So some ESPN sports commentator named Jim Rome tweeted:

…and among the tweet rebuttals from band directors, students, and band enthusiasts was this one from the U.S. Army Field Band:

…which garnered enough attention across the country that Fox News interviewed a representative from the band.

I’ve been thinking about it enough in the last 24 hours that (gasp!) I thought I’d write a blog entry, which is about as rare as parallel fifths in a Bach chorale. And since I’m in the Army, I’ll give you the bottom line up front (BLUF–it’s the Army, we have an acronym for everything):

We need to stop apologizing for being musicians.

We got bullied by Jim Rome because we’ve allowed ourselves to be bullied into thinking that we’re second-class citizens or that what we do doesn’t matter. We get called “misfits” or “geeks” or “dorks” and we laugh it off because it doesn’t really bother us (or we self-identify with it), but avoiding conflict for so many years has done a lot of damage. How many times after learning you are part of a band has someone said, “Hey this one time…at band camp…” Do we honestly think that’s funny? Has anyone ever thought that was funny? ‘American Pie’ is twenty years old, people; we’ve been forced to endure this lame joke for a long time.

We apologize for being musicians when we allow others to think that we’re somehow outcasts. We apologize for being musicians when we advocate for music education by stating how the work we do is going to make our students do better in OTHER disciplines. We apologize for being musicians when we allow others to diminish our accomplishments.

When you tell a fellow soldier you’re a musician in the Army, the response is as varied as the Army itself. Some think it’s really cool, others think you’re a waste of taxpayer money (or worse: someone who’s holding a position for a REAL soldier). A band officer once said something that has stuck with me: whatever response you get from someone after learning that you’re a musician is their way of expressing envy.

People wish they could do what we do. Or they don’t realize how difficult it is. Maybe that’s part of our problem. Maybe we make making music look too easy. Maybe we don’t realize how difficult making music is ourselves. I work at the U.S. Army Field Band and what those people do every day is positively astounding. The students in the band room at Somewhere, U.S.A. are also absolutely incredible. And if they’re not, it’s because they’re doing something amazingly hard, and they’ll get there with the right teacher, the right equipment, the right support, and a whole lot of work.

And when they learn to play that instrument really well, and then simultaneously march a complex drill all while making instantaneous minute adjustments in their playing and marching by using all of their senses and using their entire bodies and both sides of their brain…we are not going to let anyone think that getting there was easy or inevitable.

There is a tiny bit of truth in Mr. Rome’s tweet in that he’s implying that only people in band get band. I’m suggesting that we do a better job of articulating what we do to those outside our circles. The first step is to recognize our own amazingness. Then we can go to bat for our art, our activity, our passion, our “thing”, and share it as much as we can.

Okay, that joke above about parallel fifths…that was pretty dorky.

2 Comments

  1. Excellent commentary, Scott.
    Doubt if you remember me, from your days in Blacksburg. I still have in my library your PASSACAGLIA, a piece I admired very much. Dr. Love is now retired to her mountain retreat just out side of Blacksburg. If you see Mark Camphouse, pass along my greetings. Congratulations on your army career and composing, and best wishes for future endeavors.

    R. Wall

    • I DO remember you, even if we met very briefly! Do I recall correctly that you composed a TARANTELLA we played in the Virginia Tech Symphony Band? I haven’t seen Dr. Love in quite a while–I hope that I might get lucky next time I’m in Blacksburg, a long-overdue visit, to be sure.

      Thank you for the kind words and the note!

      Best,
      Scott

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