Drumming to happiness by Ben

Drumming to happiness by Ben - November 2018 Scholarship Essay

Throughout my time in high school, drumline is what really made me absolutely and that is where most of my happiest memories come from. These are the people that later on became my other family while I was away from my real home.
My freshman year I did not know what to expect going to band rehearsal in the summer. Little did I know is that summer band would almost be all day long starting from eight o’clock in the morning, to all the way to seven o’clock in the evening with only a two week “break” at the beginning of August. In that supposedly “two week break” I was led to believe that everyone in band got to rest for two weeks. I was completely wrong. Being in the drumline at Veterans is taken extremely serious, so of course, the older member already knew that they were not going to take a break in that two week period. So during this whole first summer of band, I learned that it was a totally different atmosphere than being in a middle school band. In high school, I learned that the band actually practices hard so they could perform to their best abilities to not only impress the parents at football games, but to also show off the hard work that they put in the whole summer.
Being in the drumline, I was greatly nervous because of all the doubt that had gone into my head because I was not sure if I would make the drumline, or even get a chance to perform on the field. After a couple of weeks of learning of the music, we would be performing at football games, it was decided that I would be on the cymbal line section of the drumline. Now at that point I knew what was up and how the sections worked around in the drumline. There are two parts of the drumline: The battery, which is the part where they actually march on the field, and then there’s the pit who would be on track and would be playing keyboard instruments. So being on the cymbal line pretty much said that I barely made it to the battery and was lucky enough to get the chance to march on the field. Even though I was on the cymbal line that did not affect how we all got along when we were not practicing music.
Most of the happiest times in drumline was when we were not practicing music or performing. During our breaks in summer band is what I looked forward to the most. Once one part rehearsal was over, we would all run into our drumline room and retrieve a football and we would playing football on the parking lot with other band members not caring about how tired we would be for the next rehearsal. So after a while of having fun and getting close to most of the drumline members is when I started to feel happy about going to school. Being a part of the band is a great opportunity, but being in the drumline is an even better opportunity because what everyone knows is that the drumline is the coolest and funniest sections to be with. Competition days were the best kinds of days in drumline. I remember waking up early in the morning and going to school and doing a couple of run-throughs before we had to leave on the bus to wherever we had to compete. The attitude in everyone is totally different. Everyone has their game face on and is ready to show off what they got. Being in the parking lot practicing before we perform on the field was such a thrilling moment because that is when the drumline is going over their music and everyone who would be walking by would stop by and just gather around a make a crowd and cheer for us before we even actually performed. Now after performing for the crowd and the people in the football stands, we would load our equipment back into the U-hauls and that is when the fun would begin. We would take off uniforms that were drenched in sweat and begin roaming around the stadium talking to other drumline members or either telling each other to do dares that even though nobody wanted to do, somebody would end up doing it.
Reminiscing about all those times I had in high school were truly amazing. That is how time flew by and that is also how I learned to love a group of people. I finally had the ability to call them my other family away from home. They made my high school experience fun and made me feel truly blessed to have them in my life because without them, I would not have been as happy as I am today.