Photo By Spc. Eric Liesse | A Soldier plays the piano inside U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay's Marine Hill music...... read more read more
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By Pfc. Eric Liesse
Joint Task Force Guantanamo
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – Set atop U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay's Marine Hill, a small music hall with electric guitars, keyboards and Latin percussion instruments will soon open for public use.
"It's basically a rehearsal room for anyone that wants to use it," said Craig Basel, Morale, Welfare and Recreation installation program manager.
"It should be done within the next couple weeks," he added.
Open to active-duty, single or unaccompanied Military service members, the room will have "a limited number" of instruments and amplifiers available, Basel said.
"For a number of years, we've had requests for people to have a place to go play instruments, practice with their band, or whatever," Basel explained. "So when we took over the Marine Hill Liberty Center, we found a space in there that we could use as a band room."
Basel stressed that he believes the new room will greatly benefit the Troopers who take up the offered instruments.
"I think it gives them another outlet, another place they can relax and hang out," Basel said. "[They can] go jam with their buddies and play some music or learn how to play guitar. It just gives another outlet to unwind and decompress."
The new room is set to have three electric guitars, two electric bass guitars, as well as an adequate amount of amplifiers for patrons.
The room will also include a full electric drum set and a vocal system. The room is set to have recording equipment available, but not on permanent basis.
"We went out and purchased everything for this room with liberty dollars," Basel stressed. "That way we could make sure it's available for the Troops first. We've got some really nice gear, too."
The electric guitars are Gibson faded special electric guitars, while the electric basses are Ibanez five-string bass guitars.
"We've got lots of equipment they can use or just go up and have a little jam session," said Basel. "There will be enough in there for somebody to walk in there, plug in and play."
Built inside the old Marine Hill galley, the new Marine Hill Liberty Center music room will be a 420-square-foot, pre-engineered building. The room will also be double-insulated, cutting noise pollution.
"It's well insulated so that the guys sitting outside it on the computers or talking on the Internet back home won't be distracted," said Basel.
"We'll have to get it open, see how it works, and see how much patronage we get before actually setting hard-and-fast rules," Basel explained. "The liberty center is pretty much an open-door policy right now and Jeffery [Shaw, who will oversee the room upon its completion] runs a lot of programs up there, so we'll just have to see how [the music room] mixes with that. We'll look at it for a couple weeks and then adjust accordingly."
Although construction only recently began on the new room, MWR had intentions to build it for some time.
"We've had the building for a while; it's just finding time to get it constructed," Basel elaborated. "We've had so many other projects that were stacked-up in front of this one. Once we finished the golf course and the new tiki bar, we adjusted our priorities for this project, because we were getting a lot calls for it."
| Date Taken: | 08.01.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 08.04.2008 13:34 |
| Story ID: | 22102 |
| Location: |
| Web Views: | 96 |
| Downloads: | 82 |
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