We Were the Wall
I was in our high school marching band for two years, 1990 and 1991--my freshman and sophmore years. After that I quit. Band and I were not well suited for each other.
I played the clarinet, badly. I could have been a decent musician had I practiced, but I never did. I barely took my horn out of my case unless it was for band class or an official band practice--and while that was often, I spent our rehersals in a constant state of fear and loathing. What if I screwed up? What if our band director made me play solo? What if everyone else noticed what a crummy musician I was and then I'd never be liked? It was a viscous cylce, played out day after day.
Our school, which was of a modest size and dubious atheletic renown, had a critically acclaimed marching band, around 120 members strong. Once you got into high school, you were in marching band or you were in no band at all. That's all there was to it. In the summer they shipped us off to band camp for a week, where we learned our drill for the year and marched until our feet became bloody stumps. When we weren't marching, we were playing. We breathed band.
I hated band. I hated it for its rigidity, for its unquestioning militaristic mentality, for its extreme dorkiness. Though I myself was far from cool, the mode of my freakishness was in a very different cast than that of the average band dork. They proudly wore varsity-style band jackets; I slouched in my older brother's baggy hand-me-downs. They suffered from acne and out-of-fashion hair styles; I didn't even style my hair. They embraced the sensation of being one small, key part in this huge, precise organism; I spurned it. They laughed at our band director's jokes; I rolled my eyes.
Our band was called "The Wall of Sound", based on this manouver built into our show every year where the entire band would collape into one pin-straight, single-file line spanning the entire football field. The wall advanced toward the audience at a stately pace and played sustained notes at obscene volumes. Loud, bold--these are all things I covet in music, but when we did the Wall, I just didn't feel it. Other band members spoke of the Wall as some kind of ecstacy, a transformative state. I tried, but when we all aligned and began the stride forward, I felt only relief: the Wall came at the show's climax, and therefore indicated that it was nearly over.
It was hard to quit band, mostly because I'd always been in band. I didn't like the idea of quitting...but I also didn't like the idea of the discomfort of not belonging to a group that I didn't care to belong to in the first place. Sure, I could have practiced and been a great horn player, perhaps popular in band. But I'd be popular IN BAND, and that was not the point.
Marching band still marks me, even after those two years. To this day, Marshall C. Kimball continues to haunt my dreams as my own miscrocosmic symbol of disapproval. I don't recall much about those years outside of band practices, band competitions, band camp, and band humiliation.
So I was taken aback last night when Mr. Bir Toujour found a videocassette labled "BAND '91 DO NOT TAPE OVER!" jammed behind a bunch of "Northern Exposure" tapes. Last time I was at home I brought a bunch of old tapes back with me for safekeeping, but I never got around to watching them.
We popped the tape into the VCR. It contatined footaged taped by various Band Booster parents, loosely edited together in chonological order to present a look at the season, from band camp in August to Nationals in November.
The tape was spooled right to the middle, and the first thing we saw was the Wall standing in ranks in bleachers at the Bands of America Regional Championship in Morgantown, WV. We were posing for our gropu photo. Mr. Bir Toujour spotted me right away in the midst of 100-some other uniformed band geeks. There was my 15-year-old self, a big swag of sloppy dark hair hanging down into my face. All of the other girls had their hair tucked in tidy French braids, but mine was too unruly to be restrained in such a manner; by then I had taken to slipping a nylon hair net on right before showtime. I guess I tore the thing off right after showtime, too.
The tape droned on. We watched the Wall perform our 1991 show twice, once at regular speed and once in fast-forward. The figures on the field formed arcs, starbursts, and sharp angles that flowed into one another as we piped out variations on "Swan Lake."
Then the tape cut to footage of bandmembers hanging out on charter busses and in the gymnasium of the Indianapolis high school that was hosting our band during the Bands of America National Championships. The camera panned over packs of teenagers, all of them looking so small and young. I saw faces of older, cooler kids--the chosen few whose good looks and involvement with varsity sports teams deemed them popular both in the band world and the larger context of the entire school--kids I idolized for their social poise and capable musicianship. Their names, which I had not thought of for years, exploded in my head with an almost painful urgency. I had spent half of my time in high school covering under the weight of the aura of perfection they cast, and now with my screen of hindsight I saw in their faces how utterly average they really were, how puny the "hot" guys were and how unremarkable the "pretty" girls looked. I thought about what they were doing now, though I was familiar with the actual fates of very few.
I saw the kids in the grade below me, too--the freshmen, some of whom went on to quit band and either reveal their homosexuality or embrace drugs and bad gothic fashion. But most of them, I belive, remained dorks.
Mr. Bir Toujour wanted to keep watching the tape to spot me. And I did, too, which is embarassing to admit. I wanted to see this ghost of myself flash across the screen and somehow grasp a bit of this person I used to be, reclaim some of the fumbling passion and stumbling creativity I associate with that time. But when I saw myself sitting indian-style on the gym floor in my long-lost ex-favorite pair of jeans and likewise long-lost Marietta High School Crew t-shirt, I didn't see it. And when I saw myself stumble on the practice field while marching backwards at an evening rehersal, I didn't get it either. All I saw was me. I look almost exactly the same now, only with glasses, shorter hair, and (I hope) a better fashion sense. I still stand the same, still slouch the same, still move in the same spaztic jerks.
We only saw about one fourth of the tape, but I had to stop. It was too intense. Even after twelve years I think about quitting band and gloat to myself, indulging in the pleasure of knowing I'll never, ever have to go to band camp or polish my white marching bucks or desperately borrow a new reed from anyone ever again. I'll never have to answer to Marshall C. Kimball, who was a good band director, but to total jackass to me.
That feeling is a good feeling, but it wasn't enough to beat out the rush of inadequacy from g all of the kids I never fit in with. Those years with the Wall were character-building in a way a stint in prison or a bout with cancer are--I don't willingly look back upon them, but it's satisfying to see myself today, so distanced from it, and know that in the end, I won.
I played the clarinet, badly. I could have been a decent musician had I practiced, but I never did. I barely took my horn out of my case unless it was for band class or an official band practice--and while that was often, I spent our rehersals in a constant state of fear and loathing. What if I screwed up? What if our band director made me play solo? What if everyone else noticed what a crummy musician I was and then I'd never be liked? It was a viscous cylce, played out day after day.
Our school, which was of a modest size and dubious atheletic renown, had a critically acclaimed marching band, around 120 members strong. Once you got into high school, you were in marching band or you were in no band at all. That's all there was to it. In the summer they shipped us off to band camp for a week, where we learned our drill for the year and marched until our feet became bloody stumps. When we weren't marching, we were playing. We breathed band.
I hated band. I hated it for its rigidity, for its unquestioning militaristic mentality, for its extreme dorkiness. Though I myself was far from cool, the mode of my freakishness was in a very different cast than that of the average band dork. They proudly wore varsity-style band jackets; I slouched in my older brother's baggy hand-me-downs. They suffered from acne and out-of-fashion hair styles; I didn't even style my hair. They embraced the sensation of being one small, key part in this huge, precise organism; I spurned it. They laughed at our band director's jokes; I rolled my eyes.
Our band was called "The Wall of Sound", based on this manouver built into our show every year where the entire band would collape into one pin-straight, single-file line spanning the entire football field. The wall advanced toward the audience at a stately pace and played sustained notes at obscene volumes. Loud, bold--these are all things I covet in music, but when we did the Wall, I just didn't feel it. Other band members spoke of the Wall as some kind of ecstacy, a transformative state. I tried, but when we all aligned and began the stride forward, I felt only relief: the Wall came at the show's climax, and therefore indicated that it was nearly over.
It was hard to quit band, mostly because I'd always been in band. I didn't like the idea of quitting...but I also didn't like the idea of the discomfort of not belonging to a group that I didn't care to belong to in the first place. Sure, I could have practiced and been a great horn player, perhaps popular in band. But I'd be popular IN BAND, and that was not the point.
Marching band still marks me, even after those two years. To this day, Marshall C. Kimball continues to haunt my dreams as my own miscrocosmic symbol of disapproval. I don't recall much about those years outside of band practices, band competitions, band camp, and band humiliation.
So I was taken aback last night when Mr. Bir Toujour found a videocassette labled "BAND '91 DO NOT TAPE OVER!" jammed behind a bunch of "Northern Exposure" tapes. Last time I was at home I brought a bunch of old tapes back with me for safekeeping, but I never got around to watching them.
We popped the tape into the VCR. It contatined footaged taped by various Band Booster parents, loosely edited together in chonological order to present a look at the season, from band camp in August to Nationals in November.
The tape was spooled right to the middle, and the first thing we saw was the Wall standing in ranks in bleachers at the Bands of America Regional Championship in Morgantown, WV. We were posing for our gropu photo. Mr. Bir Toujour spotted me right away in the midst of 100-some other uniformed band geeks. There was my 15-year-old self, a big swag of sloppy dark hair hanging down into my face. All of the other girls had their hair tucked in tidy French braids, but mine was too unruly to be restrained in such a manner; by then I had taken to slipping a nylon hair net on right before showtime. I guess I tore the thing off right after showtime, too.
The tape droned on. We watched the Wall perform our 1991 show twice, once at regular speed and once in fast-forward. The figures on the field formed arcs, starbursts, and sharp angles that flowed into one another as we piped out variations on "Swan Lake."
Then the tape cut to footage of bandmembers hanging out on charter busses and in the gymnasium of the Indianapolis high school that was hosting our band during the Bands of America National Championships. The camera panned over packs of teenagers, all of them looking so small and young. I saw faces of older, cooler kids--the chosen few whose good looks and involvement with varsity sports teams deemed them popular both in the band world and the larger context of the entire school--kids I idolized for their social poise and capable musicianship. Their names, which I had not thought of for years, exploded in my head with an almost painful urgency. I had spent half of my time in high school covering under the weight of the aura of perfection they cast, and now with my screen of hindsight I saw in their faces how utterly average they really were, how puny the "hot" guys were and how unremarkable the "pretty" girls looked. I thought about what they were doing now, though I was familiar with the actual fates of very few.
I saw the kids in the grade below me, too--the freshmen, some of whom went on to quit band and either reveal their homosexuality or embrace drugs and bad gothic fashion. But most of them, I belive, remained dorks.
Mr. Bir Toujour wanted to keep watching the tape to spot me. And I did, too, which is embarassing to admit. I wanted to see this ghost of myself flash across the screen and somehow grasp a bit of this person I used to be, reclaim some of the fumbling passion and stumbling creativity I associate with that time. But when I saw myself sitting indian-style on the gym floor in my long-lost ex-favorite pair of jeans and likewise long-lost Marietta High School Crew t-shirt, I didn't see it. And when I saw myself stumble on the practice field while marching backwards at an evening rehersal, I didn't get it either. All I saw was me. I look almost exactly the same now, only with glasses, shorter hair, and (I hope) a better fashion sense. I still stand the same, still slouch the same, still move in the same spaztic jerks.
We only saw about one fourth of the tape, but I had to stop. It was too intense. Even after twelve years I think about quitting band and gloat to myself, indulging in the pleasure of knowing I'll never, ever have to go to band camp or polish my white marching bucks or desperately borrow a new reed from anyone ever again. I'll never have to answer to Marshall C. Kimball, who was a good band director, but to total jackass to me.
That feeling is a good feeling, but it wasn't enough to beat out the rush of inadequacy from g all of the kids I never fit in with. Those years with the Wall were character-building in a way a stint in prison or a bout with cancer are--I don't willingly look back upon them, but it's satisfying to see myself today, so distanced from it, and know that in the end, I won.
posted by Lefty at 1:24 PM
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