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. While I was beginning to transfer into the high school band program, I knew from the gecko that I would be pushed beyond my limitations.
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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 again. After my attempts to make it into the percussion section, I was assigned to march a fake instrument in the junior varsity block. For the whole semester, I held a clarinet and march for countless hours in the heat of August. These frequent rehearsals of marching set-by-set every day for hours affected my academic life and I almost failed two of my classes. At that point, I had to learn how to budget my time better and when the long hours of school and rehearsal caught up to me, I had to push to get my assignments done to be able to march. Before my sophomore year, I was approached by Mr. Chavez again. He asked me to join the front ensemble for the upcoming fall semester due to a shortage of percussionists. I gladly accepted the challenge and, once again, started to learn a new instrument. It was frustrating going from an instrument powered by air to one that is powered by the velocity from your wrist. After countless lessons and practice, I was eventually able to perform with the pit for the whole semester. Junior year, a fellow oboist, Angela, asked me if I would like to form a double reed quartet with our friends Emily and Ashwin, to perform at our UIL Solo and Ensemble competition. We came to school every morning at 7 o’clock
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 again. After my attempts to make it into the percussion section, I was assigned to march a fake instrument in the junior varsity block. For the whole semester, I held a clarinet and march for countless hours in the heat of August. These frequent rehearsals of marching set-by-set every day for hours affected my academic life and I almost failed two of my classes. At that point, I had to learn how to budget my time better and when the long hours of school and rehearsal caught up to me, I had to push to get my assignments done to be able to march. Before my sophomore year, I was approached by Mr. Chavez again. He asked me to join the front ensemble for the upcoming fall semester due to a shortage of percussionists. I gladly accepted the challenge and, once again, started to learn a new instrument. It was frustrating going from an instrument powered by air to one that is powered by the velocity from your wrist. After countless lessons and practice, I was eventually able to perform with the pit for the whole semester. Junior year, a fellow oboist, Angela, asked me if I would like to form a double reed quartet with our friends Emily and Ashwin, to perform at our UIL Solo and Ensemble competition. We came to school every morning at 7 o’clock