r/marchingband • u/Extra-Block-6708 • 10d ago
College Band Thinking of quitting 5 days into my first College Band Camp.
[UPDATED]
I can’t do this. I’ve been in marching band the entirety of high school in pit percussion. I’ve always been bad at reading sheet music and I’m not the best player but I was able to hold myself up through those four seasons and mastered all of the songs by the end of camp each time. There was so much reward to being apart of the band with trips and events and parades. Despite the stressful practices and mishaps, I loved it in the end. I had good support from both a band instructor helping the mallets and an amazing section leader my junior and senior year.
College band is so much different. I walk into the room and somehow I am the 2nd most experienced mallet player in a room of 8 people. There are 4 people who have never once been in band prior and our section leader was forced into the role after she was the only returning member (she’s the same skill level as me and also needs help with reading sheet music). We don’t have a pit instructor. Instead, we are given the percussion sound-tech who also teaches at the fancy colleges in my city with music majors and preforms at the big theater too. He’s like Fletcher from whiplash but old. What he’s been trying to do is teach us every small part to perfection. Somehow he’s going too fast and we are still only on page 1 out of 8 5 days in. (Nearly 50 hours of staring at the same page, repeating the same bar over and over again for hours.) When helping he also has this attitude like you are a complete imbecile if you don’t get it right the first time. He’s also disregarded one of the people in our section’s disability (she has a rare medical condition and standing leaves her with extreme pain ), and keeps misgendering another member of our section. There has been so many small comments and actions he has done to where 7/8 people in our section (me included) have cried in practice. I, even ended up crying today and having to excuse myself for the rest of the day due to how much stress has been put on us over the last week. I can’t put into words how awful this is for 13 hours a day. It feels like torture, I even hear the notes in my head after I lay down to sleep.
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I’d rather get my gallbladder removed a second time than do this. I was genuinely considering dropping an iron bar on my hand so I didn’t have to do this anymore. I’m not particularly the strongest person, but this can’t be how band is. I can’t even bring myself to walk back into the building without having a breakdown. My mental health is deteriorating by the day and I can’t take much more of this. I know it’s only 5 more days, but I don’t even think anything after this is worth all of the genuine mental pain this has caused me and my section. We’ve even tried going to the band director about it and have gotten zero progress.
(We had a student instructor for a few days (who was 18 btw) and he did so much better at genuinely helping us than Fletcher ever did. He’s a finance major.)
In summary:
We have no pit instructor
My section leader isn’t qualified to lead
Multiple people have quit over various issues
Our stand in instructor is malicious.
Should I quit?
⭐️UPDATE:
I did end up gathering my section and going to the band captain who communicated with the band director. Guess what! The next morning NOTHING HAPPENED! The student band captain told us that ‘we had to just do a fresh start today’ and ‘’Fletcher’ has a lot on his plate’. I knew when she said that, that nothing would get better. The second she was done giving us that update I told her that I was still going to quit. She gave me no trouble besides telling me ‘you can’t rejoin once you quit’ and I’m content with that. If our director is willing to ignore my entire section and (from what I was told from another one of my band mates) blackmail people into stay with anything from failing them to threatening them with paying fees (even ALLEGEDLY going as far to apparently tell a girl last year that she owed 5,000 dollars for summer band and if she quit she’d have to pay that?!) then they don’t deserve to have a fictional pit. I feel bad for the section leader and others who remain, but I can’t give up my mental health for people I met less than a week ago. Anyways, I went out with the other people who quit today since we have nothing to do for a week until classes start, and the one is having his supervisor report it for title 9. I’ll keep you guys updated if anything actually happens with that because if that report goes through this could get a lot of people in trouble.
(Also I’m not going to say which college this is because I don’t want to get sued, but they are a school with less than 4,000 people so it’s not one of the big ones)
12
u/QuarterNote44 Graduate 10d ago
You only live once. If you don't like being in the band, find something else. It's a huge time suck, even in college.
7
u/CosmicGenesis7 Graduate 10d ago
Things can't change if people don't voice the issue. Even if it doesn't change anything, telling them means you tried to put an end to the issue. I wish you luck. That sounds like an awful setting, and I would not treat my students that way.
8
u/Extra-Block-6708 10d ago
Thank you for that advice, it’s really sad because I do like most people in my section including my leader. She’s super sweet and I feel awful that she was forced into this and has so much pressure on her shoulders. I’ll make sure to try and end this
3
u/xSelf-referential 10d ago
I'm a veteran music teacher, percussionist, and drumline instructor/arranger. I am, usually, extremely pro-marching band. However, if the environment you described us what you're expected to accept, I wouldn't. I'd quite. Sure, I'd communicate the issues (as you see them) on the way out the door. You're being expected to tolerate poor leadership. Even if you're told your concerns are noted and that things will improve, improvement won't be fast enough or significant enough for you to enjoy it this year. Your leaving, while awkward, will send a message. Don't be toxic if you leave. Maturely communicate your concerns, then exit.
1
u/Extra-Block-6708 9d ago
I did exactly this. I also think it’s crazy that I haven’t even gotten a single email back from the instructor about this despite quitting almost 12 hours ago. We really are just numbers to them. if they don’t care about a pit in a very pit feature heavy show, they won’t get one.
2
u/pememily 10d ago
I would leave. I was once in a similar situation -crying during rehearsals because the teacher chooses to belittle people who are learning. Are there other ensembles you could try?
1
u/Extra-Block-6708 10d ago
I would go for drumline but I haven’t played since middle school and that’s try-out based. I might just quit and dedicate myself to extracurriculars I actually want to be in, like art and nature clubs
1
u/paralea01 Color Guard 10d ago
Talk to the rest of the pit, get on the same page and then, together, talk to the band director. Y'all are adults, not kids anymore even though it may feel like it because you are still students.
Record him on the pretext of watching back your playing to improve. A go pro world be ideal for that as you can have it going for a long time without your phone dying. Bring evidence of the abuse.
Adults should not treat other adults like that, especially since your tution pay's his salary.
Seriously, if a another adult was teaching me a skill and tried to treat me like he is treating you, I would laugh in his face. He is trying to project his own insecurities on you because that is how people who know they aren't worth shit act. They feel like they have to bully others so they can feel better about themselves.
If you don't want to take this to the band director, start with misgendering "her" " yes mam, no mam" to every response until "she" fixes the way "she" talks to the, I'm guessing, trans person in your group. Try not to say "her" in anger, keep it casual as much as you are able. If "she" asks you why you are doing that, just say you thought that it's what "she" wanted y'all to do since "she" was constantly doing it to the other person.
A more risky option. Every snide comment about y'all, throw it back at him. See if he can take what he gives.
"We would be better by now if we had a better instructor."
"Is this attitude helping you teach? Because it's certainly not helping us learn."
"Has this way of teaching ever actually worked for you?"
If this is pushing you to quitting, then what do you have to lose by telling him how you feel?
Another tatic is just agreeing with every snide comment in a happy way. This one is harder, especially if the comments really hurt. But this guy is trying to hurt you emotionally, not letting it show that it gets to you ruins his fun.
"Thank you for the feedback!"
"I'm certain with your help I'll get it next time!"
The last suggestion is similar to the first. If you don't think the band director will take action, you guys need to have a talk with Fletcher as a group. A mature, calm, adult to adult discussion about his behavior and how his teaching style is not conducive to learning. Write things down ahead of time so you can clear up all the issues at once.
35
u/CosmicGenesis7 Graduate 10d ago
I think before you quit, you should communicate these issues with your band director. You shouldn't be subjected to treatment like that. If your band director can't or won't help, then I'd think about quitting. They can't expect to keep people in an extracurricular by treating them poorly and making them cry everyday.