Journal 4
Marching Band Life
When I was a junior high school student, I joined our school’s marching band. We practiced for contests and performances. During the 3 years, I made a lot of friends and created many interesting memories with them.
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The tuba I used.
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Guess where am I ?
Our coach
When I entered the band, our coaches asked us to learn the instruments that they assigned. My height was more than 170 centimeters at that time, so the coaches recommended me to learn the largest brass instrument called tuba. This instrument is not only large but also heavy because it is made from brass. Although this instrument is hard to carry, tuba is the easiest brass instrument to learn due to the structure of the mouthpiece. The mouthpiece looks like a cup. Brass instruments generate sounds with our lips and the mouthpieces. To play brass instruments, you should put your lips on the mouthpiece and vibrate them. The size of brass instruments’ mouthpieces are different, and tuba’s is the largest. You can generate sound with a tuba's mouthpiece easily. That’s why tuba is easy to learn.
After practicing for several months, our school assigned us to join some parades. Before performing in a parade, we needed to learn not only the instruments we majored in but also the walk style in a parade. At first, we learned how to play tuba. Then, we started to play some easy sheet music. After learning several sheet music, we started to learn how to walk when attending parades or contests. Sometimes I thought I was in sport class rather than a band because we should carry heavy instruments to walk or do some gestures. Then, our coaches trained us to walk while performing music. It was hard at first. After several practices, we could play the sheet music fluently.
Chiayi City International Band Festival
Taiwan International Marching Band Competition 2017
Our team also joined many contests. One of the most interesting one is the Taiwan International Marching Band Competition 2017. The participating teams included junior high school, senior high school, and even a university from Beijing. We were nervous then because we needed to face strong teams like Taipei First Girls' High School and Taipei Municipal Chien-Kuo High School. During the semi-final, one of the judges said that he thought we were senior high school students because the music we played was out of his expectation! That was really encouraging to us because we didn’t realize that we did such a great job. In the end, we got 4th place. Although we were not the champion, we still felt excited since we defeated many high schools.
Washing Tuba
Pipe washing
Before we attend contests, our coaches ask us to wash instruments. They told us that the sound of our instrument may be better. To those small instruments like trumpet or saxophone, washing them is not a big deal. However, to a tuba player, we need to spend a lot of time washing and drying the instrument. To wash tubas quickly, we decided to use a pipe to wash them. To be honest, that was really fun since we rarely use instruments that way. During the washing process, some of us thought the duration was too long and boring. Thus, one of us “invented” a new way to wash the copper pipe. That is, connect many pipes together, and pour water into it. To some degree, it looks stupid, but it really helped us to wash tuba with pleasure.
Joining a marching band can be interesting and tiring. To me, this experience is really unforgettable. We attended 3 contests and participated in many parades and performances. We also interacted with many people from other schools and even other countries. If somebody asks me whether to join a marching band or not. I will definitely say, “Yes, and enjoy your life!”