Marching Band: I Did Not Know What I Was Getting Myself Into by Corrine

Marching Band: I Did Not Know What I Was Getting Myself Into by Corrine - July 2021 Scholarship Essay

In tenth grade, amongst the relentless peer pressure from my friends, I decided to join our school’s marching band. I was so excited to attend the information meeting with the new band director that I barely registered the requirements, costs, and long hours for the activity. I was crushed when I realized that the practices started when my family would be out of state until what the band called “heat week”, where we’d learn a majority of the marching show and choreography. I wanted to join the band mainly because my friends had told me it was fun and I’d seen them perform pep tunes in the bleachers at a football game once the year before and I thought their uniforms and funky hats looked cool. One of my friends even let me touch hers, which was amazing. So I was disheartened when I read that practice attendance was mandatory and realized I may not be able to participate.
After a discussion with the director, I was reassured that it would be fine if I missed those practices so long as I’d be back for heat week. So, on the first day of practice, I put on some athletic clothes, grabbed my water, and went to the school. It was an uneventful first day. There were a lot of new people in the band that year, so we focused on the basics. A majority of the time was spent trying on step-offs- just taking one step from a standing position. All of this in the school parking lot in the hot, summer sun with a clarinet in my hands, and frankly, I did not enjoy it at all. I wasn’t that upset when we left the next few weeks. But when we came back, I was still eager to see my friends again. Though when I got there, I was met with an unfortunate surprise.
Ahead of schedule, the band had started learning sets for the show already, leaving me confused when I showed up and had to learn the rest of the basics while the rest of the band was strutting past me on the field. I was pulled from the field very early since we had missed those weeks. A section leader spent about fifteen minutes the next few days making sure I could march with the proper form. Then I was sent back out on the field to learn positions with the rest of the band, and thankfully I managed to stumble through it.
This heat week was for five days, eight hours each, in the gloomy rain. Ironically, my first heat week was freezing. It was often sprinkling, which was bad for the instruments, so we were constantly sent to the sidelines to either disassemble them or put them back together. I didn’t have a raincoat, so I was shivering half the time. By day four, I was ready to quit, but I had already put so much effort into the activity, and I didn’t want to let the director down and leave a hole in the marching show forms. So, I decided to stick it out. After all, the post-heat week practices were more spread out.
Our first two performances were on the same day and we had been practicing the entire third part of our show the day before, so our band director decided that we’d use my first performance experience as a test trial to see if we could connect all three acts, which we had never done before. A long story short- it did not go well. I made several missteps, hit a few wrong notes, and squeaked way too many times, but the rush was incredible! The feeling of being in full uniform, surrounded by all my friends as we blasted full-fortissimo at the judges’ box was indescribable. All of the work, all of the eight-hour days in the rain, all of the memorization and practicing sets had paid off in that 7-8 minute subpar show in front of an applauding audience. Afterward, I could barely remember anything that happened during it from the amount of adrenaline in my system. Thankfully, the later performance went better. Our director cut the third act temporarily since we needed more time to practice the transitions, so we were more confident and my dad was cheering in the stands after it was over.
After this, I was filled with a resurgence of energy and excitement. Even though marching band wasn’t the easy, laid-back activity I originally thought it was, it was something that made me feel good about myself. I was part of a team, memorizing steps and music and choreography with other students as we spent grueling hours outside in the elements. Once I learned to accept that the activity required hard work and discomfort, everything was much more enjoyable. Following this experience, I stuck with the marching band the rest of high school, getting to be a part of a duet in a show we won second place for at Youth In Music and even becoming section leader of the clarinetists. In the future, I hope to be a part of the University of Minnesota’s marching band. I auditioned this year, but I have yet to find out if I got in. Either way, I will keep auditioning just to be a part of that type of community of musicians again.