You know, if it weren't for you, I might never have made it this far. And I'm not talking about how you supported me and helped to develop my talents- because you didn't. I'm talking about how you told me that I should give up. You obviously never knew me very well. I do not give up when someone- anyone- tells me to. I don't know how you ever got the job as a middle school band director, especially at a school where 25 of the students are in band. You spent more time throwing music stands and making obscene gestures at us than teaching us.
Now I understand that you had a lot of students, but Beginning Band is a novice class where middle-schoolers expect to learn how to play an instrument. Many people were in beginning band to please their parents; however, I was not. I was in beginning band because I wanted to learn to play an instrument.
The first time I tried to get a sound out of the long black snake that I was given… I failed. I had no idea how to make a sound come out of a piece of plastic with a thin, wooden thing attached to it by a metal ring- and you were no help. You singled me out in front of everyone, then sent me into a practice room with someone who knew how to play that piece of plastic- but that person was a student who had no idea how to teach someone how to play an instrument. That was my first struggle with you. I finally managed to get a sound out- but I was not taught how to do it well.
I was not the only novice in my section. You may have gotten other students to teach us how to get a note out of that cylindrical piece of black plastic, but they did not know how to teach beginning band. You were supposed to do that. I managed to struggle through my first year of band without help from a teacher, but I could never become a good musician without help from a director of some sort.
The next year you led us into Concert Band, which was a level higher than beginning band. With that, we were expected to be better musicians. We weren't. I struggled to play using the register key in Beginning Band, and you seemed to expect it to work flawlessly. I knew I could be a better musician than what I could do in your class. With your knowledge but without your blessing I auditioned for the city honor band. I made third chair; a clarinetist that you considered to be better than me made sixth chair. The night that I discovered my third chair placement was the night that I knew I was destined for more than you would let me be. I learned a lot more from a few weeks in honor band than I did in all of your classes. You were invited to our final concert, but you seemed disgusted by the thought of attending.
Later that year in Concert Band, the school-owned clarinet that I used began acting up. It had never been a high-quality instrument, but you always said it was the musician that was the problem. That clarinet got to the point that it would rarely play a tuning note- or any other note- but you said nothing was wrong with it. My theory is that you wanted me to be horrible. Everyone else thought I was horrible- they didn't believe me when I said that it was because of the instrument.
Since we didn't have chair placements within our section, the half-dozen or so of us would always argue over who would get to play which part for concerts. I managed to get all first-parts, but no one thought I was good enough to have them. I had to endure countless rude comments from other band students because you would not get it through your head that the instrument I was given did not work. I could play both the lowest note and the highest note possible on a clarinet (which not a lot of beginners can do), but that darn instrument wouldn't let me. I could have gone so much farther- I could have auditioned for All-Region- if you would have let me.
The only thing was my problem with you wasn't just that you were holding me back from what I knew I could achieve. You loved to single me out. If I was out of tune (which I often was, seeing as no one had ever taught me about a correct embouchure), then you would attempt to embarrass me in front of everyone. If someone played a fragment of something wrong, you automatically assumed that it was me. You must have gotten a thrill out of embarrassing me.
It was a few weeks before the spring concert, and I was having trouble with part of a song that was to be played there. I was not the only one having trouble with it, but you didn't want to help. You outright told me to give up my part. You didn't care that I told you I could do it by the concert. You didn't want to deal with it. I told you no. I refused to give up. This was not the first time that you told me I couldn't do something, but this time you actually came out and said, "Switch to an easier part." You had no right whatsoever to say that when I had the will and the want to learn the top part.
I never realized just how much you held me back until after belonging to a high school band (or three). The high school band directors were amazing. They taught us intonation, emotion, and things that were just words in your class. The first week of high school concert band, we held chair tests. I am fifth chair of fourteen- the only freshman above me is the same girl whom you sent me into a practice room with in order to get a sound out of that mouthpiece three years earlier.
One day in March of my freshman year, I challenged that girl (for her chair position). We tied. She had always considered herself to be above me (just like you had made everyone to believe back in middle school), but that day is one that I will never forget. I knew that I was just as good as or better than her. After we both played our parts on Tryptich II, the head director talked to us for a few minutes. He told me what I had always wanted to hear: that we were both very good musicians, and that we would both be put in the top band for our sophomore year. Only five from our section would be moving up- and I was thrilled to be one of them. Many sophomores, and even some juniors, have to audition to get into the top band.
Band is my life now. I don't think I would be what I am if you had never been so rude- it just made me that much more dedicated. Nevertheless, to this day I despise you. You should be fired. You preferred to spend your time throwing things, flipping us off (you were "demonstrating fingerings"), and telling us to give up than to teach us something. I went into high school with pitiful sight-reading abilities, poor tone quality, and lack of breath support. I was never taught any of these things by you.