The Sinister Side of Sousa

I’ve played clarinet since the fifth grade, so I already had a few years under my belt by the time I made it to Junior High School. I practiced regularly, and I was getting pretty good. Back in those days, the band director would assign your position based upon your ability. The first clarinets were the best, followed by the second clarinets, and of course, the third clarinets were last. If you were assigned the last seat in the third clarinet section, you had nowhere to go but up. At the time of “the incident,” I had made it to the middle of the seconds.

We were learning the iconic John Philip Sousa march, “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” If you’re a brass player, you have it pretty easy (from my perspective anyway). If you play piccolo, you have an extremely exposed and famous solo in the final strain. Many piccolo players have either triumphed or failed during that solo, and it is a real nail-biter. The cymbal crashes are legendary, and the entire brass section typically stands for the final refrain.

Back to the clarinets. In the second strain, there are a series of octave leaps that go on in the background. While everyone is paying attention to the melody in the brass, or anticipating the upcoming glorious piccolo solo, the clarinets are toiling away on this unnecessarily difficult part (in my humble opinion).

I was motivated back then, and I’d spent considerable practice time getting this particular passage “under my fingers” as we like to say. I was feeling pretty cocky and confident in my ability to nail it. Most of the other clarinetists were still struggling, and the director was getting fed up. He started going down the line, having each clarinetist play that part. Kids were going down in flames. I had this grin on my face as I watched and listened to them all struggle and fail. I felt like this was going to be my opportunity to advance up the ranks.

The director gets to me and we lock eyes. He says something like, “So, you think you can do better.” I say, “Sure, absolutely,” with all the confidence of a smug teenager. He responds with, “Well, go ahead then.”

Usually the players in the other sections would just “check out” when it wasn’t their turn, but because of my arrogant boast, all eyes (and ears) were on me. What happened next has haunted me to this day, decades later. With all the additional attention, my adrenaline surged. Added to the raging hormones of a pubescent teenager, I got incredibly nervous in less than two seconds.

Undaunted, I plowed ahead. Not only did I miss notes, but I also started squeaking and couldn’t get out more than half of the notes. He stopped me, and the entire band erupted in laughter. Not laughing “with” me, but definitely laughing “at” me. So much for being the “cool” kid who played incredibly well. Now I was the laughingstock of the entire band.

How I was able to make it through the rest of the day is still a mystery to me. However, little by little, the horrific embarrassment of that day has faded. But it has never left me.

The best I could do was take a lesson from the experience. Now, when someone asks me if I can do something (anything really, not just music), I pause and think back on that day. Even if I’m really good at it, I say something like, “I’ll do my best,” or “I’ll give it a try.” Then, if I succeed, all is well. If I fail, I haven’t set the bar too high. And I’m much less likely to embarrass myself.