My Best Friend

I enter this fall semester a seasoned veteran of the drum line, having been on the line since my sophomore year. Last year was rough to say the least, and I intend to make this my best year yet. We lost a lot of people coming into this season, either through graduated seniors, or people who left the program. One of the people who decided to leave was my best friend. This was hard for me to take, and I am still adjusting to life in band without her.

Kaitlyn Hatchett Mr. Bergmann Senior English P5 28 August 2015 The Benefits of Participating in High School Band High school band is often looked upon as an activity where a bunch of nerds get in big, bulky, sweaty uniforms and walk around the football field during halftime all the while playing music that they have memorized. Although this is 99.9% true, marching band is much more than that and if you think about what was just stated, that takes a lot of time, effort, and dedication. Marching band provides students with life lessons and skills that can never be forgotten. There are some major “plus factors” of being a part of a high school band such as: students get to be around other students that they normally would not associate with,

Joining band had an immense and almost immediate impact on my life. Before being in band I had never had a talent that I felt completely confident in. I enjoyed practicing and spent many hours trying to improve my musical ability. In

Hard Work earns success in marching band. Continuous playing , short weekends, and exhausting practices gain your band praise and pride. The continuous playing in band class and then at practice after school seems to never stop. After the practices are done you get the songs so stuck in your head that they feel like the songs are implanted in your head.

Marching band was fun I was very sceptical about getting all my music memorized but Ms.Snider made it very easy and kept encouraging me to get it done, along with the other members in my saxophone group. I had watched the marching band as a kid and I never thought that it was as hard as it really is. Getting all the steps and starting on your left food is very important when staying in step and getting a good rating at contest. My friends and I got even closer, and I made a lot more friends.

Marching bands are an integral part of communities and are the bases in which many musicians get their start. The athletic art provides an outlet for kids to express their creativity while being part of a

The rest of the band experience though is as far from entertainment as you could possibly get. Most parts of band, I would say, are about on the same level of enjoyment as textbook notes, which by the way will help anyone far more in life than knowing how many steps it takes to go from one yard line to

I hate marching band. Leaving the trap of a class was the best decision I made in my high school experience. Once I was through with band, I joined theater. Joining theater for my schedule well, introduced me to friends, and opened my mind to new possibilities I hadn't considered before. Marching band was physically demanding.

The following year, we were invited to march in the 2015 Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, which stretched the end of our marching season from the typical October to the beginning of January. This past year we traveled to Indianapolis again and performed a show that, although it placed seventh in finals, emotionally moved every soul in our program deeply. I have invested so much time and hard work into my high school marching band, and it has helped me come a long way in terms of balancing a busy schedule with a large workload. I have learned how to become a successful peer mentor through band leadership, and have grown more confident in my abilities as a student and

Yet there are many people who don’t truly know what marching band is, they only have what the world has portrayed it to be. But the main question that seems to arise is “Where did it originate and how does it relate to me?” The Beginnings of Marching Band Marching band originated with traveling musicians who traveled to different festivals and celebrations. It then became very structured within the armies of the early city-states,

To me, however, it is one of the most amazing experiences. The rush of adrenaline and the whirl of emotions that come with performing in marching band and color guard shows is ineffable. My school has a band program consisting of more than 100 high school and middle school students. Every single member of the marching band pushes themselves to

At the end of the year for auditions, I decided to try out for Symphonic band, the top band in our school. Because I was in one of the last bands, a lot of people told me this would be very difficult to do. When the results came in I found out I had made symphonic. I was very proud of myself with how much I had improved within just a year. I even got the Academic Excellence for Concert 2 band award at the end of the 2013-2014 school year.

I meet ambassadors from around the world, and I was able to speak with amazing musicians and performers. While in Hawaii, I snorkeled in Hanauma Bay, hiked Diamond Head volcano, and visited Pearl Harbor. I will never forget the friendships that I forged all because of music. I began as a naïve middle schooler and transformed myself into a confident performer and student. I now carry a sense of pride because I finally completed my dream.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours working with my peers, building friendships while working toilsomely to perfect one show each year. When we weren’t on the field practicing, we were performing at football games or at community events, bringing the community together with a sense of pride. Being a part of the marching band has taught me to put the betterment of my peers over myself and I have made it my goal to make the people around me the best that they

I have learned how to read musical pieces, how to play different piano-like instruments, and how to better organize my thoughts and critical thinking. I am a sophomore in high school and have been for a while now. That makes the experience of me being in band a time period of one to two years. Band has changed me for the better, whether it be me learning how to navigate myself through life or music, it has been there for me for a long time now. Without band and music, I do not know who I would be.