What I learned in drum corps:
1. Appreciate the sunset. Look up at the sky. Love clouds. You can and will fall in love a thousand times over with things you have seen a thousand times before.
2. Nothing is as serious as you think it is. Take everything you do seriously, but remember, itās just band.
3. Everybody poops, everybody pees, everybody sweats, everybody cries.
4. Negative energy is wasted energy. It takes just as much power to pout and whine as it does to put on a smile and fake it til you make it.
5. Your best days can quickly turn into your worst. At the same time, your worst days can easily turn at the drop of a hat.
6. Your best performance may not happen in Lucas Oil, or Michigan City, or anywhere within a judgeās line of sight. More likely than not, you will leave it all in a rural Pennsylvania town on your 2nd all-day rehearsal or a practice field full of holes in Ohio or the literal side of a highway in Indiana. Your only audience for your best run might be your staff and the population of the Connecticut farm town where youāve been rehearsing for weeks. And thatās totally ok. You were there, and you were great, and thatās all that matters.
7. This activity will tear you apart in every way possible. Your body will ache, break, bleed, bruise like never before, and you will laugh and smile and muddle through, because that is what we do in this activity. You will be sun dried and brain fried and there will be days where you will believe that you cannot possibly physically, mentally or emotionally survive. But youāll make it through.
8. It is ok and in fact encouraged to be comfortable with who you are and how your body is. Confidence is beautiful, and it is essential to your growth and success. Fall in love with yourself.
9. You will wish away sets, blocks, whole days. And the minute itās over, youāll wish them all back.
10. You have the power to turn a day around, be it yours or someone elseās. You are so very powerful, you have no idea.
12. Emotions are valid. Everything you feel, itās all part of the experience. It is ok to feel things.
13. You must look out for one another. The success of the group is dependent on the success and happiness of the group is dependent on the success and happiness of the individual. Therefore, take care of each other in every way possible.
14. Once upon a time you were in the stands, watching a band or corps and thinking to yourself, ā wow, I want to be just like them!ā Well, now you are on the field, and somebody else has taken your seat in the stands. Someone out there wants to be just like you. You, right now, are someoneās hero.
15. When itās over, only 100+ people will truly understand what you have done, where you have been, what you have seen and why you are the way you are. The real world will not get it, and they will not care. They will not see the humor in your inside jokes. They will scoff at your unending optimism, your determination, your strength. All of the things that you worked so hard to earn. Do not let the real world bring you down. Drum corps will change you, but only for the better, I promise.
