Marching Band

Since the sixth grade (middle school) I have been playing the trumpet. I mainly joined band because my sister was in as a flute player and I, being the typical younger sister, was wanting to do what my "big sis" did. Anyway, I joined as a trumpet player and spent the first half of the school year learning the basics, and the last few football games I got to join the high school band playing in the stands. At my school, it is extremely small, and my fifth grade year they took the band/music program out of the school other than the high school, so if I wanted to do band I had to devote my after school hours to practice with the high school band director. By the end of my sixth grade year, I was already playing with the "Big Band" in concerts. I still have the program from my first concert.

Anyway, come seventh grade, a week before school started there was this horrible thing called band camp. This horrible thing started out with warm-ups/exercises at eight AM and ended with being outside in 90 degree weather trying to work on the show for the year, finally being able to go home at five PM. We did this for a week straight. Then school started and we had about half the show down. So, like any other school, we practiced after school on Tuesdays and Fridays until we had the show completely down and memorized. Since I was just a seventh grader at the time, I mostly got second or third trumpet (we only had around 20 students in band so that helped getting up on the chairs). We only had four trumpets and two of us were still middle school (me and one of my close friends at the time joined band together. Her brother was a percussionist and this year is his senior year while my sister graduated two years ago). I had a majority of the stand's tunes memorized and there were always the two songs that all of us danced to while the low brass and percussion played. One was called "Rep Yo City" and the second one doesn't really have a name other than "#5." Most of the music had number cues instead of actual names, so I still don't know #5's real name and the music was left behind from the previous band director. They both had fun dances to them and we would always request to play it. There was a third one but it wasn't a dance but a chant. It was called "Ball and Parlay" and I don't know where the chant came from but it is: "Rather sunny or grey, we go ball and parlay. We get crunk everyday. That's the Polk County way. As we show our school pride. Were true cats till we die. So let's get Crunk as we say. We go Ball and Parlay." My school is the Wildcats and the town is Polk County, so some of it was probably modified when they found it. I don't know.

Now for the shows. My seventh grade year was a show called "Trash to Treasure" and we played the songs "Sanford and Sons" theme, "Bashin," "Funkytown," "Play That Funky Music," and "You Are the New Day." My eighth grade year was the senior year of a lot of our low brass and half of the band, so we dwindled down to around ten members at the end of the year, but that year our show was called "Asian Adventure" and we played "Hotoru Koi" (I think I spelled that wrong but I don't have the music anymore so I cant correct it) and "Kung Fu Fighting." There was a third one, but as I don't have the music anymore I couldn't tell you what it was. Anyway, my freshmen year I spent the first nine weeks of school at a new school where the band was bigger (around 120) and our show was Maroon 5 and we played "Maps," "Animals," "Moves Like Jagger," and "Daylight." That was my favorite show I've ever played and I loved being in the big band, but by the end of the nine weeks, I ended up moving back to my old school, sadly.

When I came back is when I discovered we only had around ten members and that they didn't even have a show that year due to lack of members, so we just played in the stands. The last two games though, the band director decided to make the band do a standstill kind of thing and we played some stands tunes ("Tequila" and "Louie Louie" which, in my opinion, were the worst songs we could have played). Skip past that and come to this past marching season (my Sophomore year) and we now have 15 members. The band director didn't even give us show music till the second week of school, but as soon as it was with us, we all started working on memorizing it but, still not having a lot of members, we were forced to do a standstill show. It was all cool though, because we got to play "Fireworks," "Born This Way," and "Ex's and Oh's."

Also, since we lost the low brass section entirely, we had to come up with a way to play some songs and I ended up figuring out how to play "#5" but in a different key, so I gave up dancing so we could still play the song. We also had to give up the "Hey" song, "Ball and Parlay," and "Rep Yo City," which sucked but it made it a little better since I figured out how to play "#5." Now, though, we are currently in concert season and just finished our Christmas concert a few weeks ago. We played "White Christmas" (which is a tradition to play this song every year), "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "Jingle Bell Bounce," "Christmas Island," and "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)." This year I was the only trumpet player in the class (there are only two of us now since one graduated and one just quit) but I got first chair on every song we played for that concert, which probably won't happen again since the other trumpet player is joining the class next semester. The band director likes playing favoritism on some of the band members and the other trumpet player just happened to be one of her favorites. We also had marching band competitions, but since we went down in our members we can't do them. But we go to a festival kind of thing called "UTC Band Day" where we get to play with a bunch of different bands and the UTC college band at a college football game. It's really fun and there's always a Halloween costume contest (since it normally happens on Halloween) and the winner of the contest gets to bring home a trophy that has the marshmallow guy on it from Ghostbusters. We have to bring the trophy back the next year so it's like a guarantee that we come back the following year.

Anyway, that was marching season (technically, since the Christmas concert happens during the first semester). Concert season normally consists of the Spring concert and some competitions. We do a competition called "Music in the Parks" every year in April or May (depending on which is better at the time) and since we are a small band, we always perform first and get to spend the rest of the day in Dollywood (which is the park that the awards ceremony is in). Other than music in the parks, there's also Solo and Ensemble, which we get in sections (instrument sections like trumpets, flutes, clarinets, etc.) and work on a piece with them and then break off and do a solo piece and get rated on that. Last year I performed the song "Two Scottish Songs" as my solo (which I had to repeat this slow part like four times and it was absolute torture, and by the end of it my lips started to quiver due to anxiety that was starting to form at the time. It wasn't that bad then, but it still affected me during the performance. I cant remember the duet part I did with the other trumpet player (there were three of us then, but the third one that quit didn't want to do solo and ensemble, so it was up to me and my close friend at the time). We both got rated as a one (which is the highest you can get) on both the solos and duets. I think we're doing it again this year, but it's not until May-ish so I haven't received music for it yet (my anxiety has worsened since then so I don't know how I'm gonna get through it, but I'll just push through and hope for the best). There's also a competition we do near March and April that is a normal 'you go in and perform then, sight read and then get to watch other bands perform' kind of competition, but I don't remember the name.

Anyway, that's my high school band experience so far and I figured I'd share it in case you were thinking about doing band, which I completely think you should. And if you're out of high school and not in college, then join the community band. It won't be marching band but it will be like concert band, but just putting on concerts and no competitions. I'm not exactly sure though, since I've only heard of what it's like through my band director.