Founded in the winter of 2005, With Respect to Time is the University of Waterloo’s only non-audition jazz band! Sponsored by the Engineering Society, With Respect to Time is a place for students who love playing jazz music to get together, jazzicize, and make fun of whoever is the conductor this term. The band performs regularly throughout the term at everything from community social events to graduation galas, and near the end of the term we perform our End-Of-Term gig (admission is free).
Since the band is non-audition, it fills up pretty quickly and preference is given to Engineering students. That being said, in the past 5 years, we’ve never turned anyone away from joining the band. Everyone is welcome, regardless of faculty. In fact, almost a third of the band is made up of non-engineering students! Sign up starts the week before term, please visit the join page for more information.
Members of the band are expected to help set up and tear down all equipment each week at rehearsal and practice their parts, totaling in about a 5 h commitment per week. From time to time, sectional practices will be scheduled to work on tough pieces. Full group rehearsals are typically held in CPH on Sunday afternoons.
The Band Now
With Respect to Time is a way for students to get together and continue playing sweet jazz. If you were to ask the members why they love playing in the band, however, they’d probably tell you it’s because of the great people they get to hang out with. From epic single note sax solos to ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ drum solos using the V1 cafeteria as the principal percussion instrument, we really just love finding ways to make each other laugh. Our 70% serious 30% silly approach keeps us sane amidst the onslaught of assignments, midterms, and essays.
With Respect to Time is always cooking up something new. Every term we order new music to add to our growing collection. Recently we’ve added a significant number of vocal pieces to our repertoire and always love to hear suggestions for new pieces from our members! The band is entirely student run and there are lots of opportunities to get involved by helping us manage the website, book gigs, order t-shirts and music, or even conduct!
Reasons you should join us:
- Good puns
- That was a lie, there are no good puns, only terrible, terrible puns
- Tank
- Awesome people
- Sweet Jazz
- Tank
I think I’ve made myself clear.
The First Band
Ally Chan founded the band back in 2005. We asked her, “Why?” and this is what she had to say,
[I don’t know] what was going through my head…
Well, we all picked engineering. Something inside of us told us that being a musician may not be the most practical choice, so we picked engineering instead and we all said we’d keep music a part of our lives. I certainly [said so], but I didn’t.
I missed playing a lot. So I thought, why not start a jazz band with other engineers?
I remember having a lot of conversations about how I wasn’t going to let music leave my life. Some of my friends said they’d totally be a part of the band, so I went for it.
From the very beginning I knew at some point, I wanted to consistently have an end of term charity gig. I’m not sure exactly why, the idea of making money for playing music never appealed to me. Just playing music was enough for me, so I thought, why not make the most of it and give to people less fortunate?
There were times where I didn’t want to be part of the jazz band anymore, or I didn’t want to be the head organizer or whatever, but at the end of the day it was what kept me going throughout the week. I always had something to look forward to. I could have the craziest week coming up [but on] Sunday nights for 2 hours I could forget about it all, have fun, and make music. I hope that’s how other people feel too!
Since Ally put the band together in 2005, Waterloo students’ enthusiasm for jazz hasn’t dwindled. The band is stronger than it’s ever been and every term amazing members and volunteers get new music, equipment, and organize administration.
The Name
For a very short period of time the band had two names as it felt that the two streams were different bands. Eventually it was decided it was best to keep one name, one image, and one idea so now it’s just WRTT.
Here are some of the original names people band names people came up with in 2005:
- orjazzms
- ally and the jazz cats
- speed of sound
- constructive interference
Eventually someone came up with WRTT and it was perfect.
Please note that WRTT is a jazz “big band” and therefore any events must be able to accommodate a larger group, at the very minimum 10 people, but the full band (larger) would be preferred.
