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You have a 'percussion uniform' – consisting of your band jacket, fishnet gloves and bright red sunglasses bought at a Rotorua 2 shop

You have sheet music strewn across your bedroom floor

You refer to any drum by its proper name – snare, toms, bass

You pick band over choir any day, much to the displeasure of the choir director, who also used to be concert band conductor

As a thank you present to your conductor for a great trip in New Zealand, you buy him two plastic tambourines and a plastic guitar, and put them in a gift bag that has music on it

You don't know how you'll cope not having band for four weeks in a row

You listen to music purely to pick out the various percussion instruments being played

You watch 'Dancing With The Stars' and spend all the time watching the band to see if they have tympani, rather than watching the dancers

Your conductor is one of your favourite teachers, despite the fact you've never had him as a teacher before

People just don't understand your obsession with band

You would never miss after school band practise, even though you have two tests and an assignment due the next day… and you're going out for dinner, giving you maybe three hours to finish the assignment AND study for the tests

Crash cymbals hurt your thumbs!!

You get told to use a mallet in Woodwork and you immediately think of the fluffy-headed mallets you use on the suspended cymbal

The choir conductor mentions a 'percussive effect' and you think 'hmm, percussion. Can't wait 'til band next week.'

Your favourite picture in the Interhouse chalk drawing competition is the Durham night sitting behind a drum kit drawn by a drummer in the band

You can talk for hours about tympani and different types of cymbals for hours to anyone who doesn't care

You get bored at school, so start tapping a tympani part in a piece of music you very rarely, if ever, play anymore

Your favourite instrument in the world is the tympani

You look at someone, know they're in the band, know what they play, but don't know their name

You fall asleep when the conductor spends 15 minutes working with the clarinet section

You drop a mallet in a performance and just stand and look at it in shock, thinking, 'Oh shit.' Then 'I really should pick that up.'

You wear your band jacket everywhere

You write lists like this explaining why you're a percussion band geek!