What Band Has Given Me

         You ask me, “How has being a member of this Band influenced you during High School? How has it prepared you for college?” That means I have to turn around and look back, recollect and think about what all of this meant to me.
         I had never really looked back before, I never bothered to think about how being with the Band has affected me, because I had gotten caught up in the stampede of life. I was so busy getting by here and there, trying to practice for an audition of some sort, studying for some class or another. Really, I had been so occupied with fitting what I could of life in the space of a day, that I had never thought of stopping and gazing back across these last four years.
         But I stopped, and turned around. I took a look back. A lot of things dawned on me, looking back at the memories created with this community. I saw just how powerfully the Band has affected me. I realized in full how special this group is, how much it has taught me, and how much it has helped me grow and mature as a person. It was with these people, in the Band Hall, in the parking lot, in the stands, under the lights on the football field, that I would shed my solitary childhood and adolescence, and find my place in a community of young adults. And it started four years ago…
         For a lot of freshmen such as myself, high school began abruptly in a cool, air-conditioned room in a school in Friendswood, Texas. Just out of junior high, we had left one life for another. And what a life it was to be. We received a warm welcome from the Band members, who made every effort to make sure that we were comfortable with the new surroundings; that we were not alone in a huge, strange world. We became part of a family; we became kinsmen and kinswomen of a very unique household.
         It was with these people that I was privileged to discover what it is to be part of a group that is truly special; to be part of a family, part of a team; a host made up of many personalities from so many different paths in the forest of life, collaborating towards a single goal. That is really significant. I hadn’t believed in such a thing. Take a look around, think of all of these individuals, of all the diverse things they represent and the things they aspire to be. Artists to engineers, doctors to dancers, athletes to programmers, and of course, musicians. We are all here for various reasons, but we are here together, we have found friends and colleagues, and we have learned to work together in spite of our differences.
         Yeah, we worked. We’ve sweated, burned, bruised, cut, been yelled at, and many other things. We shared the hardships of the parking lot heat; of the long, drawn out days at marching contests and festivals; of band directors; of each other, and many other things. But that’s not how it had always been.
         Freshman year, it was more fun than serious, and the Band had this wild, carefree spirit that kind of lives on in the senior class, albeit a little curbed. But… Sophomore year… That’s when we started getting new directors. They brought a vision of a band that was different than what we had seen, and they showed it to us. Then came an idea that was new to us as a group: the pursuit of excellence, and a lot of work came with it. Well, that’s cool, we can work, right?
         But this wasn’t the work we were used to. The directors pushed us harder than we have ever been pushed before; they demanded a level of excellence that we didn’t really know was in us. It took a lot from them, and a lot from us. We got lectured, scolded, yelled at, rewarded, had rewards taken away, been cut down, and just about every other trick in the book, but they did it. They succeeded in one of the teacher’s greatest and most noble duties: they pushed us to our limits, then showed us how to break the limits and become more than we thought we could ever be. A quote comes to mind, from Benjamin Disraeli, “The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own”. Despite outbursts of anger, and getting screamed at, cut down, etc. from and by the directors, I’m glad they came here. They have helped us, and myself, see just what we are capable of when we try. And they gave us the opportunity to try, in the form of contests, from BOA to Midwest to WGI.
         Thanks to the directors and the program, I have experienced so many different things here, with unique people that have shown me so many things and helped me grow, from the directors to clinicians to students. I’ve marched with both the flutes and the battery in a great marching band. I have played with the concert bands, jammed with the Jazz Band, and pursued a still higher level of excellence with the Winter Drumline. Band has taught me the power of teamwork and friendship. I have learned to recognized excellence, to constantly desire it, and to persist in the quest for it. But, while those things are close, they aren’t the most important thing I learned with the Band.
         The most important thing I learned was when the Winter Drumline went to Dayton this year, only to be sent home. It seemed like the entire weekend was a kick in the rear. We went, played very well in the lot, better than the other groups around us. We entered Nutter Center and performed the best show we’ve ever performed. And then we got a horrible score, and ended up placing 15th out of some 17 or 18 units. Heck, at the Dayton Airport, on the way to Cleveland, our gate number was C-15. Life had to rub some salt in. But what the directors said in the eating area of the hotel rang true. Truer than anything I’ve heard in my entire life.
         They said a lot of things I already realized. They said that we shouldn’t hang our heads in shame, or slump our shoulders. We did something unique and very different from the other groups, and we did it well. We pursued excellence in the ways that we knew how, and we reached it. If we didn’t get good numbers, oh well, that’s not what it’s about. We came together as a team and worked hard; we gave it all we had. But it’s the last thing they said that struck home. Well, it was said in a roundabout way, but it can be summed up in three words: We had fun. That was it right there. On top of all the other things that we learned… we had fun, too.
         Viewing both present and past at the same time… we’ve put a lot into the Band, and we have gotten a thousand times more back. This dedication and discipline, the idea of teamwork and the pursuit of excellence, of having a good time while we were at it… those are things that will be called upon time and time again in the future. They are strengths, created and forged by the fires of trial, imprinted into our spirits, to be remembered and used for the rest of our lives.