College Band Camp

1. College Band Camp And the Rest of the Band Season

2. Band Camp. Those are two words that I have a love-hate relationship with. In high school they were something that most people, myself included looked forward to. I didn’t decide until after my orientation here this summer that I actually even wanted to do band in college. I knew it would be a huge time commitment and I wasn’t sure that I should. But I decided that I wanted to be a part of the Bearcat Bands which meant that I had to be here by August 14th, a week and a half before everyone else was due to show up. Earlier in the summer I had been super excited to go away to college. I thought it was going to be awesome, but as the time grew near to actually leave I got kind of nervous. I live four and a half hours away so we had to leave the night before. I had been frantic trying to make sure that I had everything. My mom was the same way which just made everything worse.

3. We got fifteen minutes away from home and my mom realized that she forgot something so we turned around and went back. For the first time. We got back on the road and after about an hour, I realized that in all the frenzy of leaving, I left my clarinet at home. So we turned around again to go home and get it. We hadn’t left until 7:30 pm in the first place because we had to wait until my dad was home from work. At this point it is almost 9:45 and we still have a little over four hours to drive. We got to the hotel around 2 am because we were staying a bit outside of Cincinnati. Move in the next morning was from 8 to 12 but we didn’t even leave the hotel until 8:30 after getting in so late. It was a little after nine when we got to the University and we started moving all of my stuff into the dorm. I brought a lot with me because I didn’t plan on going home again until Thanksgiving. The first person I met here on campus that day just happened to be one of the clarinet section leaders because he was the band person assigned to help the band kids moving into Siddall. I spent some time unpacking a little bit with my parents but around 11 I needed to go to the band room because I had to check in, pay my band dues, and get fitted for my uniform. The first day of band camp is considered rookie day so it was basically a bunch of kids that were new to band and then some upperclassmen who were running around trying to organize things. I walked into the band room and it felt like pure chaos. I checked in and paid my band dues and then was handed paper upon paper about different things. Two of them happened to be small papers with locker combinations on them. I then proceeded to the upper level where the uniform room is to be fitted but the line was super long. Sydney, another clarinet section leader was up there just talking with all the people in line. I was standing by two other freshman that play clarinet so she talked to all of us for a bit longer. At 12 they told us that it was time for lunch so we would be fitted later. I was planning on going back to the dorm room to eat with my family and continue unpacking.

4. My family were all just waiting in my room but Sydney and the other clarinet veterans told me that I should eat at Center Court with them. I decided to go eat with them quickly. At first I was sitting at one table with two other freshman because the clarinet table had filled up pretty quickly. Then some people shifted and we moved down to join the rest of the group. There were many more introductions that consisted of my name, my major, and where I was from. After I was done eating I tried to get away to go back to my dorm room but they didn’t want me to leave so I showed them that I still had on flip flops and needed to change shoes before the afternoon. I went back to my room and was met with a very angry older brother because he gets grumpy when he is hungry. I changed shoes and set down my papers but I had to spend awhile saying goodbye to my family because they were about to leave. That all took too long and I was late getting back to the band room. I was expecting them to be talking to us for awhile and that I would have more time to come back and get my clarinet. I was wrong. I got there as they were finishing their talk and we needed to be on the field with instruments I five minutes. So I needed to go back to my dorm room again.

5. This was when there was still lots of construction around Siddall. The one door was not able to be used at all and the other one wouldn’t read my bearcat card yet because the lady at the front desk hadn’t emailed housing and food yet to say that I had arrived and it needed to have access to Siddall. I went to the door that would open but wouldn’t read my card and proceeded to knock for literally five minutes before the guy behind the desk noticed me. I ran upstairs to get my clarinet but I didn’t grab any of the papers or my case. I got down to the field a few minutes later to see everyone on the field already marching in a block formation. I went down the steps and went up to Sydney and she found me a place to stand to learn the commands and she showed me what they had already learned. The marching part of this wasn’t too bad except that this band roll steps where we high stepped in high school so I had to learn how to march all over again. I all of my hurry at the dorm I forgot to put on sunscreen so over the course of three and a half hours I developed a farmer’s tan and the part of my hair completely burned. The meal for the first night was supposed to be a cookout. I didn’t want to just leave my clarinet out but I also didn’t want to go all the way back to my dorm to get it. So I went back to the band room with everyone else but once I was there I couldn’t figure out what id done with the locker combination. I was frantically telling people this and one girl bought me to this kid Alex who is the equipment manager so he had the combination to the equipment locker. He opened that and let me put it in there, saying that I just needed to find him before rehearsal after dinner. I didn’t really know anybody at the band cookout so I ate alone. I wanted to run back to my room for something else so I did. I went back down to the band room in what I thought was plenty of time but I couldn’t find Alex and was getting more and more panicked. Finally about five minutes before I was supposed to be on the field, an upperclassman showed me who Dr. Besse was and told me to tell him because he had a key to all of the lockers. I went over to him and told him my dilemma and he opened the locker so I could get my clarinet. We had more marching rehearsals after that which weren’t really stressful but they also weren’t fun. At one point in the rehearsal, it was time for all the upperclassmen and veteran marchers to come to rehearsal.

6. The drum majors lined all of the rookies up alphabetically in a block formation. We didn’t really know why but after they had lined us up, we were given the command to do an about face and turn around to face the stairs. All of a sudden the upperclassmen start running down the steps and toward the rookies. It turned out that they each had a rookie who they were assigned to and were supposed to find. They were finding their band buddies. I waited as people found their buddies but no one came up to me. Either they forgot to assign me someone or else my person quit or something because I didn’t get a band buddy. It made me sad. After a while the upperclassmen went back out of the stadium but we didn’t really know why. They marched all of the rookies out of the stadium and eventually into one of the theaters at CCM. We were all standing up in front of our seat and there were some upperclassmen in full uniform up on the stage. Eventually we were told to sit. One by one the people in uniform came up and read something from a book which detailed different rules about being in the band and certain traditions. When that was done the rest of the upperclassmen came in and they all sang Cheer Cincinnati and the Alma Mater. We were dismissed from there so I went back to my room. It had been and extremely overwhelming day for me and I was literally just sitting in my room crying for awhile. At that point, I was realizing that I was far away from home and I wouldn’t see my family again until Thanksgiving so I was feeling pretty emotional. I didn’t think there was anyone else living on my floor so I felt really alone. I talked on the phone with my mom for awhile and I was still crying but it sort of helped. The first day made me really hate it here at first. Band camp in high school was always fun but this was the farthest thing from it. I was wondering if I had made a terrible choice by joining band. Being all alone in a new place made me really sad and made me miss home. I knew I couldn’t quit now that I had started. Fortunately for me the second day was a lot better. The upperclassmen all seemed to be nice and I got to meet the whole clarinet section and not just a few people. There also turned out to be another girl in band on my floor who

7. came to my room to introduce herself to me that night. As band camp went on, it got better and I started to make some friends, mostly in my own section. My family decided to drive back down here to Cincinnati on Saturday to bring me all of the things that I forgot which was good. On that Sunday, rehearsal started later so I bought most of my books that day which helped me to feel a lot more prepared and secure. My roommate also moved in that day because she was on the Hall Opening Team which helped. There were more people on my floor and it made me feel less alone. Some parts of band camp may not have been significant but other parts, both negative and positive definitely have been. Yes, I was overwhelmed from being thrown into a totally new environment. On the other hand, most of my friends are those that I have made in band. They are the people that I tend to hang out with if I have free time. Our clarinet section also does a lot together which makes us closer as a group so it is kind of like another family.

8. Band Camp …and other times I didn’t. Sometimes it was fun and I wanted to be there…

9. The Clarinets!! (Also known as the Awesomenets)

11. Ugly Sweater Day The Clarinet Fire Truck Halloween We get silly sometimes!!!

12. The Band Informal I’d say it was pretty fun

13. They’re the people I hang out with even when we are not at a band function because they are the people I am closest with here.

14. So basically, if I hadn’t decided to join band and stuck it out through band camp, I would have maybe three actual friends down here and I would leave my room. Band camp started out awful but it was a wake up call to the fact that I am all on my own now. If I don’t do something, its probably won’t get done. Band Camp was the start of all the changes between my life at home and my life here and it sparked thebeginnings of lots of new relationships.