By: Kara S.
It’s 6 in the
morning when the alarm clock goes off. As much as I would rather sleep in on a
Saturday morning at the end of October, today is the day of our last marching
band competition. Today is the last day I get to spend with the entire band.
These are the people who have always there for me, the people who understand me
the most, and the people who are most like me. The band is my family.
Call time is 6:45
AM, so I have to be in the band room before then; in the band world, early is
on time, on time is late, and late is unthinkable. So everyone gets to the
school looking like zombies, dragging their feet while holding large cups of
coffee and gathering their instruments and uniforms. I pull my trumpet out of
my top locker and walk over to where the trumpet section stands. I stand in my
spot at the end of the arc. I’m the Trumpet Section leader, so I have to check
my section to make sure they have all parts of their uniforms and trumpets.
Come 7:15 and its
time to load the buses. Today’s competition is in Rome, Georgia, which is about
an hour away. By the time the bus ride starts, everyone is much more awake. The
bus ride is full of eating food, making jokes, laughing, and watching videos on
our phones. The Trumpet Section has become so close since June.
At our June
practices, and then during band camp in July, we all knew each other, but not
well enough. Now in October, after a campfire and cookout, countless human
knots, and 23 bus rides, these crazy people are my best friends and know me
better than my own family.
We arrive in Rome
at about 8:15 and get off the bus at 8:30. Since we don’t perform for another
few hours, we go to the stands to watch a few other bands and eat concession
food. The bands we watched were amazing, and they had wonderful themes to go
with their impeccable marching skills. These bands were going to be hard to
beat, but our band has been putting in a lot of work and we think our show
looks fantastic.
Since it’s the end
of October, it’s pretty chilly, but our uniforms are a huge paradox. In the
heat, they make you sweat even more than normal, but in the cold, they provide
no warmth whatsoever. Everywhere I look within our band, I see letterman
jackets adorned with band letters earned over the years and school’s band
sweatshirts. Everyone is trying to stay warm.
At 1:00, we head
back to the bus to get ready for our turn to perform. After getting our
jackets, shakos or hats, gloves, gauntlets, and instruments, we get into our
two lines. Now is the time to get serious. This is the last competition, the
last time anyone will see this show live, with this band, because this band
will never exist again. The seniors this year will have graduated and gone to
college before the school band marches again. And next year, we will have new
freshmen to show the correct way to march and stand at attention. But in Rome
on this day, this is no time to think about that; right now is the time to
think about our sets, music, breathing, and marching skills. And warm up time
is over before we know it.
Its 1:30: we march
over to the field and it’s time to perform. We line up on the back sideline, in
line with our first set. My set one is 14 steps in front of the back sideline
and 2.5 steps outside the 45 on side B. We’ve stood in this first step so many
times. I just can’t believe this will be the last time we ever stand on this
dot, and the last time we will ever run through this show. We’ve worked on this
show for the past six months. We’ve had so many practices this year. We have
practiced every Tuesday, every Wednesday, every Thursday, and some Saturdays.
65 band classes, 39 after-school practices, 11 football games, 5 all-day
Saturday practices, 3 afternoon practices over the summer, 2 other
competitions, and 1 week of daily 14 hour band camp have gone into the making
of this show. The sets have been drilled into our brains, and the music for
this seven-minute show has been memorized since September. But this show isn’t
about us as individuals; these next seven minutes are about the band, the
group. We don’t want to let each other down because this band means so much to us.
Now, it’s 2:25, and
we have a show to perform.
“Drum Majors, is
the band ready? You may now take the field in competition.”
Here we go.
Every set, every
step size, every visual, every note, and every rhythm is perfect.
And then, it is over.
That moment after
the last horns are down, but before the applause: that’s what we live for. That
feeling of breathlessness, the feeling of accomplishment, the feeling of pure
joy is why we continue to stay in marching band.
After we get off
the field and put our uniform pieces back on the bus, we walk back to the
stadium at 2:45 to finish watching the rest of the bands who still have to
perform.
Before
we know it, it’s 8:30 and time for the awards ceremony. All leadership,
including me as Trumpet Section leader, are on the field lined up with the
leadership from the other bands who came to perform at this competition. Now
come the final minutes of agony. We wait for the scores, and since the
announcer starts with the smaller bands and we are in the second biggest class,
4A, we have a while to stand and wait. The other bands did very well, and their
scores reflect their hard work. Finally, the time has come for them to announce
our band’s scores. “Color Guard: Superior.”
Cheers.
“Percussion:
Superior.”
A few more cheers.
“Drum Majors:
Superior.”
More cheering.
“Band: Superior.”
A lot more cheers.
“General effect:
Superior.”
Even more cheers.
And finally,
“Overall: Superior.”
All I hear is a roar of cheering from our
section of the bleachers.
“First place. Grand
Champions. Congratulations.”
I can barely hear my
thought over the deafening cheering from our band as I smile to myself. We did
it. This was our best run ever, and we have the scores to prove it.
It close to 11 at
night by the time we get back to the buses and are ready to go home. The bus
ride home is as exciting as the bus ride there. It may be late, but we are still
energetic. While half of the bus is singing, talking, and laughing, the other
half is somehow sleeping through all the noise. I’m so tired, but I could never
sleep, at least not with all of the excitement and all of my friends. I’m so
proud of the entire band, and especially my Trumpet Section. This year, we had 14
trumpets, and 8 of them were rookies, which I was fairly nervous about having
for my first year as section leader. But we can’t really call them “rookies”
anymore; they’ve come so far and they have improved so much that the audience would
never be able to guess that they had never marched before. I remember when my
six freshman walked into the first band practice. They looked terrified and
now, they joke around with the rest of the section just like they are seniors.
Everyone has come a long way this year, and I couldn’t be more proud of them.
We get back to the
school a little after Midnight. By the time we arrive, tiredness has finally
set in for everyone, and everyone walks into the band room like they did in the
morning, looking like zombies. Instruments are returned to lockers and uniforms
are put back on the hanger racks, ready to go for next year. We are dismissed
around 12:30. Everyone is so ready to go home .
Marching band can
make me both ridiculously happy and ridiculously frustrated, and sometimes I
feel both emotions at the same time. If it weren’t for the adrenaline rush and
the sense of pride I get from performing, I probably would’ve quit marching a
while ago, but my band family and the thrill of marching are two things that
keep me going through the countless practices and monotonous “one more time.”
Marching band allows me to be a part of something greater than what I could
ever do alone. It lets me find my physical limits and then how I can push those
limits so that I can become even better. Our practice field is where I learned
to take everything one step at a time and not to become frustrated enough to
give up. I’ve learned how to work as part of the ultimate team. I know without
trust, I would never have been able to back march at 160 beats per minute while
holding a trumpet as the trombones front march towards my back. Marching band
has taught me how to become a part of the music and how to keep my chin up and
eyes filled with pride. In band, everyone is important. I know this is true
because when one person is missing, the whole band suffers.
This band has been
the best thing to ever happen to me. This band is my family.
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