So Who Was In Band, Back In School?

[OrganicZed]

Yes. I played the trombone from 5th grade all through my senior year. I played in the jazz band, the wind ensemble, and the pep band (which was a requirement for anyone enrolled in the band class in high school). I also played the tuba, euphonium, and trumpet at various points. I was mediocre at all of them though I did get first chair in the trombone section during my junior and senior years.

One funny story: For the final concert of the year there was a group of seniors who decided to play a prank on our band director. It was a rule that formal attire was required for performances. We convinced the entire jazz band show up in the tackiest Hawaiian shirts we could find at the local thrift store. Our band director had a good laugh about it and then complained that we didn't tell him because he would have worn a Hawaiian shirt as well.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Cello, age 6 til 13…hated it.

 

[spawnofthesith]

I was homeschooled until high school and then in HS went to an -extremely- small charter school that didn't have band. I took piano lessons from the ages of 5-14, and at 14 I was allowed to start taking guitar lessons which took over my life and here I am now lol

I went to CU Denver for Recording Arts/minor in guitar performance but "took a semester off" after two years and never went back. Randomly got a low level job in a laboratory after that but worked my way up and gained a lot of experience in that area. Now I'm somehow running the analytical department at a different research lab being a music school drop out

 

[paisleywookiee]

I played trumpet from 5th to 12th, was in concert band that whole time, jazz band that whole time, as well as marching and pep bands. I played guitar in pep band from Freshman to Senior year.

 

[metropolis_4]

I was homeschooled until high school and then in HS went to an -extremely- small charter school that didn't have band. I took piano lessons from the ages of 5-14, and at 14 I was allowed to start taking guitar lessons which took over my life and here I am now lol

I went to CU Denver for Recording Arts/minor in guitar performance but "took a semester off" after two years and never went back. Randomly got a low level job in a laboratory after that but worked my way up and gained a lot of experience in that area. Now I'm somehow running the analytical department at a different research lab being a music school drop out

I got excommunicated from the guitar school at Metro because I brought an RG7420 and used distortion when I performed my original composition for theory class

One of the guys from the guitar school told me he used to like that kind of stuff but then he grew up

I was persona non grata with them after that

 

[joezlo]

I was in choir.

Band director didn't want an accordion player. (either that or just didn't know what to do with one)

 

[Rock Chalk]

That's surprising for a 1st Chair Trumpet... LOL, J/K

Ain't that the truth.........must have been that stylish '76 Monte boat-of-a-car I was drivin'......

 

[Sleezy E]

I never thought being in Band in High School would be a flex when I hit middle-aged man status.

 

[PLX]

Tromboner

Great name for a band !

 

[HomespunEffects]

4th grade, there was a presentation in the gymnasium. A teacher said “we are opening a music program and if you want to learn to play you just have to choose an instrument”.

A number of professional musicians came out and talked about their instrument and played a little bit of music.

First musician was a lady violinist. Totes boring introduction to what the violin is and how to play. Completely lame demonstration. A few kids clapped.

Trumpet guy came out. He was pretty cool. Got a few more claps.

Clarinet guy came out. He was cool, too.

Then saxophone guy came out. Super cool cat with jazz lingo. Dude got down with the sax. Kids went nuts.

At the end the teacher brought out all the musicians and asked us, “does anyone want to learn violin?” And the violin lady stood up expecting everyone to rush the stage to sign up. Not one hand was raised. Violin lady huffed and stomped off the stage.

A few kids went for trumpet and one or two went for clarinet.

When he asked “and who wants to learn saxophone?” Cheers rose from the kids and about 100 hands were waving. Sax guy said “cool, man.”

Then violin lady came out from behind the curtain and started yelling at the kids. “I can’t believe you’d pass up the opportunity to learn to play the most elegant instrument ever invented only to play unsophisticated jazz garbage. You are making a huge mistake.”

We paused, looked at her raving and then ignored her. “Sax o phone! Sax o phone!” we chanted.

 

[Chocol8]

It was mandatory in my elementary school starting in 3rd or 4th grade. I walked to school so I chose clarinet. Flute was too girly, all the violin spots and percussion spots were taken, and clarinet was the next smallest and lightest option. (Percussion just had to bring their sticks dammit!)

I never had an ounce of interest in the instrument or the music we played and that was reflected in my playing abilities.

In middle school, we could choose band or chorus and while I didn’t like singing either, I didn’t have to carry anything.

 

[Stone]

Yep, my freshman year in Staten Island had a guitar class, I just cut classes and hung out there for the 9 months I lived there.

When I moved back to Maine for sophomore year I started marching band, concert band, jazz band and jazz band ensemble. 4 classes that were actually only 2, because marching/jazz band ensemble were extracurricular and competitive, so we just practiced all that shit during concert/jazz band as actual class time.

I had a blast with that stuff, though marching band was fucking brutal. Not with the music or anything, but standing in the August sun from 8AM-9PM every day during band camp with a bass drum or quads strapped around my neck/shoulders. My senior year everyone thought I was joking when I said I was going to play cymbals, I wasn’t joking!

I played guitar in the jazz band stuff. It was rocky the first and a half, I was a pain in the ass. Mr. Libby kicked me out of the band room at least 3 times for making guitar noises while he was talking. I remember it was just volume swells one day, another time I learned the EVH elephant/whammy thing and kept doing that. I used a fucking Metal Zone for all my solos that were largely out of key during class, then brought my Legacy halfstack for performances and cranked it WAY too fucking loud.

Man, I must have been a nightmare. My senior year things changed, that was the year I made the switch from shitty beginner to capable. I also recall my two bros (that I was at the Metallica show with) telling me I needed to knock off the stupid Vai wannabe shit during my solos, “Just fuckin’ pretend you’re David Gilmour, seriously, no one at these competitions think you’re cool shredding out of key on your JEM”

Something like this Huh Drew

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Years of scraping cello strings with the utmost hatred.
Paid my old man back by working in a sawmill the summer of my 15th and got a Super Bass that I cranked in my bedroom in our apartment.
Cops came by for noise complaints daily.

 

[TSJMajesty]

Flute was too girly,

How short-sighted.

 

[Chocol8]

How short-sighted.

Except 1) I quit before I was old enough to be interested in girls, and 2) the girls who played the flute were not the ones who...uh...became interesting.

 

[newholland]

oh yeah.. full stop band engagement. started in third grade went through sophomore year. high school bad director was an abject asshole and hated him, feeling was mutual. i stayed with it outside a while keeping on keeping on with solo competitions and small ensembles, but eventually just knew that itd lead back into shit backbiting competition in classical universe forever and said 'fuuuuuuck that'. picked up a guitar a year later and still playing forty years later despite the early weirdness.. but i think the regimentation and understanding of texture, orchestration, dynamics, regimentation and discipline, and egolessness inside the music really set the stage for all the stuff i did later.

somehow i can still listen to classical music, but god do i resist structured music theory. my only sorta regret is that i have such a huge spot of grrr about it that i wont do theory. stupid, but shits strong

 

[Frodebro]

Organ/keyboards from around age six.
Fourth grade took up alto sax.
In seventh grade I snuck an alto horn (brasswind) home during winter break, they had a couple stashed in the instrument room. During the break my dad taught me how to play it (he had been a horn instructor and arranger for a local Drum & Bugle Corps when I was young). Came back from break and surprised my band director by playing my sax parts on the horn. Since it was voiced similar to a French horn and our band was short on those, I was instantly recruited to play the horn in concert band while staying on the sax in jazz band.

Eighth grade was the same split, except I was moved to baritone horn in the concert band.

Ninth grade: sax in jazz band, baritone horn in symphonic and marching band.
Tenth grade: sax in jazz band, baritone horn in symphonic, trombone in marching band.
Eleventh grade: trombone in all three
Twelfth grade: trombone in all three.

I wound up lettering in band. The guitar came along when I was about 12, but it was always outside of school.

 

[TSJMajesty]

Band was before school classes began, and I'd also taken Algebra I & II and French I in an accelerated group prior to HS, so it all combined to allow me to skip my junior year and graduate a year early. But I had to take 2 English classes, Brit and American Lit, in my senior year, which kinda sucked.

I got bogged down with it all, and was a couple days late turning in my term paper thesis statement in one of them, and the nun would not let me slide. I think it dropped me a letter grade on the paper.

So that made things real easy for me, because from that point on, I'd calculated that the worst grade I could end up with for the year in that class was a "C", even without turning in a term paper, so I just checked out of that class for the rest of the year.

That same nun caught me in the hallway one day and asked me if I planned on turning in a term paper, and I said, "Since you wouldn't cut me a little slack, knowing how much my course-load was, no." And walked away. Fuck her, I thought.

 

[PLX]

I was sold to the cartel by my parents when I was 11. By the time I got to jr high school I was playing in the cartel boss's son's band. It was a metal tejano band, and I played electric guitar.

We used to play Megadeth, STP, and Metallica covers mixed in with that fucking accordion music those guys are all into.

Here's a band pic in front of one of the "fields".

 

[Jazz Padd]

Throughout High School, I played the guitar in garage bands. In college, however, after playing in a wedding band for a couple of years I got a jazz guitar scholarship to play in a big band for a small regional college, and we toured in summer. It was a blast!