Essay About Marching Band

“Alright, everyone. Take five for water and be back here at...6:33- no, make that 6:35. ” These are the words that I live for. Those few minutes of sweet relief from the strenuous weight of an instrument and the ever repeating show. “Start a page 25 and go until the end of the movement.” Directions like “Let’s do that a few more times and then we’ll move on” and finally, at the end of the day, “Everybody set up at the beginning of the show for a full run-through.” The directions barely getting through your mind past the notes, rhythms, sweat, breathing, and laughter. This is music. This is family. This, is marching band. Although I haven’t been a part of it for long, the Kennesaw Mountain High School Marching Band is an unforgettable experience in my life. When people in band tell you it’s like a family, there is no exaggeration or false information being given to you. It really is a family. You have crazy “uncles”, batty “aunts”, overprotective “parents”, “cousins” you don’t talk to, and people you didn’t even know were in the family. But let’s not

In middle school I learned the fundamentals and then some. Marching band put what I learned to the test. Suddenly there are more basics to learn, and those basics are expected to be perfected by September. They add more basics, and apply those basics to drill. Before I know it, I’m marching across a football field in the scorching summer sun, constantly being criticized by the choreographer and visual technicians. But all of that is worth it, when you finish the first full run through of the season, thinking back on the many mistakes you made during the run, but breathing heavily, smiling because you did what you thought to be near impossible in the beginning. You did it. You scaled a skyscraper without any equipment except for a whole lot of people. From here you just take the stairs back