Using only rhythm with pens, pencils, coffee cans and other mundane items, four Eastern students might be going to Brazil.

The students were all members of The Wings, a team competing in “Tum Tum Pa,” a freestyle drumming competition sponsored by Red Bull, an energy drink company.

The teams could either bring in their own items to perform or could use items provided by the organizers on Thursday. Free Red Bull was given away throughout the competition.

Each team played a cover of a song along with an original beat. Judges for the competition graded the teams on three categories: rhythm, creativity and audience encouragement.

The Wings received perfect scores of all 10s for each of its performances and won first place.

Matthew Black, a senior music major and member of The Wings, said each member of the team is a member of Eastern’s percussion ensemble.

“We’re glad (the competition) got hosted here,” Black said. “We’re percussionists and there are not many percussion competitions at Eastern.”

Black said the team members brought their own items for “Tum Tum Pa” so that they could find something with tones and pitch. He said they also wanted to be comfortable with what they were playing with.

He said they mostly practiced the night before.

“We didn’t want to do it on the spot,” Black said. “We spent two hours jamming and made it up last night and put something together.”

The Wings performed “Friday” by Rebecca Black as their cover song. Wings member Matt Murphy, a freshman music major, said they chose the song because it had more than 100 million views on YouTube.

“We knew people would get a kick out of it,” Murphy said. “We did what we loved to do.”

Other members of The Wings are Jesse Shelton, a sophomore music major, and Kyle Dombroski, a freshman psychology major and music minor.

As the first-place team, The Wings won a $100 bar tab at the Panther Paw and a video of their performance will be posted on the Red Bull Facebook page. If their video receives the most amount of “Likes” out of every team posted, they will win a trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the world finals.

Black was also a member of the third place team, The Class Ditchers. Each member of The Class Ditchers won a case of Red Bull.

Members of the second place team, The Kappas, won their weight in Red Bull.

A member of The Kappas, Patrick Jake, a senior kinesiology major, said he and his teammate Charles Pailler, a junior sociology major, found out about the competition a week ago.

The Kappas performed “Look at Me Now” by Chris Brown as their cover song. Jake said their original beat was complete improvisation.

Jake said he plans to give most of the Red Bull away to members of his fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

“I guarantee I’m not going to drink my weight in Red Bull,” Jake said.

Seth Schroeder can be reached at 581-2812 or scschroeder2@eiu.edu.

Matt Murphy, a freshman music major, and Matthew Black, a senior music major, perform as part of The Wings at “Tum Tum Pa,” a freestyle drumming competition. The competition took place Thursday night in the Lecture Hall of the Doudna Fine Arts Center. It

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