Personal Narrative: Double-Reed Me

When I was growing up and my brother attended high school, I always enjoyed going to Friday night football games and watching the best part of the game: the halftime show. While I sat in the stands, my brother would be marching sets, creating intricate formations and blasting his trumpet at fortissimo. I dreamed to be a part of the sets of formations and play difficult music at rapid tempos. Once I entered middle school, I immediately signed up for band and assigned to play the oboe, a woodwind instrument in the double reed family and, arguably, one of the most difficult instruments to master. I didn’t know then, but I later found out that this activity would push me out of my comfort zone and learn not only challenging sonatas and melodies, but also life skills I would need to achieve my goals. …show more content…
Unfortunately, students who play double reed instruments cannot march and their only option would to “fake” another instrument or join the cymbal line. I decided to audition for the cymbal line which is not easy to learn. After my audition, the percussion director of the band program, Mr. Chavez, turned me down and I had to learn that some events in life are not fair. After seeing that I was crushed, Mr. Chavez decided to teach me another instrument I could play in the front ensemble. I started attending lessons with him to learn the timpani, a set of kettle drums. After countless lessons with Mr. Chavez, I felt that I accomplished so much with the amount of praise he had given me. However, after the first week of band camp, he and our front ensemble technician, Mr. Bishop, sat me down to tell me I would not be playing timpani that season. These two instances taught me to always strive to do my best and when failure arises, one must be able to move on or try