Brown, Kalehl rolled off and received the pass from his brother and attempted a contested layup in the lane. On the play there seemed to be significant contact, but no call was made. Bettendorf grabbed the rebound and hit two gimme free throws to secure a three point lead. Boettger tossed up a turnaround jumper from downtown with no time remaining, but it didn’t drop. “It was tough to deal with the loss. We all wanted the championship and that was our goal, but nobody had us getting that far. We have to remember that,” senior Brandon Bardal said. In the 4A Consolation game
Cedar Falls grabbed an early lead but Dubuque Senior carried the momentum going into the half by scoring four points to knot the game at 19. The Rams took the lead, scoring the first four points of the second half, and never gave it up. Senior’s lead expanded to 12 points in the fourth q u a r t e r. “ W e ’ d p l a y e d them earlier and lost by 18, so I definitely think they saw a whole new team on S a t u r d a y. We were obviously a lot better team this time around. It was a real physical game,” Kalund said. Besides grabbing f o u r t h place , Senior Kalund Brown finishes a fast break against Sioux City North. The C e d a r Tigers beat the North Stars, 57-46. Falls also made the Des Moines Regisnext season. “It was a really brought ter’s second-team All-State, sweet experience making it to home the sportsmanship troand Jackson Nichols received a State. It’s a once in a lifetime phy. “I think the sportsmanship $500 grant and was recognized experience, and I wouldn’t award reflects on us as a team before the 4A Championship want to do it with anybody and a coaching staff on the game. else. We’ve been playing since court. It’s an honor to receive Next season Cedar Falls we were in fifth grade together, it because it means people noand that makes it extra speticed us doing the little things,” loses 10 seniors, four of whom were starters. Sophomore cial,” Kalund said. Harvey said. Keeon Johnson is the lone reSports Editor Jared Kalehl was named to the allHylton turning starter for the Tigers tournament team, and he also
Athlete of the
3 Week
Nick Clark
Men’s Track and Field Senior Nick Clark ran the 3rd leg of the 1,600 Sprint Medley that took first place at the Demon Indoor on Thursday, March 7. Denison Harrington, Jared Connerley and Cesar Marquez also made up the team. How was it running with this relay team for the first time? It felt really good to get back on the track and spend time with my teammates for the afternoon. How has the team been preparing for the indoor season? We’ve been working really hard. Lifting before school to keep our strength up. What do you eat before a meet? I usually have a bagel and banana.
Tigers in
Action
Women’s Track & Field
Next up: MVC Indoor Meet on March 12 at UNI-Dome at 4:30 p.m.
Men’s Track & Field
Next up: UNI-Dome Invitational on March 19 at UNI-Dome at 3 p.m.
Women’s Tennis
Next up: Quad meet on March 30 at home at 9 a.m.
Men’s Tennis
Next up: Waterloo West on March 30 at Waterloo West at 9 a.m.
Baseball
Next up: TBA on March 16 at home at 10 a.m.
Softball
Next up: Waterloo East on May 21 at home at 5:30 p.m.
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FEATURE
HI-LINE
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
ne Tank Trips
Nowhere to go for Spring Break? No problem. Grab a few friends, fill up the car and take a mini-roadtrip to any or all of these four travel destinations.
DECORAH, IOWA
• Known as one of Midwest Living’s top 100 Midwest Small Town Getaways • Great for the outdoors-lover • Prairie Farmer Trail offers 20 miles for biking, walking, etc. with numerous restauaunts along the way • Take a hiking trail to Dunnings Springs, a 200 foot waterfall • Ground still covered in snow? Rent snow skis from Decorah Bicycles and head to Palisades Park for miles of trails
DES MOINES, IOWA
• Located downtown, Brenton Skating Plaza hosts public skating seven days a week. Live DJ every Friday night from 8-11 p.m. • Eat a week’s worth of calories at Zombie Burger, located downtown on Grand Ave. • For just $7, you can spend a the day with animals at the Blank Park Zoo • Pappajohn Sculpture Park is the place to go for art lovers. The Des Moines Art Center is located nearby.
GALENA, ILLINOIS
• Galena’s eclectic Main Street boasts some of the best shopping in the Midwest • Take your pick from a plethora of local restaurauts. Top off your meal at the American Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor • Still cold outside? Make your way to Chestnut Mountain Ski resort and rent some skis/snowboard for the day • If you’re in the mood for hands-on history, spend a few hours at Ulysses S. Grant’s historical home
AMANA COLONIES
• Located five miles north of Interstate 80, the Amana Colonies offers one of the most unique shopping/culture experiences around • Hop in and out of quaint shops on the Main Street in Amana • Stop by The Ox Yoke Inn for a legendary German meal • In need of some recreation? Stroll along the 3.1 mile Amana Colonies Trail for scenic views of the countryside and Lily Lake
By Entertainment Editor Lindsey
DAVIS