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You Are What You Play

If you are a “band nerd” like me you would know that the most fun of any marching season is pep bands. This is because unlike having run around the field and play your brains out you occasionally have to stand up to play your brains out. And during the sit down time you get to hang out with your friends, laugh, and have fun. It is during these pep bands where I found out something very true about people in band: You are your instrument.

In the beginning of the year my friends and I would sit together during the pep bands (against the rule of sitting with your section) at the top row of the bleachers, where Stephanie sits because she plays the sousaphone. Emily, who plays mellophone, sits one row in front of Stephanie and is also included in the low brass section. It is Jodi and I who have to be very careful and sneaky when making our way to the Tuba section. Jodi, playing flute, sits in the very front so she normally has a hard time getting to the top. I, who play the trumpet, have it slightly easier because I only have a couple of rows to climb. Something about being at a pep band prevents my friends and I from understanding each other thefore we are incompatible.

When I sat with my friends in the low brass section the conversations that they had were, in my opinion, boring and depressive. They would generally talk about politics or recent things they have heard in the news and would make fun of different political people. They would complain each time we would have to stand up to play a song. Their conversations were as if they were playing their instrument.

The sounds of the low brass are deep, dark, mellow sounds. I would even say they had a mature sound. They also are heavy instruments and like their instruments, everyone was sitting down where as when I looked below at the band, I saw people standing and walking around, dancing and having all sorts of fun. Most people in pep band would be telling joke or funny stories, they wouldn’t use the time to discuss newsworthy issues. Emily and Stephanie fit right in with the conversation and even had their own small conversation about the things they hate most about band and life. The general mood around the low brass was sober and dark. Jodi and I, who were used to the happy mood of the people down below, were getting a little depressed. We both needed some happy spirit, so on Jodi’s invitation we headed down to the flute section.

Immediately when I arrived it was as if someone turned on the overhead light and started to party. Here the mood was much brighter. People were talking and laughing at inside jokes. The flute/clarinet section is made up of mostly girls, so as you can imagine the topic of conversations consisted of hair, makeup products and the latest crush. When they giggled it was like their flutes and clarinets trilling on a high note. The flutes and clarinets are instruments with very light and airy sounds and they play lots of trills and runs. And like the way they play on their instruments, the girls never stopped moving.  They were jumping up and down, squirting water at one another.

Although I enjoyed the happier mood which was what the low brass sections lacked, like the girly sound of the instrument, the giggling and conversations were too much for me to handle. So I left that section and slid over to the drumline.

Drums are the leaders of all music because the keep the time and are very precise. Different rhythms and tones make its music so interesting and really awesome to listen to. The people on drumline are just as awesome as the sounds they make but it was practically pointless to join them for any fun conversation because for most of the time they played there cadences and then were busy talking about what they would play next. So after about two minutes of them I rejoined my trumpet buddies.

When I got there I finally felt I belonged. Trumpets are loud instruments that have a tendency to drown out the rest of the other players. They also can be played at a really high pitch. Whenever possible trumpet players have the opportunity to play up an octave they normally will go for it. You may think this description is going to prove that trumpet players are egotistical and show-offs, (well, that’s true), even when we aren’t supposed to play you will find at least someone trying to play the highest note they can.  In that section people was shouting and laughing, not like the way the flutes laugh but a more loud and obnoxious laugh. Many of us would stand up and shout across the band and encourage a cheer. You could easily say that the trumpet section is the loudest section of the band.

You won’t see it anywhere else; it is only at pep band that you can see the similarities of musician’s personalities and their instrument of choice. My friends and I do everything together, everything but pep band. This is the one and only time where we can’t understand each other. There is no use getting away from it, at a pep band, you sit with your section.

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