Friday on the Field

It is an ordinary Friday evening on the practice field, there is an excited vibe throughout the members of the ensemble. If you listen carefully to some of the conversations going on this afternoon you would find out that the band is playing at a huge event out of state next week. Trips aren’t usual for the band so this event has been very much anticipated among the group. Even though this is true we might notice that the band seems tired, almost burnt out and are distracted with this weekends promised day off—a day off is not something the band has had in over a month and a half—so they seemed to be rehearsing lazily. Mrs. Director quickly picked this up and began to try to put a stop to it.

“Two laps around the field! Go!” She says in a stern manner. After much moaning and groaning the band begins to pick up speed going around the field outlines, some people went slowly around the field to conserve energy for their second lap and others took it quickly to get it over with. One by one, each member of the band walks, panting, to their place in the arc to begin their warm-up on their instruments. “Exercise number one!” Mr. TA says over the microphone pointing at the person running the metronome that helps keep the group in time. *click. Click. Click click click click* and so begins the first sounds the band makes together for todays’ rehearsal. After about ten minutes of warm-up Mrs. Director spits out instructions for the band to split up into rehearsals based on instrument and work on the music for their new halftime show. A show with a jazzy theme.

During this time each section takes the opportunity to work on parts that they as a whole have a hard time one. The trumpet section seems to be working a part where the notes are really high and really fast and all you could hear coming from their direction is a bunch of random notes that don’t really seem to be in a unison manner that you would normally expect. It was displeasing to the ear and their leader/ person standing in front of the section seemed to notice this right away and put a stop to it. “Stop stop stop! C’mon guys. How long have we had this music?” Says Mr. Highnote. After a few moments of silence Mr. Highnote responds with a long sigh and says “Alright, second part, let’s start from measure six and play until I tell you to stop.” Mr. Highnote begins clapping tempo and an array of notes begins to emanate from the small brass instruments—this sound, too was disturbing to the ear. Highnote, looks up with a disgusted look on his face, looks away and then begins to speak:  “Silver! What are you doing! We worked on this for an hour the other day! You should know how to play this part!” Silver looks at him with a shameful expression and nods to Mr. Highnote agreeing with him. “This better be memorized by Monday! If not we are ALL running laps.” And with that the band is called back to full ensemble and begins to learn their steps for their new show.

With this display I noticed that even though this is a large group of people, individual performance and everybody doing their part is critical for the groups’ success. If everyone does what is necessary of them they are able to move quickly and get more stuff done. Groups seem to rely on one another to achieve success. I am beginning to understand that quote of “the group is only as good as their weakest link”. I am interested to see the final product of this year’s set of events and to see if they end up reaching their goal of raising the bar for every performance.