By: Morgan Topol
If you read my blog about being called “queer” on my first day of high school, you’d know that joining the MCHS Marching Band my freshman year felt like divine intervention. I still think that’s true – I was, and will always be, a proud band kid to my core.
There are many reasons why I’ll be forever indebted to the MCHS marching band. But perhaps most of all, I’m indebted to marching band for igniting my love of storytelling.
During each of my four years in marching band, we would work tirelessly on a single, 10-minute long show. Each of these shows, in order, had a different theme: “Opportunity Knocks: When One Door Closes Another Door Opens,” “1001 Nights: The Tales to be Told,” “The Big Bad,” and finally, “Wonderland: We’re All Mad Here.”
Each of our shows contained four movements, and they all followed a very similar structure: a short opening movement to introduce the concept we were attempting to convey, a fast-paced second movement to further that concept, an emotional third movement in the form of a ballad, and then an exciting closing movement to tie it all together.
Unlike in the Hussman school, where I learned how to tell stories through writing and digital means, marching band taught me how to tell stories musically, visually, and through the overall general effect that these two elements created when put together. These are the three main criteria judges used for scoring when we’d take our shows to competitions.
I also found a wonderful opportunity to inspire others through leadership during my time in marching band. As an underclassman, I looked up to most of the upperclassmen as role models, especially the section leaders and captains who came before me. I made it my goal to not only become a student leader, but to set the right example for the student leaders who would follow in my footsteps.
Marching band also showed me what it means to be part of something bigger than myself. Unlike with most sports, no one is sitting on the bench. Each person in the marching band plays an important role, regardless of if they’re a freshman or a senior. In the same respect, unlike with most sports, gender didn’t matter – when we’d put on the uniforms, we’d all look the same, and it helped us respect each other while also showing us the meaning of unity.
One of my favorite aspects of marching band would take place right before we’d take the field to compete. Our band director would have us circle up around him and we would sing one of our warm-ups – a piece called Fire of Eternal Glory by Shostakovich. It was something of a rallying cry, our way of individually committing to each other that we were going to give it our all.
Marching band, thank you for the grueling 12-hour band camp days in the summer heat and the three-hour rehearsals every Tuesday and Thursday. Thank you for the home football games and the Waffle House runs. Thank you for the parades, the bus rides, the trips, and for giving me an emotional outlet through performance art as I navigated high school. Thank you for leading me to people I’ll be friends with for the rest of my life. Thank you for showing me what it means to believe in myself and the people around me. It’s been so long that the memories are starting to slip away, and there were times when I took it for granted, but I’ll never forget what you gave me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
