Hello everyone, and good morning. It's been quite a long week, with tons of show choir and such, but now it's finally winding down and thank goodness tomorrow is Friday. As I sit here in AP Lang on a laptop that keeps changing the language to Chinese, I'm trying to brainstorm possible topics for today's post. With the blizzard-like conditions outside, my frightening drive to school this morning, and a show choir concert tonight, one would think there would be plenty to discuss. And there is, but I'm not going to talk about any of those topics today, because I must rant. URRRGGGG.
"Practice your music, we'll be having sectionals tomorrow," my band director informed us after class yesterday. "Sectionals", the word brings back great memories. Saxophone sectionals, the unsupervised ones, usually consisted of about a minute and a half of playing music and the rest of the time complaining about band and making weird noises with our instruments. Cool, I thought, this will give me a "free day" in band, and I'll get a chance to catch up with my saxophone buddies. When I arrived to first hour this morning, I groaned along with my fellow sax players when we were informed that there would be a saxophone specialist leading our sectional. As we reluctantly followed this professional into the practice room, none of us realized that all hopes of being a good player would be shattered after the next hour of practicing.
"Alright," she said in her loud, tough voice. "We're going to start with the sixteenth notes at measure thirty-three." Great, I thought. Sixteenth notes, everyone's weak point. Could we please start with something a little easier and work our way into it? Not a chance. At that point, my nerves kicked in. I was shaking and playing much worse than usual. This woman seriously frightened me. I'm a decent sax player, I know my music, but I do make mistakes. I get nervous and play wrong notes. It's not that I'm bad, but I'm not the "Best Saxophone Play In The Entire School", either.
This woman made it very clear who she liked and who she didn't. Right away, she pinpointed every detail of every mistake our first chair saxophonist made. She also openly favored our second chair saxophone, who she repeatedly used as an example of the "right way" to play. This woman was a rampant bull: calm until you made a wrong movement, then she charged at you with full force. My mistake came with the sixteenth notes (of course) and she made me play them alone. By then I was even more nervous, and could hardly play them at all. But she was very persistent, making me play each note at a time until I got every one right. Ten minutes later, when I had finally made some progress and was feeling slightly better, she stopped.
"I don't have time for this anymore," she said. "You need serious work. I want you to practice tonight, and I want it perfect tomorrow. Also, how old is that reed? I expect a new one right out of the package." Now, call me a crybaby, but it took all the strength I had to not start bawling in the middle of the practice room. This woman pointed out all my weaknesses while not recognizing any of my strengths. No one had ever told me that I was a bad saxophone player. Never. Yet I felt as if this terrifying woman was targeting me, telling me that unless I'm perfect I might as well give up.
This saxophone "specialist" clearly had a problem. Nobody is perfect, and nobody can play perfectly. I do practice my saxophone, but unlike her I actually have a life outside of band and right now it's much more important. So yeah, I'll work harder. I'll make it the best it can be. I'll work with MY lesson teacher so I can do MY best. And if that lady wants it to be better, she can play it herself. Oh, and guess who's not going to band tomorrow?
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