Essay On Marching Band Loyalty

It was my senior year, when for once my life felt completely in order, and I was doing something I truly loved. Out over every extracurricular activity I had ever participated in (and believe me there have been many) marching band has always been my favorite. Not only that, but I had found cymbals to be a true passion of mine, constantly giving me something to strive for. So when I hear that I was honored as section leader for the season, I was thrilled, ready to share my knowledge with the rest of my section. I was determined to make this season the best one possible. Although, I quickly realized that I had no idea how to do that.
Most people know that cymbals are not an easy instrument to play and require a lot of time outside of school to do the work properly. Because of that, we had very few people trying out, in fear of the time commitment. After seeing the poor turnout, we had to accept nearly all the applicants. Luckily, nearly all of the new members had showed the passion to get better, and do whatever it takes to reach their goals. Except for one. We will call him Henry. He had never played cymbals before, never marched, and socially didn’t connect well at all with the rest …show more content…
While doing our continuous laps around our school parking lot playing the cadence on a constant loop, Shawn would come up with every excuse in the book to get out of it. The second his arms got tired from holding up the cymbals, he would begin the lower them inch by inch until there were just resting on his armpits. That combined with not memorizing his music, caused him to be extremely unconfident with his playing. At first I found myself yelling his name while practicing, saying things like “keep your cymbals up!”, or “you have to push through the pain”. Quickly, I found that was getting me nowhere, and it was creating an even farther distance between him and the rest of the players, like a missing piece in the