Drum Major 101

I am, before anything else, a musician. A true musician, I like to think; one who has a grasp of her art, one who truly appreciates the subtleties of musical thought. I laugh at the viola jokes; I am moved to tears by a Mahler Symphony. Yes, indeed, I do consider myself part of the higher calling that is music.
Why the hell I decided to try out for drum major, I couldn't tell you.
I think perhaps it has something to do with how deceptively simple a good drum major can make it look. Our band had a very good drum major this year; watching him, I can remember thinking to myself, "Hey; that's pretty neat-looking. I bet I could do that."
Shortly after I began considering this, another, vastly more important thought crossed my mind: "Hey. If I did that, I wouldn't have to march. I could get off this hot, smelly, gnat-infested field and be up there, towering above the gnats. I wouldn't have to wear a kilt anymore. I would have a position of power. I would have my name announced first at the festivals."
Obviously, I should never be allowed to make decisions for myself again.
Nevertheless, no one thought to warn me; I announced my intentions to my director, and began to go about selecting my piece and practicing.
Now, as a decent hornplayer, I know my beat patterns. In my years under various conductors, I have had to learn to find a downbeat in places where there really appears not to exist; where in fact, there appears to be no discernible beat whatsoever. I have worked under Russian conductors who prefer what I've taken to calling the "circle tecnique;" German conductors who deceptively make their third beat look like a fairly huge downbeat; American conductors who think that a cue consists of a tiny sort of flick in the general direction of the orchestra (apparently not realizing that the horn players sit in the back of the orchestra, fifty feet away); and one particularly odd man who never actually gave a second beat, for some reason I've never been able to figure out. In other words, I've had plenty of experience with bad beat patterns, so I know what is followable and what isn't. I was positive that I would be able to handle this whole conducting thing.
At my first lesson, my friend Nikolas (the previously mentioned superb drum major) said to me, "Okay. Conduct for me."
I began beating the time, figuring I knew what I was doing. I got perhaps two bars in before he stopped me.
"Okay, here's what you're doing wrong: Conduct with your shoulders, not your elbows. Don't move your wrists. You're not going high enough on beat four. Don't cup your hands. Keep your fingers together. It needs to be a popping motion. I don't know where the hell your icthus is." (As I'm thinking : Icthus? Isn't that something in Panama?)
The list continued. "You look wimpy. You need to be more decisive about your beats. Your three is bigger than your one. You're not doing a big enough two. Now do it again."
I started conducting again, trying to be less wimpy.
"No! Don't cup your hands!"
A few seconds later: "Fingers together!"
"NO! Popping motion, popping motion!"
"Up higher on four!"
"DON'T CUP YOUR HANDS!"
"Less wrist motion."
"YOU'RE CUPPING YOUR DAMN HANDS!!"
"From your shoulders, Clarissa! From your shoulders!"
Eventually he got tired of yelling, so he came over behind me and grabbed my arms and started making me do it his way. "Like this," he said.
"This HURTS!" I said, after a few seconds.
"That means you're doing it right; if you - DON'T CUP YOUR HANDS!"
Then he proceeded to give me a blur of information on how to do a crescendo, decrescendo, cues, two, four, subdivisions, five, six, seven, and cutoffs. This took him about thirty seconds, total. He sent me home with instructions to work my ass off, and stop cupping my hands.
I briefly considered giving up; but now I had made it clear to everyone that I was trying out. I had to stick to my guns. And there was one constant sound running through my head: "Ladies and gentleman, the Gatlinburg-Pittman Highlander Band, with drum major Clarissa Nemeth!"
So I began to practice conducting the right way. And that's how I learned the first drawback to being drum major: it hurts.
After a mere two minutes of conducting, my arms felt like they were going to fall off. My shoulder blades were on fire. I couldn't continue. And I wondered how on earth I would be able to get through my four minute piece.
And then another thought occurred to me: How the heck would I get through a whole halftime show? I thought back to our ten minute Sinatra show from last season, which had been conducted almost effortlessly.
There was only one conclusion to be made from this: Nik is an alien.
Nevertheless, impossible odds have rarely stopped me before. I kept practicing until my poor arms literally refused to lift anymore. A few days later, I conducted for Nik again. He eyed me uneasily, and then said, "Well...you're looking better," in that tone that implies that you might have improved, but you've still got a snowball's chance in hell of winning the thing.
But it was an improvement, so I started working on other things. That's when the crescendo problem started.
It seemed so simple: the left arm moves up seamlessly over four beats, then comes back down smoothly again over another four beats, while the right hand never varies from its steady beat pattern.
Yeah. Right.
When I tried to do this, I looked like I was chopping salami. I could either conduct, or decrescendo, but I sure couldn't do both at the same time. My left arm wanted to move up in what I can only describe as chunks, jerking up or down with the beat. When I tried to focus on the smooth motion, my right hand suddenly lost control of the beat, which surely would have sent our "special" marching band into a panic on the field. Clearly, this wasn't working.
I spent hours in front of my mirror; literally, hours. I neglected my homework in order to spend time standing like an idiot, moving one arm up and down while conducting with the other. I kicked my laundry around; I screamed four-letter words; I threw my pillow at my mirror.
I mean, here I am, the top horn player in my state. I can play Mahler symphonies and do rips and pieces that professionals do. I am rarely intimidated by a part. I'm an honors student, national merit, set to be valedictorian, BUT I CAN'T GET ONE ARM TO WORK INDEPENDENTLY OF THE OTHER.
This was the point when I actually considered giving up. After all, much as I hated it, I never had any problem with what I did on the marching field. I might be pretty incompetent in most other walks of life, but, by God, I know how to play my instrument. I thought maybe I should stick with that.
Then lo and behold, one day I was absentmindedly conducting - which is something that used to annoy me until I started doing it myself - and I tried it. And did it. I don't know how. I still don't know how. But, thank God, I can do it. I don't question divine intervention.
At about two weeks before tryout time, my routine was beginning to come together. There were a few things left to acquire thought. First on the list was a salute.
For this, I decided to approach my friend Josh. Josh is another alien, who conducted a show for his school this past season. One night, I asked Josh for salute ideas.
"Oh! You can take the one I never used. I wound up having to scrap it for this season, but it's one of my favorites."
I was enthusiastic, so he began to teach me the moves. And the saga began again:
"No, no, sweetie, it's not a cheerleader move. Don't wag your hips when you punch out."
"No, no, it's arms out, then left arm stays out while your right one goes in."
"Don't cup your hands when your arms are out." (NOOOOOOO!!!)
"No, your feet go in on count four."
"More fluid! More fluid!"
"Oh my God, your hand cannot salute like that, or you'll be a disgrace to mankind."
At that point, he grabbed my hand and twisted it into a position that was supremely uncomfortable. Just when I was feeling at my lowest, when we were trying the salute for the fortieth time, my friend Amy walked up. "Whatcha doin?" she asked. "A salute? Let me see."
She watched Josh do it slowly once, then up to tempo once.
She copied him perfectly.
I began to seriously consider moving to Alaska, where it's too cold to have marching band. But Josh insisted that some people are just slower than others at catching on to choreography (thanks, Josh), and he told me to just go home and work on it.
Eventually, after more neglected trig homework, the salute became a fairly consistent part of my drum major experience. I was beginning to think that this thing might actually work. I had my piece,a consistent routine,and a salute that was actually kind of neat. Of course, I still couldn't get all the way through my piece without my arms going up in flames, but that would come with a few more days.
So it came down to another lesson with Nikolas, two days before the tryout. "Do your routine," he said.
I did it. Halfway through, he stopped me.
"When you cue, cue decisively. You are the one in control, not the band. Don't swing your hips. Get more involved with your body; I see you do it when you play the horn, do it now when you conduct. Keep your fingers together at all times, and never show your palms. Don't bounce. Lock your legs in place. Don't lean forward."
When I did my cutoff, he looked positively horrified. "Here, Clarissa," he said, in the tone one takes with an incompetent four-year old, "try this."
He did some lightning fast move that involved a lot of arm swinging. I guess time moves more slowly on his home planet, because he expected me to copy it.
I gave it my best shot.
"No, this." He slowed down a fraction of a second. I tried again. And again. And again.
In what was becoming a fairly familiar experience for me, he took my arms with his and manipulated me into some sort of completely foreign move. I still couldn't do it.
He pondered this for a minute. Then he was forced to speak to me in the terms of a small child. He said to the national merit scholar who got a 34 on her ACT:
"Think of it as drawing a Jesus fish with your arm."
The sad thing is, it worked.
After twenty more minutes of instruction, I went to perform the entire thing for him again, this time with my steadfast, brilliant, and gaseous horn teacher watching as well. Throughout the routine, they shouted out helpful, supportive comments such as:
"You're leaning forward."
"Don't move your head."
"WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT CUPPING YOUR HANDS?"
When I finished, I came in to get the final verdict. They were instead discussing a section of my piece, which involved some syncopated horn rips. (By the way, I've played the piece before, and I had no problem handling the rips. I just couldn't conduct them.)
Mr. Harrell said, "I'm thinking she needs to cue those last few differently."
Nik said, "Well, I'm thinking of doing it this way -" here he did something with his arms as familiarly as I wave hello, only it was insanely more complicated - "but..." he paused and looked at me, then back at Mr. Harrell. "The problem is, she's got to learn how to do it."
Mr. Harrell concurred that this was indeed quite an obstacle.
I'll just summarize the next half an hour: Nik does move. I can't copy it. Nik does move slower. I still do it wrong. Nik does move beat by beat. I can sort of get a semblance of it. Nik eventually grabs my arms and does it for me. Several times. I can do an awkward version of the move. Nik, exhausted, is satisfied.
"So, what's the final opinion?" I asked desperately, ready to drown myself in a toilet.
Harrell shrugged. "Eh. You've got a shot at it."
Nik said, "You've gotten a lot better. Go home and work on it." That night, I didn't even bother to bring my backpack in. I went to sleep with a heating pad on my shoulder blades.
Down to one day left. Nik came over for one last lesson. I did my routine.
"Pretty good," he said. I felt like yelling, "Hallelujah!"
"Here's what I think you should change." He rattled off a list longer than some marriages last. "But," he said at the end of it, apparently seeing the desperate look on my face,"I know you can do it. Now, let's go outside and work on your commands."
This entire time, the one thing I haven't been worried about is my commands. I've heard them so many times, I know I can do them right, and I'm not afraid to scream at the top of my lungs. I set out to call my band to attention.
"Band Ten HUT!" I shouted, in what I thought was an accurate representation of what I've listened to over the years.
"In TEMPO," Nik said patiently.
I did it again.
"Deeper. You need to sound more manly."
I shouted until I set off a car alarm.
"Okay. Now band horns up." I did this.
"NO! You have to do this with your arms!" Then, as I was dreading, he did something else that I knew I couldn't copy. It took me about fifteen minutes to get that one down to his satisfaction. Then came my mark time, my forward march, my backwards march. I wearily listened to his complaints and did my best to comply with him.
"Now do the band halt command."
Well, you would have thought I'd just shot a baby, judging by the look on his face. "What was THAT?"
"A cutoff, maestro."
"No, no, no, no, no. That's not a cutoff. This is a cutoff." He did his cutoff, which was much more complicated than I thought it needed to be.
I threw up my hands. "What is this, Nik? The universal cutoff? Why do I have to do it YOUR way?"
"Well, if you could do one, I'd let you do it, but what you were doing was not a cutoff. I don't know what it was. So do it my way."
We had a particular problem with the "V" that I made with my arms. He adjusted my arms by the millimeter, until he had the exact position he wanted, then grew exasperated when I couldn't copy it exactly. "You look like a referee!" he exclaimed at one point. This was when I considered pushing him into what I've taken to calling "the snake tree." Eventually, he got fed up to where he said, "Well, that'll work, I guess."
After he left, I did my program again. And again. And again.
The tryouts are tomorrow, and at this point, I really don't care if I win or not. But I can't help thinking back to what happened to me at this one last lesson:
The particular problem centered on my cueing of the horn rips we'd worked on the day before. "It has to be 'Bryum-bum,' Nikolas said, circling with his arm. "Just think: Bryum-bum. Do it with me."
"Bryum-bum," we repeated together, circling our arms. "Bryum-bum." We did it about twenty times. Any sane person walking in on us would have thought it was the initiation ritual for some kind of sick cult.
But, thinking about it, I guess it kind of is. It's an initiation to the drum major cult. And I think that now, whether nor not I win, I think that I can definitely call myself a member. And, really, that's enough for me.