Oh, say can you shred?

Rocking the National Anthem

The strains of the Star-Spangled Banner surprised many students and staff at this year’s Winter Sports Pep Rally. That’s because it wasn’t the Carmel marching band tackling the classic. It was just one student who taught himself how to play the guitar.

Senior Grant Blume plays several instruments, including the drums, the banjo and even the piano, but he says that he’s best at guitar. While Blume says he learned a lot from videos on the Internet, he says he started working with a teacher after joining some of the Carmel jazz groups.

Señor Schwab asked Blume to play at the pep rally, which meant he had to figure out how to play the song. For the guitarist, though, that didn’t take very long.

“It took me about 30 mins to learn,” Blume said. “And another hour and a half to feel comfortable with it.”