Trombone Geek
KNIFE
((In the end, this followed the prompt much more loosely than I intended. It's messy and it twists and turns like my thought processes do, but it was a really cleansing experience for me. So, here you go.))
Saturday is the first marching competition of the year, where our band goes on to absolutely smash the competition. It is the first time in a long time that our band has taken first place at the first competition--or even scored in the top three, really.
The seniors break down at this news; they had started at the very bottom their freshman year, and now the program they had grown up in had taken first in its class at its first competition. It was an amazing feeling, that sweet nostalgia mixed with pride and anticipation for the future.
Sunday is a day of rest for us--for me--until 10:00 at night. And then my one of my friends messages me, asking if I’ve talked to a mutual friend of ours--Mason--in the last few hours. Says that Something Is Up. I begin messaging other people at a frantic pace--I’m pissed and on the warpath, convinced someone is spreading rumors. Spreading rumors about something so horrible, so unthinkable--well, I was prepping for a confrontation.
As I search, all the little facts I refused to look at start to add up. Over the course of an hour, my heart sinks lower and lower into my stomach.
I don’t sleep well that night.
The next day is a blur. We don’t go out and rehearse, even though we have our band class. We stay inside, we mourn. I’m emotionally volatile one moment, closed off the next. I hate grieving with others. I don’t like for them to see me, and I don’t want to deal with them directing sympathy towards me. I hate it. They’re watching me, watching me cry over my best friend’s death, and I have never hated anything more than I do that.
Music is my coping method for most everything--frustration, anger, feelings of inadequacy, the list goes on. But here, when my best friend played baritone in the marching band and euphonium in the concert band, auditioned for honor bands and played solos and ensembles with me, when we joked that he would be in DCI and I would be playing professionally with an orchestra and we’d make shout-outs to each other on T.V… It’s absolutely my weakness.
On the second day after September 16th, my first class is Advanced Musical Studies. It has a practice period built into it for audition pieces. I pick up my horn. I can’t afford for anything to slow me down, unless I want to ruin my chances of getting into the All-State Band this year.
I can’t get the image or the sound of Mason out of my head. I play one note and my chest seizes. My tone quality is so much like his was, even though I don’t play euphonium. There's obvious differences in the sound quality--but it brings back memories, regardless.
I begin playing a scale and crack a note, gasping a shaky inhale once I stop. I try and push on regardless--but my coping method isn’t helping, I can’t stop thinking about him, about how he bragged about how he was going to be first chair in the All-District Honor Band and how he insisted he sucked at his audition music and how he had just a few weeks ago printed off the audition exercises for Shadow Drum and Bugle Corps--
“You don’t have to practice today. You can take a break,” a voice says, and my devastated gaze flicks to my band director. A few tears slip down my face and I grimace, nodding--I’m in no physical condition to play without inspiring my permanent frustrations to rear their head.
What does one do when their one coping method is shattered? When someone you bonded with through music is suddenly gone, and it feels like music has actually become your enemy? The one thing you lean on like a crutch suddenly pricks your skin and brain painfully every time you touch it.
I can’t listen to the sound of a euphonium without feeling that sinking in my chest anymore. But at least I have my trombone, my music, my drive to be a good musician, and my band director-mentor-father figure to keep me on a straight path.
Even if I feel like I’m lost and drifting in a toxic sea without Mason to guide me in person, I have everything I ever was and ever will be with me still. There will be a hole in the shape of a quirky, all-knowing kid with a big heart and a penchant for playing the euphonium in my soul for the rest of my days.
But I can rest easier, now, knowing that he helped me find my determination to succeed in the face of grievous obstacles. And I know that he knows how much I loved him, even if I could never bring myself to say it. It shone in every piece of music we played together, every song we jammed to in the truck, in every silent show of support we buoyed each other with at an audition or a performance. It showed in how all we needed to do was make faces at each other from across the room in band in order to distract each other, and how three words had us laughing until our band director glared at us.
My brother in music, I will sing for you for the rest of my life. I will sing of the arguments and debates we had, of all the rocky discussions, of the many many hours post-rehearsal and post-performance we spent together just talking and laughing and being young.
I will sing of how it feels like my youth and voice was stripped from me the moment you died, and I will sing of how even when you no longer walk the earth you still guide me and do so much for me. More than you will ever know.
Everything I accomplish in my life I will sing to you, in hopes that you might smile in that bright way I will forever treasure.
Saturday is the first marching competition of the year, where our band goes on to absolutely smash the competition. It is the first time in a long time that our band has taken first place at the first competition--or even scored in the top three, really.
The seniors break down at this news; they had started at the very bottom their freshman year, and now the program they had grown up in had taken first in its class at its first competition. It was an amazing feeling, that sweet nostalgia mixed with pride and anticipation for the future.
Sunday is a day of rest for us--for me--until 10:00 at night. And then my one of my friends messages me, asking if I’ve talked to a mutual friend of ours--Mason--in the last few hours. Says that Something Is Up. I begin messaging other people at a frantic pace--I’m pissed and on the warpath, convinced someone is spreading rumors. Spreading rumors about something so horrible, so unthinkable--well, I was prepping for a confrontation.
As I search, all the little facts I refused to look at start to add up. Over the course of an hour, my heart sinks lower and lower into my stomach.
I don’t sleep well that night.
The next day is a blur. We don’t go out and rehearse, even though we have our band class. We stay inside, we mourn. I’m emotionally volatile one moment, closed off the next. I hate grieving with others. I don’t like for them to see me, and I don’t want to deal with them directing sympathy towards me. I hate it. They’re watching me, watching me cry over my best friend’s death, and I have never hated anything more than I do that.
Music is my coping method for most everything--frustration, anger, feelings of inadequacy, the list goes on. But here, when my best friend played baritone in the marching band and euphonium in the concert band, auditioned for honor bands and played solos and ensembles with me, when we joked that he would be in DCI and I would be playing professionally with an orchestra and we’d make shout-outs to each other on T.V… It’s absolutely my weakness.
On the second day after September 16th, my first class is Advanced Musical Studies. It has a practice period built into it for audition pieces. I pick up my horn. I can’t afford for anything to slow me down, unless I want to ruin my chances of getting into the All-State Band this year.
I can’t get the image or the sound of Mason out of my head. I play one note and my chest seizes. My tone quality is so much like his was, even though I don’t play euphonium. There's obvious differences in the sound quality--but it brings back memories, regardless.
I begin playing a scale and crack a note, gasping a shaky inhale once I stop. I try and push on regardless--but my coping method isn’t helping, I can’t stop thinking about him, about how he bragged about how he was going to be first chair in the All-District Honor Band and how he insisted he sucked at his audition music and how he had just a few weeks ago printed off the audition exercises for Shadow Drum and Bugle Corps--
“You don’t have to practice today. You can take a break,” a voice says, and my devastated gaze flicks to my band director. A few tears slip down my face and I grimace, nodding--I’m in no physical condition to play without inspiring my permanent frustrations to rear their head.
What does one do when their one coping method is shattered? When someone you bonded with through music is suddenly gone, and it feels like music has actually become your enemy? The one thing you lean on like a crutch suddenly pricks your skin and brain painfully every time you touch it.
I can’t listen to the sound of a euphonium without feeling that sinking in my chest anymore. But at least I have my trombone, my music, my drive to be a good musician, and my band director-mentor-father figure to keep me on a straight path.
Even if I feel like I’m lost and drifting in a toxic sea without Mason to guide me in person, I have everything I ever was and ever will be with me still. There will be a hole in the shape of a quirky, all-knowing kid with a big heart and a penchant for playing the euphonium in my soul for the rest of my days.
But I can rest easier, now, knowing that he helped me find my determination to succeed in the face of grievous obstacles. And I know that he knows how much I loved him, even if I could never bring myself to say it. It shone in every piece of music we played together, every song we jammed to in the truck, in every silent show of support we buoyed each other with at an audition or a performance. It showed in how all we needed to do was make faces at each other from across the room in band in order to distract each other, and how three words had us laughing until our band director glared at us.
My brother in music, I will sing for you for the rest of my life. I will sing of the arguments and debates we had, of all the rocky discussions, of the many many hours post-rehearsal and post-performance we spent together just talking and laughing and being young.
I will sing of how it feels like my youth and voice was stripped from me the moment you died, and I will sing of how even when you no longer walk the earth you still guide me and do so much for me. More than you will ever know.
Everything I accomplish in my life I will sing to you, in hopes that you might smile in that bright way I will forever treasure.
