Marching to the beat of your own drum
WRITTEN BY FAITH FARRELL
I’m all ears when it comes to listening to music and I try to be all heart when it comes to playing music. But to play music while marching in step and frantically listening for the beat of the drum? I’m all thumbs.
In high school I played clarinet while in marching band and it was the musical version of rubbing your stomach in circular formation while patting the top of your head. Coordination chaos.
The first marching band I was in was very serious and official, full of pomp. We wore white and green uniforms with excessive trim, mysterious gold roping accenting places that didn’t make sense, perhaps hiding invisible pocket watches in nonexistent secrets. The jacket element was bedazzled in gold buttons that didn’t fasten. The logistics of it all was confusing. These “costumes” hinted at a version of some flashy, misfitted army preparing for battle from ancient times. Our heavy hats towered over a foot – but behold the glory of the giant plumage soaring to the sky, confusing all birds flying by!
It was a triple threat trifecta: making music and marching plus balancing stovepipes on our heads, all while sweating in polyester trappings spun of nightmares.
To be frank, I don’t recall the song we were playing when the horror occurred; I believe the body erases memory during trauma. I can tell you it occurred on the field during a home football game, where the gridiron’s muddy field gave the La Brea Tar Pits a run for its money.
After performing our halftime extravaganza, we got in formation to footslog off the field; suddenly my white boot got sucked up in a muddy vortex of such intense gravity-defying forces that my foot slid out with a goopy plop. The mud held my boot hostage. There was no stopping lest I get trampled by the row of oncoming marchers behind me. Perhaps it was a life lesson in choosing self-sacrifice for the good of the group. Thankfully, I was costumed for battle.
Stomping to the beat of the drum, I plundered forth, hoping that the mud would disguise my sock as a muddy boot despite the fact I was now limp-marching.
Returning to the bleachers, an announcement blared over the loudspeaker. The game could not continue. The culprit? A lone boot stuck on the field. Would the owner please come and claim. I feigned innocence as the crowd looked around. Who, me??? There was another announcement proclaiming the boot had been freed from the wreckage and could be retrieved on the sidelines. My socked foot was freezing so I finally hobbled down the bleachers, clarinet masking my face, indebted to the matching uniforms that hopefully hid my identity.
Luckily, our team’s last-minute victory found the crowd ecstatic, erasing my personal halftime shame from their collective brains.
We moved the following year, and I was informed my new marching band didn’t have the budget for marching uniforms. Instead, we were to wear blue jeans and white T-shirts, sans torture hats. I cheered on this change, excited to experience comfort while battling two things at once. It was finally time to make some music.
Life is sometimes stinky – full of wet socks, old shoes and sweaty outfits. But the secret to stanch the stench is to just march on, beating your tired drum with abandon. NCM