Band has always been something that is stereotyped as geeky, but band kids stopped caring about that a long time ago.

I remember middle school me, not wanting to play in high school because I didn’t want to wear the silly looking uniforms with the feathery hats in front of all of my other peers. My mom forced me to get over it and signed me up for band, and I still thank her to this day. I soon was able to get over the fact that I was wearing a stupid looking uniform and just did what I loved, which was playing my instrument. Playing an instrument is something these students were called to do. Our calling from God has us playing our instruments at football games, pep rallies, concerts, tours, small ensembles, and personal performances. As we progress through Ouachita Baptist University, instrumentalists grow as musicians and as people and also impact others as we make our way to graduation. The instrumental department at OBU is much more important than most people make it out to be. This department impacts campus through performances, relationships, and the amazing professors. OBU wouldn’t be the same without this program in place.

The ensembles that the instrumentalists make up put on shows for football games, dinners, campus concerts, and high school tours. We have many more ensembles than just concert band and marching band, contrary to popular belief. First, we have ensembles that you audition for. These are Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band, and Tiger Steel. You can get good scholarships for auditioning well for these bands, and you get a 500 dollar scholarship for getting in Tiger Steel. The steel drum band is really fun to be in. They hold auditions every semester, and you literally just get to play on these steel pans and have fun from 12-1 every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We put on as many concerts as we can during the year. So far, we’ve performed at the Global Education Conference dinner and at Dr. Jacks this past Friday. Marching band works so hard to put out our halftime shows for the audiences at the football games. Hours and hours are poured into rehearsals starting over a week and a half before everyone else moves into OBU in August. Stand tunes, and the fight song and alma mater let the crowd have fun and the cheerleaders dance during games. Does anyone else think it’s way too quiet when there’s a football game without a band there? Wind ensemble also tours the surrounding states every semester for high school recruitment and the songs we put out we are very proud of. We also perform in PRISM every year, as well as Tiger Tunes and our semester concerts. Instrumentalists also have little ensembles that we play in every Tuesday and Thursday. I, for example, play in a horn quartet with three other horn players, including my professor, Dr. Thayer. Our professors help us pick a song out individually for us to play by ourselves for PAC, which is our performing arts class. Pep band, a small section of marching band, also plays at home basketball games.

You can really form a special connection with students and faculty in the music department. Professors become some of your most trustworthy advisors, as well as your peers. Believe it or not, most music students actually have the cell phone numbers of all their music professors. If we’re going to be late to a class or have a question pertaining to practically anything, we just shoot them a text. I had a conversation with my Aural Skills teacher, Dr. Isenhour, on Twitter through direct message about this video I found on the internet. I actually sent the link to him and he later tweeted about it to everyone else. The faculty also has cookouts as often as they can. Marching band has a cookout at one of the professors’ houses in the beginning of the year. All of us go to the lake and eat food and hang out with each other and connect with our professors. We often stop rehearsals because the professor made a joke that everyone can’t stop laughing at. These inside jokes we develop bring us all closer together and further define us as a family.

The instrument families sometimes go to the professor’s houses and have dinner. For instance, last semester I went to the low brass dinner, which consisted of lasagna, desserts, and a lot of games. So many memories are made during these get togethers that we will never forget, which is yet another thing that makes that department so great.

You also grow as a musician inside and outside the classes and ensembles. I call some of this ‘practice room philosophy’. We basically have the third floor of Mabee dedicated to practice rooms. If you’re ever up there, there’s constant instrument playing and self-loathing that you can hear through the thin practice room walls. I often sit there in the practice room and pray that maybe my piece will come together before my performance. I had this exact thing happen last Friday right before I performed in our PAC class. The professors and directors really challenge us to be better musicians. Wind Ensemble has a lot of really hard music that seems impossible when we first get it at the beginning of the semester, but when it comes time to perform, we sound great. The hours we spend rehearsing for these performances give us a half hour credit. This half hour credit gives us credit for at least 5 hours a week of practice.

So next time you hear any music student with 16 hours complaining that they have too much on their plate, believe them because they really do.

Music is a wonderful thing and has impacted many peoples’ lives here. Many instrumentalists would not be here if it hadn’t been for the generosity of our professors and the university. The dean of fine arts, Dr. Gerber, and my instrument professor Dr. Thayer, gave me a generous scholarship based on my audition so I would be able to attend this amazing school. Without this scholarship, I would have been somewhere like the University of Central Arkansas, or even my community college. I know this college was meant for me, so I am forever grateful for the opportunity these people gave me through this scholarship. It is really obvious that your instructor and the other professors truly care about their students.

Your instruments’ professor is usually your adviser, so they spend hours helping you with your complicated scheduling, and providing flexibility by figuring out a time for you and them to have your weekly lesson. We are all really close with our professors. Our professors are not only our academic advisors, but also personal advisers. We come to them with almost any problem we have, which really helps us adjust down here. They almost become our parents away from home. They go out of their way to make us feel comfortable and happy here. Our concerts draw a lot of people to OBU, and I know we make an impact on those who attend. Parents and students come up to us afterwards asking how we were able to pull off the music we played and it makes us so happy to know that people enjoyed our music. Hearing the praise from strangers is an amazing feeling.

In the end, the instrumental music department really makes a difference on this campus. Through performances, we give people music to dance and chant to during football games, music that makes you rethink quitting band in middle school, and music like steel drums that you can relax and listen to. Relationships are built all through the department and students are able to build great friendships with each other and support each other as they progress through OBU. The faculty helps guide us on this journey and are always there when we need them. Joining band was one of the best decisions I ever made. I’ll take people calling me a band geek over not being in band any day.