Graduation season is upon us, and many people are donning their caps and gowns and receiving their diplomas. For the graduates and their families, it’s an occasion that calls for celebration. But for the band, graduation is the most dreaded activity of the year.
Everyone who has ever been in band knows the pain of attending graduation every year. We have to sit in folding chairs at the back of the gym for hours on end and listen to all of the speakers drone on and on for what seems like forever. Not to mention that it’s always hot and stuffy and we can’t just sit there like everyone else. We actually have a job to do, and by "job to do", I mean playing Pomp and Circumstance.
About Pomp and Circumstance: whoever decided to have that song be played at every graduation ever made a terrible mistake. And whoever decided that it was a fantastic idea to have the band play it made an even bigger mistake. See, there is apparently only one arrangement in the whole entire world and we have to play it over and over again while hundreds of graduates and professors file in at a snail’s pace. There is not a single band member that doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief when we’re done playing it for another year.
But of all of the aspects of graduation, there’s one that band members hate the most. When we see fellow band members walk across the stage and receive their hard earned diplomas, we cheer the hardest because they have become like family to us. But at the same time, little pieces of our hearts are breaking because we’re losing one of our own. Through band, our friends become family, and while we’re excited that they’re venturing out to take on the big, wide world, we’re sad to see them go.