Band…
Images that spring to an outsider’s mind are deceptive; for band is not merely the cold black metal of a music stand nor the stoic click of a metronome. The most precious moments in band are not the media-friendly clichés of inner-city eight year olds performing Strauss flawlessly. Band is something that one cannot iconize; it cannot be streamlined, broken down, or summed up. It is truly a collective, and yet paradoxically, individual, experience.
Band is the sting of sweat in your eyes.
It’s the dry taste in your mouth at four o’clock on a humid afternoon.
It’s the shadow of the directory softly sweeping across the stage.
It’s the first shower at band camp.
It’s drama.
It’s anger.
It’s frustration.
It’s pain.
It’s glory.
It’s tradition.
It’s the end of a full day practice, without the strength to hold one’s own, but somehow enough to bear the next tired soul as they lean on your shoulder in utter exhaustion and utter camaraderie.
It’s the smile on another’s face before the last run-through of practice.
It’s accepting the unacceptable.
It’s fighting the good fight.
It’s sitting on a hard wooden bench in 105 degrees, 100% humidity, and never feeling better.
It’s the sound of your director’s laugh during a good rehearsal…
…or of the thick silence at a bad one.
It’s being pushed so far past your limit you can’t see behind you.
It’s not having a life, and not caring anymore.
It’s your heart in your throat and your stomach in your chest.
It’s tears in your eyes after that one performance…
It’s knowing you couldn’t have tried harder if you wanted to, and you did anyway.
It’s the feeling of cold metal resting against your lips.
It’s the taste of reeds.
It’s the cool air grazing your face and the hot wool hugging your chest.
It’s the squeal of a trumpet solo.
It’s the feeling of the warm chords in the ballad, as you’ve never played them before.
It’s prelims.
It’s finals.
It’s the hot food at a questionable concession stand.
It’s “Surf Naked” t-shirts.
It’s being moved to tears at your first live drum corps performance.
It’s dozing off on the band room floor…multiple times.
It’s dark bus rides at one in the morning.
It’s pride on the faces of the alumni.
It’s the lights flickering on right before you take the field.
It’s the shine of your horn at night.
It’s the pain in your shins.
It’s the chorale during warm-up.
It’s the nervous conversation during competition stretch-out.
It’s the nervous silence as the drum major salutes.
It’s inside jokes with 75 people.
It’s the roar of the crowd.
It’s the warm sun on your back in mid-November.
It’s the glimpse out of the corner of your eye at a full Olympic style retreat.
It’s the endless parade routes.
It’s putting away the marching horns.
It’s the first note of concert band.
It’s making mistakes.
It’s embarrassing.
It’s living and learning.
It’s never backing down.
It’s the first sight of your symphonic music.
It’s bad jokes.
It’s matching pitch with the lawn mower outside the band room.
It’s wanting to be good.
It’s the feeling after solo and ensemble is over and done with.
It’s having the heart.
It’s taking on a challenge more than you can handle.
It’s taking one for the team.
It’s putting the past behind you.
It’s never forgetting.
It’s letting go, and holding on.
It’s Pomp and Circumstance on a late May evening.
It’s saying goodbye.
It’s moving foreword.
It’s blood, tear, and sweat –shed.
It’s desire.
It’s liberation.
It’s restraint.
It’s something to hope for.
It’s love…pure and simple…for every part of it.
IT is when the aforementioned all comes together in one blinding, overwhelming moment, and no other feeling can ever compare.
tired
impressed