Learning the Tradition – Part Two
That was followed by full band marching drills, lead by Mr. Burrell standing on a tall, ladder-like podium. He shouted out counts through a bullhorn, reminding us at various times to step off with our left foot, and actually managed to throw in variations of counting the beat, such as, "Left! Two! Left! Four!"
Near the end of the hour I was beginning to think 'left' was an awfully funny sounding word.
We broke for lunch soon after the percussion section started line dancing during a box drill, which got boring after a while, marching four steps left, four steps backward, four to the right, four forward, and over and over. No wonder they started dancing.
With a cheeseburger, an apple, chips, and a doughnut on my plate and a drink in my free hand I found an empty table to sit down at. I was completely surprised at how sore I was already. Emma made her way to the table, along with the rest of the trumpet section after about ten minutes. I sincerely hoped we didn't have to eat lunch together, too. I had a feeling this would get tiresome after another four days.
However this seemed to be a one day event. Lindsey made sure to mention that during Alyssa's welcome and introductory speech. I noticed Stephanie gravitated toward Lindsey after we went around the table, in a rather middle school-ish fashion, and introduced ourselves.
I was seated in what would probably be my permanent location of the right end of the table with Emma to my left. Kim and Megan were across from us. Kim had really long wavy dark brown hair and a full round face, and dimples when she smiled. She was rather serious most of the time, though always came up with the best punch lines to many situations. Megan had medium length straight red hair and a wild personality. I think she was the reason Kim was so serious all the time. Kim was younger than Megan, which made for some interesting interactions between the two, but they seemed to be really good friends.
Adam was Carter's younger brother, and it showed in his appearance, but he certainly didn't mature the same as Carter. He seemed to follow Megan's wild side but more toward annoying. He was loud, rude, and somewhat of a jock. I heard someone say he played basketball and baseball.
As soon as I finished my doughnut I thought of my book lying just under the flap of my backpack. I slowly gathered my trash onto my plate, hoping someone would notice and in turn start a collective movement to the band room. No such luck. I should have eaten slower. I always ate as if an animal stood at my heels ready to eat anything left on my plate after five minutes. Giving Emma an excuse of resting before drills resumed, I slid off the bench and threw out my trash in the bin behind me. Still stooping, I walked three steps past the garbage can and straightened up among a group of students leaving a nearby table.
Believing my getaway perfectly executed I sailed through the cafeteria, out the hall, into the band room, and to my chair. I rearranged my stand to allow my trumpet case to sit out in front for use as a footstool and turned Emma's chair so I could use the back as an armrest. Curse those armless chairs.
I managed to read two paragraphs before hearing the door to the hallway where I registered at. Immediately on my guard, I considered quickly how I should be seen. For a split second I thought of grabbing my trumpet so I could look like I planned on heading out the field. But all I was able to do was hide my book under my leg. Mr. Burrell had already spotted me, reclining comfortably.
"Studying your music?" he asked.
I hid my surprise at his assumption by turning my head to look at my music, still on the stand. It was conveniently an arm's length away, where I had moved it. "Yeah, I guess," I replied.
He grinned and nodded, while heading to the podium. "I like that. You know, students motivated to study on their own time to make class more productive."
I looked away in guilt and gripped the side of my chair, using my hand to cover the spine of my book which I thought was surely visible from the podium. He gathered a thick binder and the bullhorn and left the room without saying anything else. I breathed a sigh of relief, though I couldn't figure out what I had just avoided. Certainly reading a book on my own time wasn't less impressive.
Students started filing into the band room and I shoved my case back under my chair and returned the chair and the stand to their rightful positions. I picked up my trumpet and waited for Emma before following the crowd out to the field.
Our day was about to get more complicated. Mr. Burrell, with the help of various section leaders, organized the whole band into a parade-style formation, or block band, as Alyssa called it. In this block we marched around the track encircling the field to a single snare drum click. Our senior field conductor, Jake, called out commands and we stopped, started again, stopped, turned around, started again, stopped, went to parade rest, were called to attention, and over and over. We marched two and a half miles by my count before we stopped for a posture lesson from Mr. Burrell.
"Chins must be parallel to the ground. Directional instruments need to be on a fifteen degree elevation or, for those of you strictly anti-mathematical, above the head of the person in front of you." He used his bullhorn as a makeshift trumpet and demonstrated. "Now, let's try some playing. At the snare roll off, up on one, play on next downbeat." Again he demonstrated with the bullhorn, a snare drummer playing the roll off.
We were called to attention and started marching again. I could feel a dull ache in my arms and back as I held my trumpet at attention. Jake called out for us to play the B flat scale on roll off. It was easy to keep in step once I was playing; the hard part was playing while walking. Every time my heel came down my trumpet jarred against my mouth and I risked chipping a tooth. I found it difficult to adjust my breathing to power both walking and playing. Sometimes I didn't breathe enough and strained to hold even whole notes of low pitches. Sometimes I breathed in too much and choked on the air and made it hard to control my embouchure. It was another half mile before I found a comfortable breathing pattern.
Another barked command from Jake put an end to our marching and he sent us out to the field to begin learning our show drill. I pulled a damp drill chart out of my pocket and studied it intently. After about ten seconds of blankly looking at the chart and walking around in a tight circle I was still not able to find my spot. Surprisingly, I blinked back tears. It wasn't that bad. Remembering that Alyssa had a picture with our names on it, I weaved my way through band members counting and pacing their way to their spots until I spotted her near the center of the field.
She looked up as I approached. "There you are." She sighed in relief. "I thought you got lost on the other side of the field or something."
"Yeah, well, about that…" I started to explain.
A knowing look crossed her face. "Oh, I see. Let me show you an easy way to read a drill chart." I handed her my paper and she pointed to the first line of numbers. "First of all, when you're looking out from the stands at the field, from the fifty yard line out to the left is side A, and the other is side B. Ignore the forty yard line for a minute and look at where you'll be from the hash mark."
"Four point twenty-five inside hash one," I read where she pointed.
She turned and pointed to a little chalk line crossing the yard line behind us. "That's the top hash, or hash two. That's hash one," she said, turning again and pointing to another line in front of us. "Inside means in-between the two hash marks, so you stand on the first hash mark and walk four and a quarter marching steps toward the back of the field. You can just do four steps. If the spacing's really bad he'll correct it."
"While standing on the forty yard line?" I asked.
"Actually, you'd do that part first, but knowing where you are from the front or the hash marks first helps. Go to the hash mark on the forty yard line," she instructed.
I stood at the intersection, facing the back of the field, and paced out four steps.
"Now turn towards the fifty yard line and take two steps."
I paced the steps and turned to face front. Alyssa walked up the forty yard line a couple steps behind me.
"This is my spot," she told me. "Remember our marching order?" she asked me. I nodded and she continued, "It most likely won't change throughout the show. You'll be in-between the same people in every set."
"Good to know," I said, though I wasn't sure I had understood the lesson she gave. Luckily I wasn't the only one having problems. Mr. Burrell was on the field helping some freshmen and spacing out the lines. Jake was too, from what I could see, and a few other adults I hadn't seen before.
I noticed Jordon on my other side. "Are you number thirty-four?" I asked him.
"Yep. You thirty-three?"
I nodded. "How's it been going?"
He raised his arms in a gesture of thanks. "I'm so glad to get away from Lindsey. I mean, I feel bad for Emma, but, man!"
"That bad?"
"Worse," he replied.
"Okay, guys," Mr. Burrell called out through the bullhorn, "welcome to the opening set."
A mock cheer went up from the band.
"Hey, you've got fourteen more for this song," he said, "so get to work. Set two!"
According to my drill chart I needed to be one step to the inside of the hash and on the forty-five yard line. After pacing it out I checked to see who I was standing by. Sure enough, Jordon stayed to my left and Alyssa to my right.
Mr. Burrell climbed the podium and checked the figure. "You think you got it?" he asked us. "I hope so. Set one."
"What's that mean?" I asked Alyssa.
"It just means go back to set one. We're going to march from set one to set two."
Back in set one, Mr. Burrell counted off a beat. "This is a float sixteen, so try to get to your spot in sixteen steps, no matter how close it may be. No floating four and marking time for twelve counts. Of course, I'm talking to Vaughn," he added.
"You got it, Mr. B!" someone called out behind me. A few students laughed and turned to look at him.
I looked over my shoulder to see a trombone player give Mr. Burrell a salute. It was the unknown instrumentalist! Only known, now, of course, and with a name.
"He does this every year," Alyssa said disgustedly as we stepped off toward set two.
"What?"
She jerked her head back at the laughing trombonist. "He's known for screwing up on purpose in many different ways on the first day of band camp. To confuse freshmen. He can't do it now, thanks to Mr. Burrell, but he's no doubt done something earlier today."
"Can't the section leader stop him?" I suggested.
"He is the section leader."
"Oh."
"Not bad," Mr. Burrell called out. "Shoulders must stay parallel to the sideline, look forward, do not look at your destination and do not look at your feet, and stay in step! Set one!"
It took two more times for Mr. Burrell to let us move on to setting the third formation. I started getting the hang of reading the drill chart. This time I was outside the hash and a little off the fifty yard line.
"Set one!" Mr. Burrell called out.
By four o'clock we roughed in all fifteen sets of the first song. Mr. Burrell told us we'd start playing the song and marching after dinner, and handed us over to Jake, who immediately called us to attention.
"Every day, before releasing you for lunch and dinner and when you leave at night, you will be called to attention and released by section, based on individual performance," here a look at the trombone section and most likely Vaughn, "group organization, cleanliness of the band room, and stance at attention. There is a prize at the end of the week for the section that averages the most first releases."
He called us to parade rest, and then to attention, since there apparently was uninformed freshmen movement after the first attention. After we stood motionless for a minute he called out, "Saxophones!"
The saxophone section cheered and ran off the field.
"Tubas!"
There was another cheer, though I couldn't turn my head to see them leave the field.
"Trumpets," he said, "you are released but stick around."
I immediately dropped my arms to my sides and rolled my shoulders to get the blood flowing again. Emma trotted over and we limped off the field.
"What do we need to stay for?" she complained. "I don't remember getting yelled at and we were only the third released."
"I don't know," I replied, too tired to think.
Back in the band room, we put our trumpets away and I zipped up my backpack, carrying it by the straps because my shoulders were too sore. Emma and I waited, sitting on my little table, to see why we couldn't leave yet.
"Maybe there's a special trumpet thing in the show," Emma suggested after a minute.
"There's nothing in the music for it," I told her. "It's probably just something about auditions for the solos or something."
We sat and watched section after section drop their instruments on their chairs and head out to dinner. It had been only four hours since lunch, but my stomach rumbled anyway. The whole summer went by with it being fed at any hour. I coughed to cover a loud growl from my stomach. "This doesn't seem to be that important," I said.
"You think?" she answered quickly. I guessed her stomach was untrained, too.
I opened my mouth to launch into a short speech of how no other trumpeters were anywhere around the band room and all the other instruments had gone when another group walked in. Trombones.
"Hey, you haven't seen any trumpets around lately, have you?" I called out to the group in general. Some of them looked at us, but no one volunteered information.
Vaughn separated himself from the group. "You've lost your instruments already?" he asked.
"Already!" I shot back without thinking. "Are we supposed to have lost them?"
"We mean the section," Emma offered quietly.
The look on Vaughn's face told us all we needed to know, that he knew what we meant, that he wasn't telling us anything, and that possibly our instruments were in danger.
"I smell a trick," I whispered to Emma as Vaughn, grinning, left the band room. "This is some kind of trick or test, some kind of freshmen test."
"But then why are we the only ones here? Where's Jordon and Stephanie?"
"I don't know but I'm not going to waste any more dinner time than I have to." I pulled up my bag and stiffly jumped off the table, immediately feeling the aftereffect of a day's worth of marching.
"Where are you going?" Emma asked.
"I'm going home," I said, locking my instrument in its case, double checking the ID tag in the pocket. "I'll see you tonight."
Emma looked torn between following me and staying behind longer. "I think I'm just going to check around."
"Sure," I said. I left the band room by way of an inside door, walking the empty halls to the front entrance of the high school where Mom was parked waiting for me. I tossed my bag in the back and collapsed into the passenger seat.
"So how did it go?" she asked immediately. "Did you have fun?"
"Give me the week to decide," I replied, putting a stop to the torrent of questions that typically would have followed. The drive home remained silent.