Matters of Loss, Discovery, and Halftime by Kelsey Peterson

Matters of Loss, Discovery, and Halftime, by Kelsey Peterson

Matters of Loss, Discovery, and Halftime

In my ninth grade biology class, I learned that everything in our environment has a pur-pose. Every plant, animal, and microscopic organism is designed to do a job that no other can do. Ecologists call this a niche. The rest of society throws this word around, too, for us humans. When we find something we’re good at, we call it our niche, our purpose, our career, or what-ever lofty description we’d like to tack on. It’s not as simple as textbooks would like to make it, though. People are complex, multi-faceted; they can fulfill many roles at once. Unlike the bacte-ria making a home in the leftovers in my fridge, you and I have several niches. One person can be a parent, a sibling, an accountant, a best friend, a closet rugby player, a spouse, and an aspir-ing chef all in the same day. One thing the experts fail to mention, though, is that these identities never have to be constant. They can change. They can evolve. Identities, or niches, can become significantly more or less prominent as you assume other roles in your lifetime. This is probably the most startling revelation I’ve had in my young, trivial life.

At the ripe age of eighteen, I’ve been presented with nothing but changes. This includes the all important moment of leaving home and life as I knew it in pursuit of higher education and a wealth of fresh, new experiences. The “leaving” aspect was the most difficult, needless to say, but for reasons I never even anticipated. Starting a new life at Florida State University meant that I had to leave behind identities I had--roles I played--in high school. There are a couple of these lost identities that I’ve had trouble reconciling with, one of which was being drum major for my high school marching band.

Ah, yes, the truth comes out. I had the ultimate job for a marching band aficionado. Drum majors are an interesting breed in the marching band world. In college and high school bands around the county, the drum major is responsible for conducting and instructing the ensemble. Second only to the band director, drum major is the foremost position among band leadership. So, no, drum majors are in no way affiliated with percussion instruments, despite the title. If you’ve ever seen a marching band perform, they’re the smartly dressed characters standing on tall podiums waving their arms about and hollering terse commands at the musicians. It was my kind of gig. The title, though, was not simply bestowed upon me. Rather, it was something I grew into. My band director approached me about the opportunity at the end of my sophomore year, but at that point I did not have an ounce of experience conducting a band or being in charge of anything. Worse yet, I didn’t even have an example to lead from. My high school was brand new, so my first year in marching band freshman year was the debut of the Ida S. Baker High School Marching Bulldogs. For all intents and purposes, I was going to be the first real drum ma-jor for the band.

The saga really began the following summer. Mr. Brown, my director, sent me off to an FSU summer music camp for marching band leadership. It was the scariest week of my life, but I had a blast. My parents abandoned me, four hundred miles from home, on an exceptionally large college campus where I was forced to mingle with hundreds of unfamiliar faces. Somewhere be-tween consuming questionable meals and awkward introductions with camp-mates, the initial shock wore off and I fell into my element. I learned how to conduct, how to interpret musical scores, how to teach marching basics and give commands, and I befriended band kids like me from all over the state. I left camp feeling significantly more confident about the responsibilities that were ahead of me. Not to mention, I was pumped and ready for my school’s band camp to begin in less than a month. The learning process, as I found out, did not end there.

Even after marching season was well under way that year, I was was nowhere close to be-ing an expert drum major. No one seemed to notice, though, besides myself and my band direc-tor, and that was just fine. (I suppose it’s good to know that if all else fails, I can at least act like I know what I’m doing.) Behind the brave face, I was constantly looking for ways to improve, whether it be trying different ways to communicate directions more effectively, or going home each night after practice and studying the music to make sure I would never forget to cue the trumpets in the third piece after the drum break. Being a drum major requires it’s own set of, al-most, sub-identities. On one hand you have to be the expert among your peers. You have to know all of the marching drill and every part of the music, or else you can forget about helping the band members try to learn it themselves. The other and most essential job of a band leader-ship position is to be a role model for the rest of the band. During practices and football games, I slipped into what my friends called “drum major mode,” which was more or less my leadership mindset. I had to be professional and collected, yet still agreeable and enjoyable to be around. There’s a fine line you have to walk when you have to manage an ensemble of your peers. I’ve had to reprimand good friends of mine for acting like idiots, for lack of a better word, at practices and games. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but it had to be done. They had to know that we could be friends outside of rehearsal, but when it was time to work, they shouldn’t expect special treatment. To be honest, there were many days where I felt like more of a babysitter for forty-something overgrown toddlers than anything else. (I couldn’t receive any sympathy from Mr. Brown on this. He would just laugh and say, “Welcome to my life.” I guess I deserved that.) Every day wasn’t a picnic, but through it all I couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing with my time.

Eventually, it came to the point that my drum major identity was my most comfortable per-sona. By the time my senior year rolled around, I had established a bit of a reputation. I was lucky enough to be drum major for two years. I don’t know if that says anything about me, or the lack of fitting contenders, but I digress. Apparently I did a decent enough job of it the first year that I garnered the respect of my band mates and other classmates. Although, classmates outside of band greeted me as, “Oh, hey, you’re the girl that does this,” and they’d proceed to flail their arms about in a poor impression of the way they’d seen me conduct the band at pep rallies. Even my school’s administrators suddenly knew who I was. My principle stopped me in the hallway one morning to offer me and the marching band a “job well done” at halftime the previous Fri-day. To this day, I don’t think he actually knows my name, but it’s better than nothing.

As much as the publicity aided in the inflation of my ego, I didn’t do it for that reason. I didn’t stand in front of my bathroom mirror practicing my conducting pattern until I couldn’t hold my arms up anymore for popularity. I didn’t endure countless hours of marching rehearsal in the heat of the afternoon for my own health. I worked hard, and motivated my fellow March-ing Bulldogs to do the same for an entirely different reward. A reward that I call the rush of per-formance.

There was a moment I looked forward to all week, one that couldn’t come fast enough: halftime. There is an energy that pulsed through my veins as I watched the clock wind down sec-ond quarter. The minute one of my meticulously polished black marching shoes hit that grassy field, magic happened. Neatly poised rows of musicians replaced the herds of bulky, padded be-hemoths. The playful glint of silver horns under stadium lights caught the eyes of and drew bated breath from unsuspecting spectators. A booming voice would come over the loudspeaker offer-ing a formal introduction, but the only thing I heard as I climbed the few steps to my podium were the brassy chords and drumbeats that were just waiting to shatter the silent anticipation. One clever flick of my wrist signaled a polite salute to the press-box, another brought the sta-dium to life with music and flashes of colored silk. The world disappeared for eight minutes at a time, every Friday night, and I could never get enough. I was bitten with this marching band bug freshman year, but conducting gave me an entirely different perspective on performing. It was purely intoxicating and became my favorite feeling in the whole world. Unfortunately, like most things, it had to end sometime.

I remember the last football game of the season senior year. It was raining, we were getting clobbered by the opposing team, and I couldn’t have cared less. As usual, my eyes were on the game clock, watching the numbers slowly tick by. Second quarter was always twelve minutes too long. When the time finally came to rally the troops for halftime, our uniforms had been thoroughly sodden by the incessant drizzling of rain, but putting on my jacket gave me goose-bumps that had nothing to do with the cold. This was the last game, the last performance of our halftime show, the last time I would get to stand proudly before my band with the pungent scent of grass filling me up, easing my thundering pulse. We had rehearsed so many times my hands found their way along the cadence naturally and every inch of muscle and sinew in my body came alive with the ebb and flow of the music. Alas, before I could entirely dissolve into the moment the last chord rang through the air, and it was over. Hair sticking to my forehead and tears burning my eyes, I descended from my podium and joined my friends. Feelings were mixed. Those returning for next season rejoiced over surviving this one, and those of us who would be graduating in spring were full of sorrow, despite the expressions of satisfaction on our faces. It was so strange taking off my uniform that night in the band room, it was like having to give away my favorite shirt while it still fit. The end of marching season not only meant the end of my experiences as a drum major, but also marked the reality that my high school band career would soon be drawing to a close. Thinking about it at the time was maddening, absolutely mad-dening.

I was especially tormented as I began to realize that the time and effort I put into this en-deavor greatly benefitted other aspects of my life. I became a better musician after learning dif-ferent ways of teaching music and reading scores. In the process, I also honed my discipline and leadership skills, which came in handy as I became involved in other organizations at school. Ultimately, I refused to accept that this identity that I inherited would leave me once I left high school. My brilliant solution to this was to apply to the College of Music at Florida State as an instrumental music education major. The way I saw it, there couldn’t be a better major for me. In the time it took to receive my response letter, I romanticized the idea of my future career as a music educator in my mind. Just months before, I was in the same boat as many of my class-mates who were completely unsure of what they wanted to study in college. Once I set my heart on music education, all of the pieces seemed to fall into place. I had a plan, and I knew exactly where I saw myself in five years. If only the College of Music shared my ambitions.

They didn’t.

My dreams, my plans, collapsed along with the entirety of my world with the printing of one delicately phrased, falsely empathetic sentence. Never before had I felt such a void open up inside of me, and once I was done feeling sorry for myself, panic set in. My feeble attempt to cling to a lost identity had failed and I was back to square one.

It took a lot of time and soul searching before I was able to climb out from under my grief, but I emerged with new insight. After a bit of tugging on my proverbial bootstraps, I realized that I hadn’t lost a thing, especially not my drum major identity that I held so dearly in high school. Just because I had to leave that part of my life behind doesn’t mean that it still isn’t part of who I am today. I have new ambitions, new plans, a new niche to grow into and conquer, and many identities that I have yet to discover. Meanwhile, I proceed forward knowing that if anyone ever needed me to conduct a rousing chorus of the Baker High School fight song while marching backwards, I could.

Matters of Loss, Discovery, and Halftime - Assignment

Birthday Balloons and Rugrats Cartoons:
Writing about Identity

In many ways, our identities are not our own. They are shaped by our families, our friends, the events that
have befallen us, and even by strangers who wish to interpret us in their own ways. We may never grasp all
of the elements that make up our identities, but at least we’ll never be bored trying.

Because conceptions of the self are so complex, it might seem an impossible task to develop a reading of an
identity. Indeed, thinking about even a single person might require us to consider multiple identities:
brother, son, choir singer, angler, waiter, whatever. And these identities are woven together from many
strands of influence—families, bodies, friends, ethnic groups, cultural expectations, and so on.

Look at the above picture of Princess Diana. List some of her identities:

1. _______________________________
2. _______________________________
3. _______________________________
4. _______________________________
5. _______________________________

Now, think about yourself. List some of your identities:
1. _______________________________
2. _______________________________
3. _______________________________
4. _______________________________
5. _______________________________

Have you ever been confused about your identity? When did this occur? Or are you still trying to figure it
all out? Why do you think this confusion happens?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________

Identity, it turns out, is formed in a complex matrix that includes our mental and emotional makeup, our
cultural surroundings, our affiliations with others, and our bodies.
• What does your matrix look like?
• What is your mental makeup?
• What is your emotional makeup?
• What do your cultural surrounding look like? Sound like? Taste like?
• What groups, organizations, clubs, and communities are
you affiliated with?
• How does your body represent your identity?
o Do you have tattoos?
o Piercings?
o What color is your hair? Your eyes?
o How tall are you? How short are you?

You might find that writing about identity is more enjoyable than you first imagined. Even if you’re a
reluctant writer, there is something about yourself that can be fascinating. In any cases, writing about
identity turns out to be a personal affair. It might be that looking within leads you to discoveries you’d
rather not share with others. You’ll get no argument from us, and you should give yourself permission to
write for yourself at times.

Composing a Personal Memoir

For this project, you will compose (notice that I said compose, and not write) a 6-9 page (1,700 - 2,200
words) double-spaced composition in which you will explore your identity. Since you are charged with making
aspects of your life interesting for others, you must translate your own experiences into writing that is
meaningful on several levels.

Think about your nationality, your upbringing, your education…
What about your family?
Your friends?

As you work, be selective in the information you choose to include (No, none of us want to read about your
sexual adventures). Sometimes memoirs focus on a single event or they showcase a series of episodes. You’ll
also want to be deliberate about including details to engage the interests of your audience. You may want
to also include relevant images to bring the memoir to life.

For a schedule of draft due dates, please refer to the Week-by-Week plans posted on Bb.

Matters of Loss, Discovery, and Halftime - Draft 1

In my ninth grade biology class, I learned that everything in our environment has a purpose. Every plant, animal, and microscopic organism is designed to do a job that no other can do. Ecologists call this a niche. The rest of society throws this word around, too, for us humans. When we find something we’re good at, we call it our niche, our purpose, our career, or whatever lofty description we’d like to tack on. It’s not as simple as textbooks would like to make it, though. People are complex, multi-faceted; they can fulfill many roles at once. Unlike the bacteria making a home in the leftovers in my fridge, you and I have several niches. One person can be a parent, a sibling, an accountant, a best friend, a closet rugby player, a spouse, and an aspiring chef, all in the same day. One thing the experts fail to mention, though, is that these identities never have to be constant. They can change. They can evolve. Identities, or niches, can become significantly more or less prominent as you assume other roles in your lifetime. This is probably the most startling revelation I’ve had in my young, meaningless life.

At the ripe age of eighteen, I’ve been presented with nothing but changes. This includes the all important moment of leaving home and life as I knew it in pursuit of higher education and a wealth of fresh, new experiences. The “leaving” aspect was the most difficult, needless to say, but for reasons I never even anticipated. In these appropriately named years of self-discovery, I’ve learned thus far that I took for granted the advantages of an established reputation. The kind of reputation that does not transfer well from high school to college. Starting a new life at Florida State University meant that I had to leave behind identities I had, roles I played, in high school. There are a couple of these stolen identities that I’ve had trouble reconciling with, one of which was being drum major for my high school marching band.

Ah, yes, the truth comes out. I had the ultimate job for a marching band aficionado. The title, though, was not simply bestowed upon me. Rather, it was something I grew into. For, when my band director approached me about the opportunity at the end of my sophomore year, not only did I not have an ounce of experience conducting a band or being charge of anything, I didn’t even have an example to lead from. My high school was brand new, so my first year in marching band freshman year was the first year the Ida S. Baker High School Marching Bulldogs actually existed. For all intensive purposes, I was going to be the first real drum major for the band.

The saga really begins the following summer that year. Mr. Brown, my director, sent me off to an FSU summer music camp for marching band leadership. It was the scariest week of my life, but I had a blast. The initial shock of being left in a strange place for a week with a couple hundred kids I’ve never met before wore off as I fell into my element. I was learning how to conduct, learning how to interpret musical scores, learning how to teach marching basics and give commands, and I befriended band kids like me from all over the state. I left camp feeling significantly more confident about the responsibilities that were ahead of me. Not to mention, I was pumped and ready for my school’s band camp to begin in less than a month. The learning process, as I found out, did not end there.

Even after marching season was well under way that year, I was was nowhere close to being an expert drum major. No one seemed to notice, though, besides myself and my band director, and that was just fine. (I suppose it’s good to know that if all else fails, I can at least act like I know what I’m doing.) Behind the brave face, I was constantly looking for ways to improve, whether it be trying different ways to communicate directions more effectively or going home each night after practice and studying the music to make sure I would never forget to cue the trumpets in the third piece after the drum break. Being a drum major requires it’s own set of, almost, sub-identities. On one hand you have to be the expert among your peers. You have to know all of the drill and every part of the music, or else you can forget about helping the band members try to learn it themselves. For, the other, and most essential job of a band leadership position is to be a role model for the rest of the band. During practices and football games, I slipped into what my friends called “drum major mode,” which was more or less my leadership mindset. I had to be professional and collected, yet still agreeable and enjoyable to be around. There’s a fine line you have to walk when you have to manage an ensemble of your peers. Every day wasn’t alway a picnic. There were some days where I felt like more of a babysitter for forty-something overgrown toddlers than anything else. (I couldn’t receive any sympathy from Mr. Brown on this. He would just laugh and say, “Welcome to my life.” I guess I deserved that.) Nonetheless, at the end of the day, I couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing with my time.

Eventually, it came to the point that my drum major identity was my most comfortable persona. By the time my senior year rolled around, I had established a bit of a reputation. I was lucky enough to be drum major for two years. I don’t know if that says anything about me, or the lack of fitting contenders, but I digress. Apparently I did a decent enough job of it the first year that I garnered the respect of my band mates and other classmates. Although, classmates outside of band greeted me as, “Oh, hey, you’re the girl that does this,” and they’d proceed to flail their arms about in a poor impression of the way they’d seen me conduct the band at pep rallies. Even my school’s administrators suddenly knew who I was. My principle stopped me in the hallway one morning to offer me and the marching band a “job well done” at halftime the previous Friday. To this day, I don’t know if he actually knows my name, but it’s better than nothing.

As much as the publicity aided in the inflation of my ego, I didn’t do it for that reason. I didn’t stand in front of my bathroom mirror practicing my conducting pattern until I couldn’t hold my arms up anymore for popularity. I didn’t endure countless hour of marching rehearsal in the heat of the afternoon for my own health. I worked hard, and motivated my fellow Marching Bulldogs to do the same for an entirely different reward. A reward that I call the rush of performance.

It was a moment I looked forward to all week, one that couldn’t come fast enough: halftime. There is an energy that pulsed through my veins as I watched the clock wind down second quarter. The minute one of my meticulously polished black marching shoes hit that grassy field, magic happened. Neatly poised rows of musicians replace the herds of bulky, padded behemoths. The playful glint of silver horns under stadium lights caught the eyes of and drew bated breath from unsuspecting spectators. A booming voice would come over the loudspeaker offering a formal introduction, but the only thing I heard as I climbed the few steps to my podium were the brassy chords and drumbeats waiting to shatter the silent anticipation. After one clever flick of my wrist to signal a polite salute to the press-box, another brought the stadium to life with music and flashes of colored silk. The world disappeared for eight minutes at a time, every Friday night, and I couldn’t ever get enough. I got bit with this marching band bug freshman year, but since I was given the opportunity to be drum major, I got to experience an entirely different aspect of marching band, through conducting. It was purely intoxicating and my favorite feeling in the whole world. Unfortunately, like most things, it had to end sometime.

I remember the last football game of the season senior year. We were clobbering the opposing team, but none of that mattered. The whole game I could only think about that when halftime came and went, it would be my last. Before I knew it, our halftime show was over and I descended from my podium for the last time. Feelings were mixed. Those returning for next season rejoiced over surviving this one, and those of us who would be graduating in spring were full of sorrow, despite the smiles the endorphins painted on our faces. It was so strange taking off my uniform that night in the band room, it was like having to give away my favorite shirt while it still fit. The end of marching season not only meant the end of my experiences as a drum major, but also marked the reality that my high school band career would soon be drawing to a close. Thinking about it at the time was maddening, absolutely maddening.

I was especially tormented as I began to realize that the time and effort I put into this endeavor greatly benefitted other aspects of my life. Obviously, I became a better musician after learning different ways of teaching music and reading scores. However, in the process I honed my discipline and leadership skills, which came in handy as I became involved in other organizations at school. Ultimately, I refused to accept that this identity that I inherited would leave me once I left high school. My brilliant solution to this was to apply to the College of Music at Florida State as an instrumental music education major. The way I saw it, there couldn’t be a better major for me. In the time it took to receive my response letter, I romanticized the idea of my future career as a music educator in my mind. Just months before, I was in the same boat as many of my classmates who were completely unsure of what they wanted to study in college. Once I set my heart on music education, all of the pieces seemed to fall into place. I had a plan, and I knew exactly where I saw myself in five years. If only the College of Music shared my ambitions.

They said no. My dreams, my plans, collapsed along with the entirety of my world with the printing of one delicately phrased, falsely empathetic sentence. Never before had I felt such a void open up inside of me, and once I was done feeling sorry for myself, panic set in. My feeling attempt to cling to a lost identity had failed and I was back to square one.

Matters of Loss, Discovery, and Halftime - Draft 2

In my ninth grade biology class, I learned that everything in our environment has a purpose. Every plant, animal, and microscopic organism is designed to do a job that no other can do. Ecologists call this a niche. The rest of society throws this word around, too, for us humans. When we find something we’re good at, we call it our niche, our purpose, our career, or whatever lofty description we’d like to tack on. It’s not as simple as textbooks would like to make it, though. People are complex, multi-faceted; they can fulfill many roles at once. Unlike the bacteria making a home in the leftovers in my fridge, you and I have several niches. One person can be a parent, a sibling, an accountant, a best friend, a closet rugby player, a spouse, and an aspiring chef all in the same day. One thing the experts fail to mention, though, is that these identities never have to be constant. They can change. They can evolve. Identities, or niches, can become significantly more or less prominent as you assume other roles in your lifetime. This is probably the most startling revelation I’ve had in my young, meaningless life.

At the ripe age of eighteen, I’ve been presented with nothing but changes. This includes the all important moment of leaving home and life as I knew it in pursuit of higher education and a wealth of fresh, new experiences. The “leaving” aspect was the most difficult, needless to say, but for reasons I never even anticipated. Starting a new life at Florida State University meant that I had to leave behind identities I had, roles I played, in high school. There are a couple of these stolen identities that I’ve had trouble reconciling with, one of which was being drum major for my high school marching band.

Ah, yes, the truth comes out. I had the ultimate job for a marching band aficionado. The title, though, was not simply bestowed upon me. Rather, it was something I grew into. My band director approached me about the opportunity at the end of my sophomore year, but at that point I did not have an ounce of experience conducting a band or being charge of anything. Worse yet, I didn’t even have an example to lead from. My high school was brand new, so my first year in marching band freshman year was the debut of the Ida S. Baker High School Marching Bulldogs. For all intensive purposes, I was going to be the first real drum major for the band.

The saga really began the following summer. Mr. Brown, my director, sent me off to an FSU summer music camp for marching band leadership. It was the scariest week of my life, but I had a blast. The initial shock of being left in a strange place for a week with a couple hundred kids I’ve never met before wore off as I fell into my element. I was learning how to conduct, learning how to interpret musical scores, learning how to teach marching basics and give commands, and I befriended band kids like me from all over the state. I left camp feeling significantly more confident about the responsibilities that were ahead of me. Not to mention, I was pumped and ready for my school’s band camp to begin in less than a month. The learning process, as I found out, did not end there.

Even after marching season was well under way that year, I was was nowhere close to being an expert drum major. No one seemed to notice, though, besides myself and my band director, and that was just fine. (I suppose it’s good to know that if all else fails, I can at least act like I know what I’m doing.) Behind the brave face, I was constantly looking for ways to improve, whether it be trying different ways to communicate directions more effectively, or going home each night after practice and studying the music to make sure I would never forget to cue the trumpets in the third piece after the drum break. Being a drum major requires it’s own set of, almost, sub-identities. On one hand you have to be the expert among your peers. You have to know all of the drill and every part of the music, or else you can forget about helping the band members try to learn it themselves. The other and most essential job of a band leadership position is to be a role model for the rest of the band. During practices and football games, I slipped into what my friends called “drum major mode,” which was more or less my leadership mindset. I had to be professional and collected, yet still agreeable and enjoyable to be around. There’s a fine line you have to walk when you have to manage an ensemble of your peers. I’ve had to reprimand good friends of mine for acting like idiots, for lack of a better word, at practices and games. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but it had to be done, an they had to know that we could be friends outside of rehearsal, but when it was time to work, they shouldn’t expect special treatment. To be honest, there were many days where I felt like more of a babysitter for forty-something overgrown toddlers than anything else. (I couldn’t receive any sympathy from Mr. Brown on this. He would just laugh and say, “Welcome to my life.” I guess I deserved that.) Every day wasn’t a picnic, but through it all I couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing with my time.

Eventually, it came to the point that my drum major identity was my most comfortable persona. By the time my senior year rolled around, I had established a bit of a reputation. I was lucky enough to be drum major for two years. I don’t know if that says anything about me, or the lack of fitting contenders, but I digress. Apparently I did a decent enough job of it the first year that I garnered the respect of my band mates and other classmates. Although, classmates outside of band greeted me as, “Oh, hey, you’re the girl that does this,” and they’d proceed to flail their arms about in a poor impression of the way they’d seen me conduct the band at pep rallies. Even my school’s administrators suddenly knew who I was. My principle stopped me in the hallway one morning to offer me and the marching band a “job well done” at halftime the previous Friday. To this day, I don’t think he actually knows my name, but it’s better than nothing.

As much as the publicity aided in the inflation of my ego, I didn’t do it for that reason. I didn’t stand in front of my bathroom mirror practicing my conducting pattern until I couldn’t hold my arms up anymore for popularity. I didn’t endure countless hours of marching rehearsal in the heat of the afternoon for my own health. I worked hard, and motivated my fellow Marching Bulldogs to do the same for an entirely different reward. A reward that I call the rush of performance.

There was a moment I looked forward to all week, one that couldn’t come fast enough: halftime. There is an energy that pulsed through my veins as I watched the clock wind down second quarter. The minute one of my meticulously polished black marching shoes hit that grassy field, magic happened. Neatly poised rows of musicians replaced the herds of bulky, padded behemoths. The playful glint of silver horns under stadium lights caught the eyes of and drew bated breath from unsuspecting spectators. A booming voice would come over the loudspeaker offering a formal introduction, but the only thing I heard as I climbed the few steps to my podium were the brassy chords and drumbeats that were just waiting to shatter the silent anticipation. One clever flick of my wrist to signal a polite salute to the press-box, another brought the stadium to life with music and flashes of colored silk. The world disappeared for eight minutes at a time, every Friday night, and I couldn’t ever get enough. I was bitten with this marching band bug freshman year, but conducting gave me an entirely different perspective on marching band. It was purely intoxicating and became my favorite feeling in the whole world. Unfortunately, like most things, it had to end sometime.

I remember the last football game of the season senior year. We were clobbering the opposing team, but that didn’t matter. The whole game I could only think about that when halftime came and went, it would be my last. Before I knew it, our halftime show was over and I descended from my podium for the last time. Feelings were mixed. Those returning for next season rejoiced over surviving this one, and those of us who would be graduating in spring were full of sorrow, despite the smiles the endorphins painted on our faces. It was so strange taking off my uniform that night in the band room, it was like having to give away my favorite shirt while it still fit. The end of marching season not only meant the end of my experiences as a drum major, but also marked the reality that my high school band career would soon be drawing to a close. Thinking about it at the time was maddening, absolutely maddening.

I was especially tormented as I began to realize that the time and effort I put into this endeavor greatly benefitted other aspects of my life. I became a better musician after learning different ways of teaching music and reading scores. In the process, I also honed my discipline and leadership skills, which came in handy as I became involved in other organizations at school. Ultimately, I refused to accept that this identity that I inherited would leave me once I left high school. My brilliant solution to this was to apply to the College of Music at Florida State as an instrumental music education major. The way I saw it, there couldn’t be a better major for me. In the time it took to receive my response letter, I romanticized the idea of my future career as a music educator in my mind. Just months before, I was in the same boat as many of my classmates who were completely unsure of what they wanted to study in college. Once I set my heart on music education, all of the pieces seemed to fall into place. I had a plan, and I knew exactly where I saw myself in five years. If only the College of Music shared my ambitions.

They said no. My dreams, my plans, collapsed along with the entirety of my world with the printing of one delicately phrased, falsely empathetic sentence. Never before had I felt such a void open up inside of me, and once I was done feeling sorry for myself, panic set in. My feeble attempt to cling to a lost identity had failed and I was back to square one.

Matters of Loss, Discovery, and Halftime - Draft 3

In my ninth grade biology class, I learned that everything in our environment has a purpose. Every plant, animal, and microscopic organism is designed to do a job that no other can do. Ecologists call this a niche. The rest of society throws this word around, too, for us humans. When we find something we’re good at, we call it our niche, our purpose, our career, or whatever lofty description we’d like to tack on. It’s not as simple as textbooks would like to make it, though. People are complex, multi-faceted; they can fulfill many roles at once. Unlike the bacteria making a home in the leftovers in my fridge, you and I have several niches. One person can be a parent, a sibling, an accountant, a best friend, a closet rugby player, a spouse, and an aspiring chef all in the same day. One thing the experts fail to mention, though, is that these identities never have to be constant. They can change. They can evolve. Identities, or niches, can become significantly more or less prominent as you assume other roles in your lifetime. This is probably the most startling revelation I’ve had in my young, trivial life.

At the ripe age of eighteen, I’ve been presented with nothing but changes. This includes the all important moment of leaving home and life as I knew it in pursuit of higher education and a wealth of fresh, new experiences. The “leaving” aspect was the most difficult, needless to say, but for reasons I never even anticipated. Starting a new life at Florida State University meant that I had to leave behind identities I had, roles I played, in high school. There are a couple of these stolen identities that I’ve had trouble reconciling with, one of which was being drum major for my high school marching band.

Ah, yes, the truth comes out. I had the ultimate job for a marching band aficionado. Drum majors are in interesting breed in the marching band world. In college and high school bands around the county, the drum major is responsible for conducting and instructing the ensemble. Second only to the band director, drum major is the foremost position among band leadership. So, no, drum majors are in no way affiliated with percussion instruments, despite the title. If you’ve ever seen a marching band perform, they’re the smartly dressed characters standing on tall podiums waving their arms about and hollering terse commands at the musicians. It was my kind of gig. The title, though, was not simply bestowed upon me. Rather, it was something I grew into. My band director approached me about the opportunity at the end of my sophomore year, but at that point I did not have an ounce of experience conducting a band or being in charge of anything. Worse yet, I didn’t even have an example to lead from. My high school was brand new, so my first year in marching band freshman year was the debut of the Ida S. Baker High School Marching Bulldogs. For all intents and purposes, I was going to be the first real drum major for the band.

The saga really began the following summer. Mr. Brown, my director, sent me off to an FSU summer music camp for marching band leadership. It was the scariest week of my life, but I had a blast. My parents abandoned me, four hundred miles from home, on an exceptionally large college campus where I was forced to mingle with hundreds of unfamiliar faces. Somewhere between consuming questionable meals and awkward introductions with camp-mates, the initial shock wore off and I fell into my element. I learned how to conduct, how to interpret musical scores, how to teach marching basics and give commands, and I befriended band kids like me from all over the state. I left camp feeling significantly more confident about the responsibilities that were ahead of me. Not to mention, I was pumped and ready for my school’s band camp to begin in less than a month. The learning process, as I found out, did not end there.

Even after marching season was well under way that year, I was was nowhere close to being an expert drum major. No one seemed to notice, though, besides myself and my band director, and that was just fine. (I suppose it’s good to know that if all else fails, I can at least act like I know what I’m doing.) Behind the brave face, I was constantly looking for ways to improve, whether it be trying different ways to communicate directions more effectively, or going home each night after practice and studying the music to make sure I would never forget to cue the trumpets in the third piece after the drum break. Being a drum major requires it’s own set of, almost, sub-identities. On one hand you have to be the expert among your peers. You have to know all of the drill and every part of the music, or else you can forget about helping the band members try to learn it themselves. The other and most essential job of a band leadership position is to be a role model for the rest of the band. During practices and football games, I slipped into what my friends called “drum major mode,” which was more or less my leadership mindset. I had to be professional and collected, yet still agreeable and enjoyable to be around. There’s a fine line you have to walk when you have to manage an ensemble of your peers. I’ve had to reprimand good friends of mine for acting like idiots, for lack of a better word, at practices and games. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but it had to be done, an they had to know that we could be friends outside of rehearsal, but when it was time to work, they shouldn’t expect special treatment. To be honest, there were many days where I felt like more of a babysitter for forty-something overgrown toddlers than anything else. (I couldn’t receive any sympathy from Mr. Brown on this. He would just laugh and say, “Welcome to my life.” I guess I deserved that.) Every day wasn’t a picnic, but through it all I couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing with my time.

Eventually, it came to the point that my drum major identity was my most comfortable persona. By the time my senior year rolled around, I had established a bit of a reputation. I was lucky enough to be drum major for two years. I don’t know if that says anything about me, or the lack of fitting contenders, but I digress. Apparently I did a decent enough job of it the first year that I garnered the respect of my band mates and other classmates. Although, classmates outside of band greeted me as, “Oh, hey, you’re the girl that does this,” and they’d proceed to flail their arms about in a poor impression of the way they’d seen me conduct the band at pep rallies. Even my school’s administrators suddenly knew who I was. My principle stopped me in the hallway one morning to offer me and the marching band a “job well done” at halftime the previous Friday. To this day, I don’t think he actually knows my name, but it’s better than nothing.

As much as the publicity aided in the inflation of my ego, I didn’t do it for that reason. I didn’t stand in front of my bathroom mirror practicing my conducting pattern until I couldn’t hold my arms up anymore for popularity. I didn’t endure countless hours of marching rehearsal in the heat of the afternoon for my own health. I worked hard, and motivated my fellow Marching Bulldogs to do the same for an entirely different reward. A reward that I call the rush of performance.

I remember the last football game of the season senior year. It was raining, we were getting clobbered by the opposing team, and I couldn’t have cared less. As usual, my eyes were on the game clock, watching the numbers slowly tick by. Second quarter was always twelve minutes too long. When the time finally came to rally the troops for halftime, our uniforms had been thoroughly sodden by the incessant drizzling of rain, but putting on my jacket gave me goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold. This was the last game, the last performance of our halftime show, the last time I would get to stand proudly before my band with the pungent scent of grass filling me up, easing my thundering pulse. We had rehearsed so many times my hands found their way along the cadence naturally and every inch of muscle and sinew in my body came alive with the ebb and flow of the music. Alas, before I could entirely dissolve into the moment the last chord rang through the air, and it was over. Hair sticking to my forehead and tears burning my eyes, I descended from my podium and joined my friends. Feelings were mixed. Those returning for next season rejoiced over surviving this one, and those of us who would be graduating in spring were full of sorrow, despite the smiles the endorphins painted on our faces. It was so strange taking off my uniform that night in the band room, it was like having to give away my favorite shirt while it still fit. The end of marching season not only meant the end of my experiences as a drum major, but also marked the reality that my high school band career would soon be drawing to a close. Thinking about it at the time was maddening, absolutely maddening.

They didn’t.

Matters of Loss, Discovery, and Halftime - Cover Letter

Dear __,

So here it is, my final draft.

My original idea for this paper was actually significantly loftier and complex. I was aiming to write about how being a musician had shaped my life, starting from when I first picked up a clarinet in seventh grade to now. After writing in circles for a few hours I grudgingly came to realize that I needed to narrow my focus, or this paper would never see the light of day. I chose to write about being a drum major for two very simple reasons. First off, talking specifically about my experiences as drum major for my marching band allowed me to still hit on the major idea that I was going to express with my original idea, and second, if there is anything I could talk about for hours and never run out of things to say, it’s marching band.

Even then, I had to keep myself from talking about everything that I wanted to when writing this. I tried very hard to appropriately manage the amount of details and descriptions I added along with my anecdotes, for I feel that there it such a thing as too much description. (We actually talked about this during our conference, I don’t know if you remember.) It became a little frustrating, though, when my peer editors continued to prompt me to elaborate extensively on practically every point I made or idea I presented in my paper. Yes, it would have jacked up my page count, but it would have distracted from the real points I was trying to make. So, I just want you to know that every details I provided and omitted was done with great care.

On the subject of peer editors, my peers also made several comments concerning my word choice. I, personally, don’t feel like I used any sort of awkward vocabulary or phrasing. I just wonder if maybe they just didn’t really follow the idea or tone I was trying to get across. As you’re reading, if you come across anything particularly incoherent or obscure, please don’t hesitate to say so! I admit that my sense of humor or train of thought only seems to make sense to me sometimes.

Before I run this cover letter into the ground, I just wanted to thank you in advance for taking the time to read my work and provide constructive advice.