Hi, my name is Rachel, I’m a senior in high school and I’m am currently deciding between staying in or quitting marching band. For some background, I’m section leader of the pit (marimba, auxiliary percussion, timpani, etc.), and for the most part, the other section leader and I serve as the instructor most of the time since the actual one spends most of the time with drumline. We ran sectionals the whole 8 hours on band camp days by ourselves, and I’m thankful for a motivated section. However, I’m a serious percussionist outside of marching band. I take percussion lessons and also piano lessons, I play in a youth orchestra that is starting up in September that has a little over an hour commute every Monday night, plus I need to get ready for college auditions since I would like to major in percussion. In addition, I have to get ready for auditions for county and district bands in order to qualify for All-State. Plus, in October I was accepted into. The National Association for Music Education’s All-National band. We are playing grade 5 music and I’ll only have a month or so to prepare. I’ve participated in many honor ensembles in the past years, and that truly affected me as a musician. It really opened my eyes to the bigger world of music and made me appreciate playing with musicians who truly care about playing and practicing. In a grades 7-12 marching band, not all feel the same as me in the respect. I was going to quit at the end of last year’s school year but decided to give it a second chance. However, I’ve been getting upset lately about how things have been going and the whole getting upset is starting much earlier than year, which I feel like it’s giving me a sign that I should quit to avoid the emotional stress, anxiety, and suffering that will accompany football games and weekly band competitions. I hate letting the pit down because I would do anything for those kids, and I really care about them. They make me really happy, but unfortunately the rest of the band does not have the same affect on me. On top of all of that, our band director is leaving because he got a job closer to his family. So at a time like this, should I leave the kids? I don’t want to emotionally suffer but I don’t want to let them down. I’m going to start seeing a therapist soon for anxiety and stress as well. I want to see my kids in pit be the best they can be, but yet marching band in general just seems to keep bringing me down. I don’t know if I’ll regret quitting or if it’ll be a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I really cannot decide and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
You are lucky you have the choice – when I was in high school, we had to be in marching band if we wanted to play with any other school ensemble. As a serious musician, I’d have quit in a heartbeat if I could have. To me it sounds like it would be better for your mental health to quit, and like you will still have good performance opportunities. I say it is okay to stop,