High school was somewhere where I had to search for a place to feel accepted or heard. Some students find their special place as early as their freshman year, while others find theirs as late as senior year. Much like in college, the best way to find a person or group of people that they feel in-tune with is by joining a club or organization. The first one might not always be the right one for someone, but that doesn’t mean they should stop looking. They cannot give up hope. I was lucky enough to join 7 clubs in high school, but the one that I made the strongest connections in was the Marching Band. That’s not to say that I just automatically felt safe and accepted after only a couple of practices. It took a while for me to find myself in the beginning; but then once I did it was very easy to spot the people I could relate to. The countless hours of “torture” (reading and interpreting the sheet music that was presented to us) was the glue that bonded us together. Much like in sheet music, there are different instrumental sections of the band that people can find someone to relate to. In sheet music, there would sometimes be a certain portion of the music that I did not necessarily feel any emotional connection to -let alone that I thought sounded catchy- but no matter what, in my band there was never a section of the Friday-Night- Football music that any of us didn’t like.
It’s Saturday morning, the sun is shining off my marimba, partially blinding me as I pulse to the drum major’s tempo. The show ends, and we all quickly evacuate off the field to let the next band on. That was it, the show had been performed, and now it was time to wait for the results. One would think that performing our show would be the most rewarding experience, but as it turns out, the path towards the goal was more rewarding than receiving a superior rating at a competition. Everyone was on that field to give it their all, and being together as a strong and united front was what brought us to victory around every turn. I can still picture it: pulling the ensemble’s instruments down the field, loading them into and out of the trucks as we approached the opposing football team’s field. I can still feel the pressure of the time crunch along with the simultaneous need to move the instruments with extreme care. Before the football games, the band would always spend 4+ hours every evening preparing for the show. It was mentally and physically exhausting; but we didn’t have to do it alone. After a while, I learned how to perform the music without evening putting any thought into it. I was always told that this was a concept that’s commonly referred to as “muscle memory.” Of course I always had to make little tweaks here and there, but there was always that memory of the music we had learned in our bones. If the band director told us to start at B-7, then we would go to our position and begin the show from there without hesitation. Even still to this day I can remember how to play my freshman show, along with all the memories I have attached with performing it. That wasn’t the only thing muscle memory gave us the ability to do though.
So it’s Friday night, the crowd is cheering for the Marching Lions. The excitement is building, and my heartbeat is almost as fast as the climax of our show. Then the show begins, and all those nerves wither away; and just like that, the show is over. The band goes on to enjoy the rest of their weekend almost completely stress-free. As a lot of people know, whenever people want to learn from their past mistakes -whether that be when they were playing an instrument, a sport, or singing- they tend to record themselves while they perform whatever activity they are trying to do. At every practice and football game, our band director would ask the photography staff to video up-close and full-view angles of our show. Then the following day we would all sit down during Band class in school and listen/watch. He would have us jot down on our music sheets what adjustments we needed to make. I would also listen to them at home (typically while doing my homework), and when I did, I could remember every single rep and every single note that I had performed with all my friends. With time, these friends eventually became like a second family to everyone. We all knew that our relationships had been forged from the numerous amount hours we had put into creating our show.
By the end of the year our sheet music would have so much writing on it that one would’ve thought that it was a work of art that should be hanging in a museum somewhere. All the progress that we had made throughout the year was recorded on those pages, in a language only we could decipher. Every year when we would eventually reach the “Florida Marching Band Competition” at the Tropicana Dome, we would all huddle together on our bus seats and review the almost foreign scribbles on our sheet music. Even though we never ranked 1st place at the state competitions, the text on our music was proof enough that we had given it our all; which was more than enough for us. Those symbols that we had drawn on our dot sheets recorded the path that each of us had marched-on to get to that very moment of glory we had been preparing for, for months on end. They were our own personal biographies and scrapbooks that showcased our unforgettable adventures together.
I can always look back and know that no matter where I end up, I can always count on the friends that I made in Band to truly listen to what I have to say, and allow me to feel accepted and heard. Though the sheet music itself was the physical evidence of our commitment to the team, our friendships themselves were proof enough. As individual sections we would schedule times where we would all go to the park or somebody else’s house. We would hangout, watch scary movies while gorging popcorn, or play board games that humorously threatened our friendships. One might believe that Band itself was the direct cause for all of us being so close, but it was actually the times we hung out after school that made us all life-long friends. The endless adventures of going to see Marvel movies, or the days spent at Walt Disney World. This being said, we all probably would’ve never hung out outside of school if it wasn’t for the marching band. It was because we decided to join such a wonderful organization that our paths crossed. It changed the way we looked at the world, and I personally became friends with all different kinds of personalities that I never thought I would. It was a place where anybody could feel accepted and safe, and that’s something I think everyone deserves to have.