First Football Game of the Year: I was nervous!

Performances are not uncommon, by your senior year of high school. However, for our show, The Moon Race, there was reason for fear.

Leading into the game, I marched the entire woodwind group into arcs, for us to perform the Star Spangled Banner in Ab to the crowd as the football players ran onto the field.

Before this, during our rehearsal, our director had us practice this lead-in. I was excited and incredibly nervous! I was in charge of ensuring the setup for the SSB was satisfactory. To be honest, I hadn’t been this nervous for an extensive period! I was excitable, and making wild gestures to my mother, who was volunteering and oh so confused.

Marching on and playing pep tunes proceeded as normal, with mild alterations given we have a different director this year. The real challenge came at half-time.

The lights beamed down upon each of our plumes as we warmed our instruments against the chilly field. Half-time is when the cheer, dance, and marching band will perform for the audience before the game resumes. On Friday, the marching band was up first.

For some context, several factors made us increasingly nervous in comparison to other years’ first football game performances.

1. The first football game was early! Typically, the season starts later on, and we only perform movement 1. However, this year on the third week of school we are performing movements one and two.
2. The show can use some work. I enjoy the show and the progress we’ve made, I do not deny this. Nevertheless, the runs of the show were weak, and it was very much a draft.
3. It was the first time doing our show without gacs. GACs are dots painted on the field that mark our spot. We only have GACs on the lower field, so at performances, we won’t have them. It’s key that performers get the opportunity to practice without them before a performance. It’s like training wheels; you need to be able to go without them, given in a race you couldn’t use them.
4. Our upperclassman to lowerclassmen ratio illustrates how many members are experiencing their first few performances in marching band, ever. not a perfectly accurate table, based on memory

| Section | Upper | Lower | | ——– | ——- | ——- | | Flutes | 2 | 2 | | Clarinets | 2 | 2 | | Saxophones | 2 | 3 | | Trumpets | 4 | 2 | | Low Brass | 2 | 5 | | Mellophone | 1 | 0 | | Battery | 1 | 4 | | Pit | 0 | 4 | As demonstrated by the table above, some sections are more concentrated in their lowerclassmen numbers, meaning in terms of marching and amount of performances, there are fewer members. Many of the older members were nervous as well, to be fair.

The performance itself: An analysis

As we sauntered onto the football field, the bumbling of the crowd gradually fell silent. Looking back, we certainly had some flaws in our performance. We fell out of time as a section between the trumpets and clarinets, and our dynamics were lackluster. However, I cannot help but be proud. We had no GACs for our first time, and we were still new as a group to the marching band show. We did well given our conditions and certainly put on a show.

What did I learn?

I learned the value in working as a team with everyone during practices, and how that brought us to where we are. I learned that, even in my senior year, I can still feel nervous! Finally, I learned that we have a solid shot at championships. :) Thank you for reading, as always.