Or the story of how I learned you can really play anything during a graduation in a band, as long as you’re at least pretending you’re playing something.
As anyone who’s ever been to any graduation can tell you, the poor fucks who are in the bands at any graduation play Pomp and Circumstance and the Recessional so many times that they they’re clearly doing other things while their hands multitask. Even years later, when I think of he song, my hands just kind of move along with the song. I don’t even really remember what the sheet music looks like, I just remember which way to move my hands, and how far I could slouch while playing it before I’d get a really dirty look.
While playing it, I’ve personally entertained myself with a very dangerous game of tetris, and once writing a paper that I promised a teacher right after the ceremony, as well as a game of go fish. I’ve suffered through the whole ordeal a total of four times, not counting the time I graduated, though I know more people who have done it far more times and have way more room to bitch. Really it doesn’t matter as long as you’re pretty close to accurate, and you notice when the director starts doing the frantic waving thing that looks like they’re attempting to take flight but really indicates “Hey you fucks, we ran out of seniors, so hurry it up.”
That’s not quite what this is about. It sort of is. You see, I did that whole dance most years at one high school, but I started high school in a different town, and when I was an 8th grader, all of the band kids got to go play with the high schoolers, since you know, they were losing some of their indentured servants, er, players for the ceremony. It was a good way for people to meet the band and feel like they were part of it and take band when they transitioned to high school too. And it works, is the thing.
The only problem is, is that they did this horrible, horrible thing, where while the seniors were picking up their diplomas, as the names were being called, the band would very quietly play a hollywood classic theme or something similar, over, and over and over again. They’d find a way to loop the main theme over and over, just the same as Pomp and fucking Circumstance, until they ran out of seniors, and then get to the end.
That year, was specifically the theme from Exodus. Which was cool, unless you were a Tenor Sax, because they didn’t exactly write anything for them and they got a bunch nonsense music, rests, and random parts from everyone else. Think about 60 minutes of the most boring playing of your life. Really for almost every section, it was so easy that burning out people’s chops wasn't a concern at all there was enough of everyone that if you got tired or bored you could take a break and they'red still be people playing. Again, snoozefest.
So, we show up for rehearsal the day before graduation, and I had switched instruments to Tenor Sax that year, only to have shared a section with one other guy we’ll call J. J was really attractive, but never, ever spoke to me, unless he was correcting me, or asking me to move a stand over or something. Imagine my surprise when I start walking towards the gym, case in hand, and an older, even more attractive version of J approaches me, and grabs me by the shoulders. No one ever told me J had a brother, a brother who was apparently even more talented and popular and the band director’s favorite.
“You must be (Dravvie)!”
“Uh…yeah…?” Here I was feeling very confused.
“Good. Go grab two stands with my brother, I have chairs for all of us already, and the music, I’ll take your case.”
“Um, O-kaay?” Now I’m concerned. Behind the more attractive version of my section mate, I see another guy, carrying two music stands already.
So, after much silence as J and I go grab stands and come back, we return to his brother setting out music, and when I offer to help, he’s just like “No, no, go put together your sax, warm up, we’ll show you the stuff in a sec” and nudges J and I away. So we do, the room fills up, all the sections are chatting, and the three high school tenor saxes are all in a circle together plotting. And I look at J and he looks at me and we’re just for once united in a look of “What the ever-living fuck?”
But then we sat down, and his brother insists that I sit next to him and his brother’s friend insists that J sit on the outside seat. And they show us the music, and what we were going to be doing, and really, it looked…like everyone else. Strange? He and the friend were weirdly insistent on only they got to touch the music, and I was thinking that, great, this is what I had to look forward to next year, but other than that, it was…pretty nice.
So, midway through the actual graduation, I am so bored, we’ve been playing go fish during long rests in the music, and J’s brother looks at me, and goes “I bet you wished you were another instrument right now, huh?” And I respond “Yeah, I’m envying those flutes right now, should have picked that instead I guess.”
And the sly fucker slowly slides the sheet of music aside, and whips out a piece of flute music complete with transcription to make it low enough for a tenor sax. “So be a flute.” And then he pulls out a trumpet piece, same thing. “But I was kind of hoping we could be trumpets first.”
Occasionally, the pair of directors looked over in our direction like they wanted to do something, once they shook their batons at us a bit, but the best part was that it was a rain day graduation, inside of a gym, so they couldn’t even slide up to us and threaten us, their only choice was to throw their baton (or for one their drumstick) or let us carry on.
When I showed up for the last days of school the director called me into his office and frowned at me for a long time before saying “I guess you get along with J’s Brother. You will be in band next year then?” When I confirmed it he just sort of tossed a summer practice book at me and barked “Shut up and get out of my office (lastname)”
