Purple + Gold
In middle school the situation was topsy-turvy. The “cool” kids were all in band. One of the many things I learned living in Mississippi is that the South takes marching band seriously.
I joined band class during 7th grade. The band director took us into a side room one at a time and had us try out a few instruments. I failed to drum along to some basic beats, blast air through a trombone, or get out anything but a squeak from a clarinet. Things changed when the band director angled the clarinet upwards so I was playing with the mouthpiece going out from my face rather than down. Sweet sweet honks. And thus I was assigned to play the alto saxophone.
After learning to play basic scales and read sheet music, our band started playing actual music! My first love was The Tempest by Robert W. Smith. It starts off a little Burton Batman-y and hits the beats hard enough that I still get a bit excited by listening to this entry-level song. Turns out I was decent at the saxophone, spending the bulk of my two years in Mississippi band as first chair. For a middle school band that just means you know a few scales and squeak less than others.
While the high school had a marching band, the middle school did not. Despite this, we did get to participate in the community parade and practiced by marching around the front yard of the school. Attempting to walk in step and play at the same time is honestly much trickier than you would think. So much of playing a woodwind instrument is the connection/seal your mouth makes with the mouthpiece. Walking instead of sitting stationary changes that feeling completely. Having to pay attention to how individual fingers are moving, maintaining breath control, and walking in step with those around you is a far more advanced game of “pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time”.
At this time I was pretty invested in band/sax, but also ran cross country, played on a dedicated soccer team, and felt unstoppable playing inline hockey in the YMCA rec league.
Green + White
As happened every few years, my family moved. This time to Ohio going into my freshman year of high school. I would no longer wear purple and gold, but green and white. Interesting tidbit: I was the only one of my siblings to start and finish at the same high school.
Despite all of my interests, only a few survived the move. Instead of trying out for soccer or cross country, I joined marching band. The primary deciding factors being (1) not having to try out for band and (2) my mom. An ego can’t take a hit if you automatically get in. Plus, my mom looooooved band. I don’t know if it was the connection to other band moms, an unexpected interest in marching to music, or just supporting my interests, but she was all in.
I made a ton of great friends in marching band. Moving meant I was entering high school as a freshman that did not know a single other person in the school. Marching band had practice in the summer, introducing me to hundreds of people before having to start my first day of school. Some of those introductions led to friendships for the next four years. Others are still going strong(ish) despite living in different states well over a decade later. Band was filled with great people.
My new high school’s band program was on the rise. The community had exploded and changed from a farming town to what is now the largest high school in Ohio. Lots of bodies, lots of talent to be found. Both the traditional band and marching band were earning recognition as one of the tops in the country. I don’t know who tracks that, but I can confirm we were really freaking good.
Makes it all a bit awkward that I hated marching band. Hated.
I enjoyed practicing, playing, and performing. I prefer reading sheet music to improvisation, and loved how each section’s instruments combined for a unified sound under a watchful director. However, there is a core group of bandies (both students and faculty) who take this all quite seriously. I am not a serious person so that approach didn’t always mesh well with mine.
Unfortunately, the worst of that meshing was between me and the band directors.
I take full responsibility for being obnoxious. It is a common affliction amongst teens. Those taking band seriously weren’t in the wrong. Others, like myself, who enjoyed playing but weren’t studying music theory in their down time, should also have had a place. The time commitment for marching band is a hard thing to get excited for if you aren’t all in. So I took off the sparkle gloves, folded up my mirror-bejeweled costume, and turned in my plume. I broke my mom’s heard and quit marching band at the end of my sophomore year.
Diminuendo
I spent my first two years of high school band playing in both the traditional band (a class at school) and the marching band. When I first left Mississippi I was pretty hot on my saxing abilities. That confidence took a hit when my new school placed me in the lowest band at the lowest seat. I had only been playing for 2 years, and many around me had been playing for twice as long while taking private lessons. I needed to catch up.
Band places players in order from “best” to “worst”, with first chair as the highest honor and most skilled player. You can challenge someone for their chair if you think you are better. Sometimes cascading challenges happened with multiple seats shifting in a power vacuum. Think of it like Highlander musical chairs.
I started taking the saxophone seriously and began private lessons. I participated in a few mid-level solo competitions and started to improve. Soon I was able to beast out all sorts of scales, was a solid sight-reader for new music, and was getting to be a proper player. I worked my way up to the concert band. While concert band was not the highest, most-skilled band in our school, I was regularly at the top of the saxophone pecking order and even got a few quick solo parts.
Transitioning from sophomore to junior year I was ready to join the top band, the wind symphony. You had to try out to be in wind symphony. Private lessons were required. Playing in the pep band for basketball games was required. Being one of the best musicians for your instrument in the school was required. Being in marching band was not required.
The band directors moved three saxophone players to wind symphony that year. The first was a saxophone god. He was on the same “get better” program I was on, only his growth was exponential. No complaints. The other two players had spent the last year behind me in the totally-irrefutable chair ranking system, one right behind me and the other all the way at the end. All three of them were in marching band.
Like I said, I didn’t mesh well with the band directors. I liked to goof off, and my tendency to whisper at full volume got me scolded a lot. But I was now dang good at the sax, practiced a ton, and had the skill to be in the wind symphony. I didn’t expect being rejected to crush me as much as it did, but it did.
I decided to unleash the most powerful force in education: angry parents. When my parents found out I did not get in, they arranged a meeting with the band directors to discuss. They understood that not everyone could fit with limited spots. They understood that if enough sax players were better than me, then I did not make it. What they refused to understand was the politics that went into who stayed and who went. I was being punished for leaving the marching band hive mind and other students were being rewarded for staying in.
I spent another year in concert band, getting progressively more bitter towards the band leadership. Our personalities did not mesh, and now I was looking for reasons to be mad. I still played, practiced, and participated, but I was no longer driven.
Crescendo
Going into my senior year another opening appeared for wind symphony. Between avoidance of further parental anger, my standing as an upperclassman, and a bit of the ol’ saxy magic I ended up in the top band! The band directors and I were still openly feuding, but neither side had a reason to stop the transition.
The year I had missed had been a successful one for the wind symphony. They had continued their rankings rise, and ended the year by applying to play in the Midwest Clinic, an international music conference. The application was approved, and the band would be heading to Chicago to play the following year. My year.
That year marks my high point in playing ability. I was still catching up for many of the years before, and the years after saw me only playing for the family during Christmas. But my senior year I hit the pads hards. Some would say I peaked in high school. I say I crescendoed.
Playing at an international conference is a big step up from even some of the larger venues we had played before. On top of that, we were flagged as the premiere band, scheduled to play directly following the “President’s Own” United States Marine Band. We weren’t playing in front of parents who would clap no matter how things went. This was performing for thousands of music educators, professionals, players, and fans.
The hours spent practicing put marching band to shame. Countless practice time was spent as a group, as sections, and as individuals. Tricky riffs required perfect coordination between flying fingers, machine gun blasts of air, and a tongue now stronger than my thighs. We had guest directors flown in to run workshops. We performed at colleges with featured vocal guests to hone our set list. A revolving door of new material was constantly presented to keep ourselves sharp and strengthen sight reading abilities.
My grievances were still there, and all the way through the first half of our Chicago trip a year later I was still pretending I was an outsider looking in. But getting to that stage clicked everything into place. For that performance I was one of those bandies, serious about being seriously good. The director guided and we followed. Seeing and hearing what a year of dedicated direction culminates into was enough to make my band heart grow three sizes that day.
