Band Geeks Rule

The Final And First Year

Now my turn. . . that's right finally my freshman year. When I came in it was my brother's senior year which I had to unfortunately suffer through. Just kidding it was fine because we had no classes together. Plus, he had band first period, while I had fourth-period percussion. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself, we need to start where we always begin. . . band camp.

The night before my mom caught me up on this whole band camp thing because she just loves to wait until the last minute to tell me something important. The next morning, I headed out to my first day of band camp with my brother Steffen. I had no idea what to expect. To be honest I had forgotten all about watching the Eruption Drum and Bugle Corps performance and I had no idea what I was doing or what was even going on. My past experience of doing marching band was marching in a five-by-five block down a road, you know the kind of stuff you see at parades.

That's all I had done and so that was what I had in mind what marching band was about, but in high school, it's a whole different level. Of course, I wouldn't find this out until like a month into my freshman year. That year I was placed into the pit, or the front ensemble which is a stationary percussion ensemble that is in front of the band like a pit for an orchestra, and when you're in the front you don't get to look back and see what's going on behind you. So, I was really confused as to why everyone was on the field and not on the road. I decided not to ask what was going on and just roll with it. Anyway, as said I was in the pit and I was put on the rack, (no, not a torture device) it's a frame with wheels that holds various percussion instruments; i.e. bells, chimes, cymbals, etc.

That year I was in the pit with Sarah, a senior on marimba, Will, a senior on vibraphone, Seth Zavala, a junior with me on the rack, Blake Manke, a sophomore on bass guitar, Avedis McDonie, a freshman on timpani, and another freshman whom we'll call "Scrub." Now, where was I? Oh yes, band camp, I was put on the rack and I could barely read or understand music. Luckily, I got help from Sarah and a little from Will. And I was put on the rack with Seth, who helped me too, so that was great. Anyway, the pit practiced at the then old and now-closed high school, because the new one was still being constructed, while the rest of the band practiced at the Boys and Girls Club because it had the only field that wasn't being used.

The show music that year was from the movie Pirates of The Caribbean, which I thought was pretty cool. The drum majors that year were Morgan Gleffe and Jacob Micah Martin. Although my part wasn't all that cool. It was like a crash here, hi-hat there, and a cymbal roll there, Seth got most of the cool parts-NOT!-I had the best part, I got to play an ocean drum during the opening set. However, we didn't have our own ocean drum so Gage made us one by tapping two drum heads together and putting a bunch of beads in them, it really does sound like the ocean!

The most memorable part about band camp that year was people laughed when I yelled the Shia LaBeouf "DO IT" meme because at the time it was trending. And, of course, with me and Steffen going to camp together people easily realized that we were brothers and I guess people really liked him, which was weird.

That year I had to get used to having a section leader, who at the time was Gage Tuttle.

He was the battery section leader, too. The battery is where the marching snares, bass drums, and tenors are. Anyway, he was center lead snare and everyone seemed to love him, which is funny because I can barely remember the guy. He didn't make much of an impact on me mainly because I was in the pit, while Gage was working with the battery. So honestly, I kind of just saw Sarah as my section leader, even though Will was technically the pit section leader. The battery that year consisted of Gage, our center snare senior, Andrew Shifrin, a junior on marching snare, Cole Dee, a junior on tenors, Carter Shifrin, a sophomore on bass one, Morgan Martin, a sophomore on bass two, Darby Ingram, a freshman on bass four, Hope Ness, a freshman on bass five, and we had another bass drummer, but he quit.