This Saturday will be the culmination of a semester’s worth of work for six Georgetown student bands. On Dec. 3 at 8 p.m., Georgetown’s Guild of Bands will be having its Fall Band Blast in the Walsh Black Box Theatre.

Students who participate in the Guild do so as a one-credit class for a semester. Professor Joe McCarthy advises each band weekly and helps them improve throughout the semester, with this event acting  “like their final exam,” he said.

“We set up rehearsal time in the studio that we have down in the basement of New North, and then they rehearse two or three times a week … and then they meet with me on Wednesday nights individually,” McCarthy said.

The ability to use that equipment and rehearse with it every week is one of the greatest perks of the Guild for Mike Jaroski (COL ’12), whose band, Text Message, will be performing this Saturday. “Once you’re in the Guild, you have access to Studio D, which has all this rehearsal equipment. There’s a PA system, drum set, and a guitar and bass amp, which nobody has around here because it’s hard to bring your equipment from home,” Jaroski said.

Jaroski’s band consists of him and two friends, brothers Joe (COL ’12) and John (COL ’14) Romano, and they mainly play rock music. However, rock isn’t the only type of music played in the Guild. “We have many different kinds [of music]. We’ve had solo acts; we actually have a great duo that’s in there now that’s all acoustic; there’s one particular group [in which] both of the leaders of the group are from Greece, so they’re playing a lot of the music from their homeland. Every group is really different,” McCarthy said.

The bands vary in other ways as well, namely the amount of performing experience they have. “The experience level is so varied from each group, and that’s what makes it so fun for me, feeling the different levels, different styles [and] different concepts,” McCarthy said.

In addition to advising the Guild, McCarthy also leads Georgetown’s World Percussion Ensemble (which will be performing Sunday at 4 p.m. in McNeir Auditorium). He feels that groups like the Guild help students like Jaroski to continue with their music after college.

Jaroski plans to stay with his band after graduation, staying in the D.C. area to play with Text Message during the school year and then touring during the summers. He said McCarthy has been a positive influence on his band’s decision to pursue their music after college.

“I feel like [McCarthy]’s very encouraging to get us to try and actually play in the D.C. area, as opposed to just doing Georgetown shows,” Jaroski said.

In this way, the Guild acts as much more than just a way for bands to rehearse and get some feedback on their music. “It’s not just a bunch of rock bands,” McCarthy said. “Everybody really has their own sound and identity, and it’s great. I think it’s been very successful.”