Personal Narrative: My High School's Marching Band Program

Pride, poise, and professionalism; these words are the foundation upon which my high school 's marching band program revolves around. When I originally transitioned from middle to high school, the organization centered on the members. Winning wasn 't the only focus of our band, and the year formed a love of band unparalleled by anything. That year, for the first time in our band program 's history, we made finals at our last competition in Havelock, changing our program for the worse.
As our program grew in size, the band focused purely on winning. The less we won, the more they yelled, and the less we wanted to work. That cycle of negativity carried through the next few years, and as the positivity that the upperclassmen sustained disappeared with graduation, the negativity within the band began to spread. I can remember in my sophomore year, we came back with only two third place trophies for one of our competitions, and were yelled at during the bus ride back about how we were slacking off; not a single positive word was said. By the beginning of my junior year, band had become a chore rather than an anticipated hobby; the love that it had brought me began to wear off. Prideful were the leaders, poised was our performance, and professional we tried to be; however, it was never enough. We missed finals by a long shot.

This year, my senior year, started rough: our show designer quit, as well as our drill coordinator, forcing us to buy a show from a book. With our spirits already low, it became increasingly difficult to stay motivated. Multiple times this year, we felt as though we had completely failed, put down with negative comments. “You aren’t working hard enough,” or “You sound awful because you aren’t working,” was often yelled at us by peers. While we knew it was only high standards, the constant negative berating began to wear us down. As the senior class reached our breaking point, I began to realize this was something we could