The vast majority of you who will read this (if I can even assume that anyone will) didn't do drum corps, or maybe didn't even do marching band. From the outside looking in, it's a bizarre niche activity, with little more prestige and yet less recognition than marching band. If I tried to explain it to you, that's where I'd have to start. The dreaded phrase every member of drum corps has to utter: "Well, it's kind of like marching band, except..." And maybe, if we were lucky, we'd get you to watch one in action. Maybe you'd be excited and impressed. Maybe you wouldn't be.
Even then, that's not the issue. Saying that drum corps is about putting on a costume, and running around on a field while playing music (even if that aspect of it was cool) is like saying that being Catholic is about having crackers and wine at church. Four years ago, when I first joined the Academy, that was basically my view: 'How cool, I'd love to perform a show like that.' And yes, doing so is pretty neat. But what keeps me coming back onto that field is what I didn't think about at all.
Past the external stuff, what the fans and outsiders see, my drum corps experience was like a gigantic rock tumbler. Everything I experienced, from the horrific weather, the complete lack of privacy, the minimal down-time and even more minimal sleep, to the 12 or more hours of rehearsal a day, was obviously something I wouldn't want to or couldn't do on my own. Drum corps, though, forces them all upon you simultaneously, and with few or no breaks. Individual responses varied- but the overall effect was the same. These stresses surround you like grit, and over time you find that it has rubbed the face of your personality clean. It's easy to put on a collected face and be how you want to be when you've got the down time, the sleep, the personal space to recharge. As those fall away, so too does the pretense. And as that happens, rough edges get exposed. I snapped at people, we all snapped at people, what difference does it make? It was all part of the larger challenge and the larger question: So how do I deal with this? Do I let it get to me or do I weather it?
And by the end of the season I had my answer. In a way that only members of large but close knit groups know, camaraderie had knitted our 135 strangers into a family. (cliche, I know. But sometimes you can't avoid using them.) I feel like this rock tumbler of a summer has revealed a bit more of it to me- and by it I mean IT, the big one. When your mannerisms and affectations start to fall by the wayside, and fatigue and irritation become ignorable, it's as if the crap has been rubbed off- you become the best part of yourself. When the age outs addressed us, it was lucky coincidence that the sun was setting, haloing them and bathing all of us in gold. Even without the dramatic lighting, it was clear that my friends looked different, triumphant, more alive. All that's left, after that summer of sweat, bus rides, frustration and hysteria, was the work ethic, the kindness, the excitement for the performances left.
The contrast between that ecstatic moment and the 'real world' is staggering. After you leave that place with a well-defined goal, an extensive and supportive net of allies, and that amazing drive for excellence, it's kind of hard to get excited about the universe of traffic and parking structures, sub-par fast food, and wild, untamed mediocrity. It almost seems like outside works in the exact opposite way- it's designed to push you into a shell, to build up cynicism and plausible deniability, to encourage superficiality. But my invincible summer isn't a phase that's been replaced by the 'real world', it's a truth that I (and anyone whose experience has led them to the same place, drum corps or not) can carry with me forever.
