Are YOU Tough Enough?
The Girl bought a t-shirt at the marching competition Saturday that really sums up the high school marching band experience.
If you think it's hard to:
Carry 45 pound of dead weight on your shoulder and stand up straight
Practice in the heat and perform in the snow
Get along with 200 people you really love (No, really!)
Stand in close proximity to 20 guys hitting drums with everything they've got while bopping your head like you're into it
Blow until your lungs explode
Wear an 80-pound wool uniform in 110 degree heat
Watch your music and the director while exhaling, moving your fingers, coordinating that with your tongue, tapping your foot, while continuously listening to the other players around you so that you can make one of a thousand adjustments
Learn several foreign languages (some of which are completely made up)
Maintain good posture while holding a horn and running the 100 yard dash (some players occasionally faltering, thus making it the 100 yard hurdles)
Understand the subtle difference between "as loud as possible" and "just a little bit louder than that"
Ride the yellow dogs while the football team rides the greyhound
Ask your parents to buy a new horn when they really want to buy you a pig and sign you up for the local chapter of Future Farmers of America
Sell band candy in order to fund your trip to some strange and exotic (often not so strange and exotic) and perhaps not so far away, in fact, it may be better to just eat the candy and stay home
Wear those 1930's q-tip hats we call shakos and chill in public
March for 10 miles in a local band directly behind "The Mighty One Hundred" equestrian team
Play Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits on an oboe
Listen to a bad tuba section - Listen to a good tuba section
Pay more for your instrument than you did for your car
Wear those monkey suits while your parents make it a Kodak moment
Remember to show up to a performance with all the little things that you might need like white gloves, valve oil, YOUR HORN - you know, the little things
Then MAYBE you're not tough enough to be IN THE BAND!
6 comments:
That's cute. Hee. I played clarinet in band for all of two weeks. I was not tough enough.
I was in the marching band for EIGHT years - and I loved every minute of it! I still miss my Dinkles!
Yeah, baybee! I was first chair flute/piccolo fo' evah and went on to march in college, which is eversomuchmore fun than high school. Been there, done that, done wore those t-shirts OUT! Now The Girl is carrying on where I left off.
What are Dinkles?
Hey Band! How do you feel!?
The Girl might like this link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxN5mvkAC3g
Alas, no woodwinds.
Hi Anonymous -
Yes, we enjoy Phantom Regiment and when the DCI finals are broadcast every year, you can bet our televisions are tuned to it.
dinkles are a brand of marching shoes. band rocks! my sister totally has that shirt =D
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