As this month of October begins, marching bands in many places are gearing up for several weeks of intensive practices and weekly competition performances. They will rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse some more before piling onto school buses and driving for hours in lingering heat to other schools’ stadia to play in the bleachers and at halftime, only to pile back on, drive for hours, unload and unpack and air out their uniforms so that they will maybe be dry in the morning when they return, rehearse, and pile into school buses for more hours on the road in advance of one final run-through and a single shot to perform and maybe, maybe win out over all of the other bands in their class that day. It’s the kind of thing I spent years doing, it’s the kind of thing I still volunteer to help others do, and it’s at least one kind of thing that I love.

Such wasn’t always the case, however.

When I was much younger than I am now, as I was moving into sixth grade, I was presented for the first time with options for classes I would take. I had the choice to take art, band, or choir. Art, at least at the school I attended (which does not exist anymore, not even in a successor campus), was a half-year course; band and choir were full-year courses. Sixth grade also had a required health class and a required gym class–but for students in art, health class was paired against art, so they had a full year of physical gym. For band and choir students, the health class was paired against the gym class; taking either band or choir meant getting out of half a year of gym.

For me, then, being at the time skinny and looking decidedly down on the paltry concerns of physical education (I’ve said I was a little shit when I was younger), it was clear that band or choir would be the choice for me. And since, at that time, my voice had not found its resonance and clarity (I’m told I have a good voice for radio; I’m told the same about my face, if I’m being honest), and I had even more trouble carrying a tune then than I do now, but I grew up among performing musicians and had ready access to a number of wind instruments, there was little question that I would take band over choir.

I…was not a good student in band. In my defense, I did have some physical issues that got in the way of some things; I had some rather interesting braces at that point in my life, and there is a reason I was in motor skills labs when I was in elementary school. More pertinently, though, I was, if it can be believed, arrogant, thinking that because I came from the family I did that I was above doing the exercises that my classmates did, putting in the practice that at least some of them did, and it was the case that some measure of natural talent carried me further into things than I had any right to go at that time. It caught up with me soon enough, and I made some shifts in response–but those will be stories for another time. (I have to have something else to write about, don’t I?)

It took a while for me to find my love for playing, to find the passion for it that would more or less carry me through high school (although I am certain I romanticize some things to an unhealthy extent) and into the beginnings of my college career. (It’s why I minored in music, in the event.) I’m glad it did, and I’m glad that I can still pick up a horn and play a tune on it (although I know I ought to practice more, but I don’t play publicly at this point, probably for good reason), but I have to acknowledge that what I’m glad of now came from a then I’m very much not glad of. But I think many look back at who they were at the age I was then, the age Ms. 8 is now, and are not pleased with what they see, and I take some comfort from the idea that I am not alone–as I hope that my reminiscing will help others know they are not alone, and perhaps find comfort therein.

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