Saxomophone

Yeah, it’s true, I was in band in high school. I was a band geek, a bando, I was loved by flautists and hated by nearly everybody else. For reasoning I’ve never quite understood, everyone outside of band hated the people in band. I was able to infiltrate other groups as well, like the honors students (who everybody hated), the drama geeks (who everybody hated) and for a short time the stoners (I was never really accepted as I didn’t have the prerequisite long hair and Led Zeppelin T-shirts, but everyone who didn’t score off the stoners hated them).

So for the most part, bando’s kept to themselves as all the other cliques were busy hating each other and us. I don’t know if it’s because we were such an insular group, but the band members all seemed to take on roles depending on their instruments. I don’t know if this happens in other bands around the country, but I’m sure there are those of you out there that can tell me. I’m not mentioning any names, but I’m talking to you… Your dirty little secret is out.

1) Woodwinds: The woodwind players (flutes and clarinets for those of you bando deficient folks) were mostly girls and an occasional thin, fey boy. I still feel sorry for the few brave boys who played flute. I mean, it’s bad enough to be berated for being in band in the first place, but a male flautist has his manhood questioned on a daily basis. The woodwinds were mostly quiet, mostly smart and mostly painfully shy. Some of them came off as total ice queens with frigid, sharp, puritan faces. While they seemed like ice queens, you sort of got the idea that if you got them a little tipsy at a party they’d… Well they’d slap you in the face for being crude, inform you that they’d just been pretending to drink and storm out to call their mother. Did their quiet and meek personalities move them to play the quiet yet beautifully subtle instruments in the band? Or did their choice of instruments mold their personalities? Something to consider… Not really.

2) Saxophones: I played sax. Bill Pullman, speaking of his sax player role in Lost Highway said something to the effect of: women have a strange relationship with sax players. I mean sax man? Sex man? When they’re playing, they look like they’re doing something sexual with that instrument. I always had the theory that playing the sax for many years would make my lips strong and make me a good kisser, but you’ll have to ask others if that’s the case. Anyway, as Mr. Jones, the much maligned teacher said, “saxophones are bastard instruments. They’re a bastardization of a brass instrument and a woodwind instrument”. Apropos of this, the collection of sax players was a mixed up group. We had stoners, crazy sports fanatic uber geek, a young, black man seriously struggling in a VERY white community (including his parents), a lot of disparate personalities that didn’t really mesh with anyone, sometimes even with each other.

3) Brass (Trumpets): The trumpet players were the quarterbacks of the band. They always seemed cooler than all of us, and made loud obnoxious jokes that always got laughs. As instruments, they also always got to play either the lead melody, or the punchiest back up to the lead. Maybe because of the inherent power in their position in the band, they were always pretty accepting of everybody else and when you got under the cool guy/class clown veneer, generally pretty sweet.

4) Brass (Trombone/Tuba): The bass brass players were always a little bit off, a little too intense one way or the other. They would mostly either be intensely quiet (with those eyes that spoke of serial killer futures), or intensely loud, as if they were trying too hard to make themselves seen. Maybe it came from always having to sit in the back of the band, so close to the drummers.

5) Drums: The drummers were a different breed. The drummers hated having to be associated with the rest of the band and as such were their own unit, the DRUM LINE. Rarely did the drummers intermingle with the other bandos. The drummers were the poetry reading, leather jacket wearing rebels in those cheesy high school movies – except they didn’t read poetry or wear leather jackets, they banged on shit.

But for all the different types of people we all were, we managed to get along together fairly well, managed to form a little family that protected us from all of the hatred that’s sadly slung around in high school. The drama queens were always trying to outperform each other too much to assemble a strong front. And the honors students spent way too much time competing over who was smarter and who was going to the better university. Maybe it’s because in band, the point was always to be able to play together to create something larger and more beautiful. There’s no need to hate that.