15-Morgan White : My burnt out elective

 

    In 6th grade when the middle school teacher, Mr. Woods would come around to begin his musical lessons with us and distribute interest. I only participated in it because I didn’t want to go do the other activities that the teachers had planned for the students who didn’t play an instrument. 

At that time, I picked up a clarinet and it looked really complex (come to find out it is) and was very discouraged because I had only ever played piano and done ballet. When it was time to register for our electives I put band as my very last option, I thought that ASL or even being a TA would be better, but I ended up with third period band. 

At first I was discouraged because I had recently stopped playing piano. I felt burnt out from it, practicing for 1-2 hours a day and 2 lessons a week. Shortly after I started being in a band class everyday instead of once a week, I found more joy in it. The people I was playing with started to improve slightly (for middle school at least). 

I decided to stick it out through highschool and partake in their marching band. I met some really great and horrible people that football season. And after football ended, it was time for the spring musical.

 As a freshman I auditioned but didn’t expect to get in since there was another player of my instrument who had done it before, I knew I was good, but I wasn’t better than her. Come to find out the night of the audition she was afraid of me taking her spot this year since I was so close to her skill level. 

That night we both found our names on the acceptance list and were overjoyed that we would be separated at the hip for the next 2.5 months. 

Going through covid though we barely got to perform this musical and I lost my passion for music again. I was failing band overzoom since I couldn’t play a majority of the time in my house, the lessons were confusing, teaching us things about music theory I had never heard before. 

While signing up for classes I had enough electives to take our schools auditioned band and our non audition band. Oftentimes seniors come back to the non audition band when they have enough room in their schedule and a period jazz band. 

We came back to school fully this year and I had 3 periods of band and I HATED it. We had to set up outside with these big tents to cover us from the sun when it was 90 degrees outside every single class period back and forth, wasting so much time and playing the same songs everyday for months. 

I wanted to quit. I had been through it all, in music over 10 years and then experiencing exhausting amounts of effort just to play songs we've played for years for 30 minutes. I was done. I wanted to change out my classes for Pre-Calc and be a TA. 

But then it got better, a lot better, we got some actual music that wasn’t just the songs we play at football games, I became the section leader of 2 sections between my two classes and we started to sound a lot better.

I got to do the musical this year and I found my passion again and now I’m planning to go to college as a major in musical education so that I can pass down and provide a happy space for kids to feel burnt out from music and maybe find their own passion in it. 

From this silly little pass time in 6th grade to a future expensive degree to do it all again

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