Personal Narrative: The Success Of A Band In Middle School

I have been a part of the school band since I was in 6th grade, so that’s coming up on 7 years now. I started off on clarinet and then learned to play the oboe. In middle school band, there was not a lot of moments where individuals get to show off, even in the symphonic band. It was more of everyone gets equal opportunity to play and there were very few, if any, solos. However, in high school, almost every piece we have played has at least one solo in it. Everyone who plays the instrument gets to try out and whoever does it best gets chosen. For the most part, the oboe is not a popular instrument and if a school band has one it is usually no more than two. My school only had one oboe player and guess who got the crucial solo in the ballad,

Life is a myriad of personal struggles, the depth of which depend wholly on the individual. One can decide to passively exist or proactively contribute. High school, a prime example of this crossroads, offers students a plethora of opportunities to distinguish themselves academically, artistically, and athletically. For me, being a part of my school’s band program has been the outlet that has enabled me to flourish.

As with most kids, I was a bit nervous about my transition from middle school to high school. One advantage I had was that I participated in band in middle school and planned to be in the band in high school. The Round Rock High School band has a history of excellence and I was looking forward to being a part of that organization. This was an extraordinary time and I looked forward to being a part of the band with great anticipation. Being a part of an organization such as this makes the transition to high school seem much easier and it seemed I had a ready-made group of friends that I could rely on and ask questions of if necessary. After all, the Round Rock High School Band has over 300 members.

I was never the type of kid to standout in school especially not in the hallway. I was never too tall, never too short, not too scrawny, but the one thing I like to do is make people laugh. Yet even though that was very fun and all I still leave my legacy behind, which as weird, as this sounds, I was the one kid teachers never took seriously, but for the most part I never got that bad of a grade, in middle school(except when it came to 7th grade language arts class).

High school has never been the worst years of my life. It has been difficult, but I had never felt like it was truly wonderful or meaningful until this year. This past summer, I joined the marching band, and since then my life has changed drastically. Marching band has increased the quality of my high school life, given me the opportunity to impact others, and taught me more about myself than I knew before. Being in marching band, I have made an abundant amount of friendships that never before have I experienced.

From my experience, surviving middle school takes a mixture of luck, naive fearlessness, and an aggressive number of colorful plastic binders. I started my first day of fifth grade a jumbled mess of nerves, anxious about making friends and doing well in class, and inexplicably dressed head-to-toe in red, white, and blue swag my mom got when the Summer Olympics were in Atlanta. I mean, my backpack matched my shoelaces, which matched my pants and my shirt. I might have even had a hat. A hat. A precisely matching hat. That I wore all day. Needless to say, I was not a particularly cool child. I studied hard, had a core group of equally nerdy friends, and constantly worried about whether I was doing the right thing or, perhaps more accurately, becoming the right thing. Was I not studying hard enough to get into college? Or maybe studying too hard, missing out on my youth? Would I grow into my teeth one day? Would my skin eventually stop looking like greasy peanut brittle?

The summer of 2013 was both a time of celebration, as I had just graduated middle school, and a time of insecurities, as I started my journey as a member of my high school’s marching band. In middle school, I was normally a shy, quiet person, so it comes as no surprise that I felt uncomfortable at my first marching band practice. In addition, very few of my band friends in middle school had continued into high school marching band, creating a feeling of isolation over me.

Never in a day would I have dreamed of joining the marching band. As an eighth grader, the idea of joining the marching band sounded horrendous. I never imagined myself as that “nerd”. Now, today as a senior in high school, I am so glad that I made the spontaneous decision to join as marching band was a significant chapter of my life.

It doesn’t take a natural disaster or a death to alter the course of your life. It can be as small and simple as a choice—picking a class. My life was changed for the better when, in sixth grade, I chose to join the band. I remember vacillating, nearly in tears, over which instrument to learn before deciding to choose the flute, unaware that this decision would mold me through out my middle school and high school years. Band has taught me valuable life lessons and leadership skills, it has provided me with priceless friendships, and it has fostered a love of music in me. Without band I would not be the person I am today.

Marching band does not sound interesting to most people, at least to me it didn’t. For the longest time I wanted to quit band because I never really enjoyed it, I didn’t think I was good so it made me want to give up. But my mother never let me quit. I hated her for it but I realize now that she was doing something good for me. My mother made me play the flute. The instrument that isn’t like any other, some call it a “hybrid” between the woodwinds and brass. I never liked to practice the flute, but eventually I had to. These factors, hating being in band, my mother forcing me to stick with it, and playing the flute, changed my life.

When I first joined the marching band in high school, I was very insecure and unsure of what to expect because it was very unfamiliar to me. Near the beginning of the season, our director and staff began to teach us how to march and play simultaneously. Many people were doing fine but some were struggling and I was one of those kids in that predicament.

With my experience of middle school so far, I think I've accomplished most of my goals in an orderly manner. For these accomplishments may not have turned out as I expected. One accomplishment was in sixth grade. Three friends and I entered into the curie math bowl. I've studied for this test, and it turns out that our team won second place for the group section of the bowl. I find it a great accomplishment because it was the first time I've ever gotten an award.

​In the fifth grade, I was introduced to my district's band program. The moment I was shown the instruments and allowed to take one home has changed me over the years. I along with the other students, my peers and friends, experienced the trouble of learning a brand new thing, an instrument. I was given the task of just playing one note and holding it for a certain duration. For the next few days the tasks assigned to me increased in difficulty, as well as how I should structure my schedule around practicing my instrument and school work. Then, from fifth to sixth grade my middle school experience separated the wheat from the chaff. This small transition of just one year showed a willingness or commitment to what I and my peers, my friends

If I could change one thing to improve the Middle School Band Program, I would try to get the high school band members more involved in the development of the younger musicians in the Middle School Band Programs. As we know, our Middle Schools have continuously proven themselves to be skilled and advanced on the highest level, therefore, the concepts being taught are working. However, through my experience, it seems as if us Middle School Students assume that our ability to play instruments is capped at a certain level. Without a long term goal focused towards High School, we just learn our music and play. For me, after meeting with current upperclassmen in wake of drumline auditions, I realized that there was much more work to be done. As

Not even a year ago I had one of the best experiences of my life. It was our 8th grade band trip to Chicago, and it was amazing. Not only did I become more independent, but I learned a lot as well. All kinds of things happened; we argued, went to concerts and museums, and most importantly; had a blast. I had been looking forward to this since 6th grade, and now the trip has been reduced to memories that I wouldn’t give up for the world.