I was going to start fifth grade in about two days when my mother came across a flyer that was a part of the packet of new student enrollment. It was a bright orange-salmon color with big tadpole looking marks all over it. It read, “Concert Band auditions begin August 24 in Mobile A. Please bring an idea of what instrument you would like to play.” Huh. Instrument. I could do that.
As I stood there reading the flyer, memories of third grade music class came flooding back into my mind. Mrs. Campollo was gone that day so we had a substitute. He was a wiry looking young man, skinny with frazzled locks and hairy arms. He had us all sit against the wall while he pulled out the most beautiful piece of art I had ever seen. It was a slender mass of mangled golden metal culminating to a horn.
“Does anyone know what this is?” he said proudly hoisting the golden work of art above his head. It could have been an a-bomb for all I cared; it was beautiful. “That’s right; it’s a trumpet. Now I’m going to play a little tune for you and you tell me if you know what it is.” The sweetest brassy noise began emanating from the horn. Ba dum. Da dum. Ba dum. Da dum. Da dum. Ba dum da duum. I knew two things in an instant. One, the song was “The Pink Panther” and two, I was going to learn how to play the trumpet one day.
I stood outside the doorway of Mobile A the morning of August 24th as my older sister disappeared inside. She decided after seeing that I had wanted to learn the trumpet, she should know how to play it as well. My mother, never one to curtail creative expression, agreed. Moments later she came out of the doorway of the mobile home/music classroom, with a smart alecky smile and softly said, “You’re next.” I walked into the darkened room confident of what lay before me.
* * *
“A three and four and…” My 6th-grade concert band teacher, Mr. West, should have been a Marine Drill Sergeant. He had a cache of chalkboard erasers at his podium that were easily accessible for throwing at unsuspecting students who slacked off. One day he used the entire lot on the drum section and had to throw his shoe. As he waved his baton around in the air the entire band inhaled and began playing. To everyone but us, it sounded as if a flock of geese were being systematically slaughtered. Two of the clarinets hit sour notes that forced Mr. West’s face to scrunch in disapproval. “No! Stop!” Mr. West’s arms flailed trying to erase the invisible writing he had just made with his little white stick. “What note do you have written on your page?” he demanded pointing to the clarinet section. A few of them picked up their sheet music and studied it. Whimpers of “E” and two of “E sharp” softly made their way to Mr. West’s ears. “Rose, what did you say?” She spoke up a little more confidently. “Now look in between the treble clef and the time signature. Do you see that little number sign thingy?” Mr. West said with a sarcastic overtone. “You do? What does that mean? Correct. Then why for the love of Christ are you playing an E flat? E sharp people! The E is sharp. Saxophones? One-y and a two-y. Ba bop ba bop; not bop bop bop bop. Those are eighths. Let’s go again from measure sixteen. Three and four and…”
It was in that concert band that I began my love of musical expression. The love stretched from the classical, with its grandiose movements, to rock and its driving crunchy rhythm to jazz and its multifaceted instrumentation. I love the beats, the melodies, the time signatures; it all captivates something within me that makes me feel more alive and complete. To me nothing seems to capture the language of the heart more than music. It is the art of arts.
Once I got to high school I tried my best to stay out of the marching band. Practice began a month and a half before the new school year began. While they were running drills at eight o’clock in the morning, I would be tucked nicely away in bed for two more hours of sleep. I spent nine months in school to earn my three month break and those band fags were not going to take that away from me. I had also heard stories that in order to join you must sign a paper forsaking all of your previous social contacts for those in the band. Then there was the ritual passing of the spit valve chalice. On the last day of summer practice, each student would go up to a small plastic cup and empty the saliva that had collected at the bottom of their instrument. The cup would then be passed around for all the freshmen to partake. This initiation ceremony would seal ones fate as a marching band member. To refuse it was to refuse… well, come to think of it, I don’t think anyone ever refused the spit valve chalice. I would have gladly participated on two conditions: 1) it only be Jessica Vetenzy’s spit and 2) it remain in her mouth. Since it wasn’t, I joined Jazz Band instead.
The marching band wasn’t just a class; it was its own civilization. Many may think of it as a subculture of the Arts Department, but they’re wrong. If you allowed it to it would swallow you whole. Your old friends would fall away and you would be assimilated and given new friends. I saw it happen to several kids I knew. As its own civilization, marching band had its own hierarchy and caste system. The drum line stood atop as the royalty. The trumpets and saxophones were the smart, witty kids. Flutes were the intelligent pretty girls while the clarinets were the ugly and portly framed girls. The trombones and tubas, barely above untouchable status, were made up of the either really skinny pale boys or the big and hefty sweating machines who were too slow to play on the front line of the football team. While the drum line had their pick of anyone, the color guard, official unofficial band members, were there just in case they wanted to whore around. They were the equivalent of cheerleaders to the football team. Although I might have enjoyed a decent life as a trumpeter I feared what the marching band would eventually make of me and therefore, avoided it like an anorexic does food. I didn’t want anyone telling me, the social equivalent of a June bug, how to live and who to be friends with. More so to the teaching staff, anyone who wasn’t in marching band simply didn’t exist. Thus my music career began to fade like the morning dew.
One day, I was on my way to algebra class, trying to decide my next musical venture. As I passed the choir-slash-band hallway I saw a young man leaning against the wall playing a curvy wooden box with metal strings stretched across it. At his feet laid four beautiful choir girls swooning. It was an oracle. Just two years prior, in seventh grade, I had signed up for French class thinking I could woo the fairer sex with my foreign language tongue. That failed like the French win wars. This was different though. I knew music. I loved music. Girls love music. Suddenly I envisioned myself on stage in the midst of fog and lights wearing a leather jacket with fringy sleeves and having lacy panties and sexy black bras thrown at me. My sophomore year at 7:15am on Mondays I would walk proudly into Basic Guitar. Now that I have played guitar for twelve years I have yet to meet any woman because of it.
Since fifth grade when I began my musical hobby, I’ve noticed a few things about myself and a few about musicians in general. The musician’s psyche can be as complex as the music he plays. Musicians can be very temperamental about anything and everything. Often they care for nothing but the music. Growing up there was a joke that was often told in band practice: How many musicians does it take to screw in a light bulb? One; the rest stand around and talk about how much better they could have done it. The musician is often the eccentric one of the crowd. Some are so overtly confident in their craft they make it known to anyone and everyone who pass by as they play the newest motet or phrase they’ve learned. They are constantly tapping their fingers to some internal beat. Musicians don’t whistle; they hum. The musician will listen to music for more than pure aesthetic reasons. For listening to music is not enough; he must be able to play it. And not simply playing it on one instrument is sufficient. The true musician must be well versed in at least two instruments. The best know at least piano, drums or guitar. And while many musicians tend to be extroverts, there are those for whom music is an expression of something internal. They have the personality of a lamb but play like a bipolar on an upswing. It’s the music that opens up a part of them no one will see otherwise. What they couldn’t say in person may be said in a song.
As for me I’ve learned that the dance and plumage of speaking a sexy foreign language and being a musician does not impress the fairer gender. Also, there is some sort of accomplishment that comes with learning and memorizing a piece of music. The music may be bound by the composer’s written notes, but often the melody lives within the player. If this is not true, why then are there so many versions of Pachelbel’s Canon in D? It is music that will help jump start my morning and lull my mind into wistful sleep when the day is done. It is music that gives me the emotion where my words fail. I’m able to express what I couldn’t with the written word alone.
