{"id":565,"date":"2016-03-21T17:46:56","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T17:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=565"},"modified":"2016-03-21T17:46:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-21T17:46:56","slug":"ftv-quit-the-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=565","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Quit the Band?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I quit band once. \u00a0Junior High band. \u00a0It was a misunderstanding and I really didn\u2019t quit, but for some reason everyone thought I did. \u00a0Everybody expected our mean old band director to get someone to quit; \u00a0\u00a0it was always the director \u201cwho made them quit.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0No one had quit since early in the school year, so naturally, everybody assumed I was the next one driven out by the mean old band director. \u00a0Yep, mean old band directors have that effect on their students. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The image of the stereotypical \u00a0\u201cdictatorial, grumpy, and mean (let\u2019s not forget \u2018sadistic\u2019) band director\u201d was \u00a0revived with J.K. Simmon\u2019s Oscar winning role (Best Supporting Actor) \u00a0in 2014\u2019s <\/span>Whiplash. \u00a0<\/span><\/i>I should point out that I have not seen the movie yet, but this is the impression I was left with after seeing some of the trailers and Simmon\u2019s Saturday Night Live skit based on his <\/span>Whiplash<\/span><\/i> character<\/span>. \u00a0<\/span><\/i>I am sure there are a few band directors out there who could be compared with Simmon\u2019s character. \u00a0I am also sure there are a few one could compare with Robert Preston\u2019s con-man Harold Hill in <\/span>The Music Man <\/span><\/i>(1962). \u00a0The law of averages leads me to believe the truth is planted somewhere firmly in the middle of these two extremes. \u00a0Even my most terrifying band director (the one who everyone was sure had driven me from the band) had a temper and as good junior high band students, \u00a0we managed to bring it to the surface every once and awhile. \u00a0\u00a0Calling him \u201cmean and sadistic\u201d would make for better band war stories, but it would also be a huge disservice to someone who let me play in his band. \u00a0Make no mistake about it: \u00a0a band is the director\u2019s baby and while the students are learning to tune their instruments, the director is learning how to tune his students and turn them into a band.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My first formal drum lessons were taken under the direction of Marquette Senior High band director Joseph Patterson. \u00a0I only knew him for a little over six years as he passed away early in my sophomore year of high school. \u00a0\u00a0He was an accomplished violin player (he also directed the school orchestra) and wrote a new MSHS fight song when the new school was opened in 1964-65. \u00a0There were several of us who started as drummers together at Whitman Elementary School (now Whitman Hall as the school was purchased and repurposed by NMU after it was closed in the early 2000s), but only Susie Anderson and I stuck it out all the way through four years of high school band. \u00a0We spent fifth and sixth grade practicing on table tops with Joe (he was only \u201cMr. Patterson\u201d in person – all other times, he was \u201cJoe\u201d or \u201cOld Joe\u201d) singing the parts along with us as we performed our lessons. \u00a0I am not sure how good a drummer he was, but he could spit out flams, paradiddles, \u00a0and rolls that sounded just as crisp as our drum stick beats on the table top. \u00a0To this day, if I find myself playing written out drum parts, I can hear \u201cbrup brup, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr\u201d in my head, just as clearly as I did back then. \u00a0Joe Patterson was patient and kind. \u00a0He also loved what he was doing: \u00a0sharing music with his future high school band students.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As we progressed, we occasionally played with the brass and woodwind students, but only the ones from our own school. \u00a0We were brought together with kids from the other elementary schools once or twice in the band room at Graveraet Junior High to give us a taste of playing with the larger band we would graduate to in seventh grade. \u00a0In those days, each combined grade in all of the Marquette elementary schools had between 400 and 500 students. \u00a0By the time we hit band in seventh grade, we had nearly 100 musicians crammed into the third floor band room at Graveraet that was too small and always too hot. \u00a0It also had a great view, but we rarely had time to take it in.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From the director\u2019s viewpoint, \u00a0the percussion section was in the far left corner, as far away from the door as one could get. \u00a0I remember it well because the day before I allegedly quit band, I was asked in no uncertain terms to \u201cget out of the band room\u201d. \u00a0I don\u2019t exactly remember what I did, but I was either a) goofing off, b) talking too much, c) not paying attention to the director, or d) all of the above. \u00a0I do remember that it was a long, long walk from the back corner to the door with a hundred sets of eyeballs watching in absolute silence. \u00a0It was the eighth grade equivalent of being shunned. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mr. Smeberg, the director, had a baton with a large cork end on it and when you weren\u2019t paying attention, he would lob it in your direction, usually with uncanny accuracy. \u00a0It wasn\u2019t heavy enough to do any damage to our thick skulls and it only happened occasionally, but when you got bombed, you got the picture. \u00a0I didn\u2019t get bombed on this day, \u00a0I was sent packing. \u00a0\u00a0I would not be the first or last to be invited to depart the band room, but at that moment, it felt closer to a lonely walk to the gallows.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The next day, I returned to the third floor and found the orchestra using the band room. \u00a0Usually when they held a lunch hour rehearsal, we were sent to homeroom for that band period. \u00a0I had not been in the room the day before when it was announced that we would have band after orchestra the next day, so I saw the orchestra using the band room and assumed I needed to go to homeroom. \u00a0The bell had rung by the time I realized I was the only band student in the homeroom. \u00a0\u00a0I got a sinking feeling that, on top of the events of yesterday, I was now skipping band. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Getting tossed the out of band room was easier than getting back in. \u00a0Once you had been shown the door, you had to have \u201cthe meeting\u201d with Mr. Smeberg in the practice room behind his director\u2019s stand. \u00a0My stomach sank even lower when I contemplated how I would explain skipping band on top of the other sins I would have to atone for. \u00a0By this time, the grapevine had me locked in a cage in the director\u2019s dungeon awaiting my fate. \u00a0The truth be told, that would have been a better place to be than sitting \u00a0in homeroom with no plan as to how I would explain myself the next day. \u00a0The only thing I knew for sure was I was on my own. \u00a0This was not something I was about to discuss around the dinner table at home. \u00a0\u201cYou were given the heave ho from band, so it was your fault, so fix it,\u201d would have been the only course of action that I would be given, so I sucked it up and prepared for the worst.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The next morning dragged on until the fateful hour came. \u00a0I presented myself to Mr. Smeberg in the practice room for what I was sure would amount to a flogging or some similar form of diabolical punishment. \u00a0To my surprise, he simply asked, \u201cWhere were you yesterday?\u201d \u00a0I explained the best I could and got the same age old advice I had already heard a zillion times at home: \u00a0\u00a0\u201cNext time ask – never assume.\u201d \u00a0We never did talk my behavior two days before and it came to me much later that \u201cmaking me sweat\u201d was probably far worse than any other penalty I could have paid.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I enjoyed band more than ever after this little episode. \u00a0We got our first chance to play pep band music when the teachers played the eighth grade boys basketball team. \u00a0We did a tour of some of the elementary schools as a kind of recruiting tool for the music department. \u00a0When we played at Whitman, all the \u201cWhitman kids\u201d got to stand up and take a bow. \u00a0We played one piece that contained a very loud, very long tympani roll that Mr. Smeberg asked me to demonstrate before we started the song. \u00a0He smiled broadly when we were finished. \u00a0Directors make a lot of faces when conducting but this was different. \u00a0He was proud of how far we had come in two short years under his care. \u00a0The next stop would be high school band. \u00a0I promised myself I would not be invited to leave the band room ever again. \u00a0I may have flirted with it (some bad habits are hard to break), but I had learned when to straighten up and fly right. \u00a0Quit the band? \u00a0Never! \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I only felt a little like Jake when I wasn’t in band . . . it was almost like going to prison!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>