Ambition, what is it? The dictionary defines it as a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. Think about this in the marching band or even concert band mindset. Let me paint a picture, in about 15 days (April 3rd, 2019) is what we call contest. Contest is when a large groups gather at one school, this year it’s New London Spicer (NLS), and we play for other bands and for a panel of judges. For must band members this isn’t really a big deal because we do it as a group but for a few who have solos in the piece(s), they know that the judges will request for them to play the part by themselves and that’s pretty stressful. We as a band strive to overcome any weaknesses and we hope to place well. Lately, we have been practicing quite a bit and we also have a concert tonight for the community using the piece(s) we use at contest. Our intention is to not mess up this concert and use it almost as another practice for contest.
Another way this can be taken is in the marching band retrospect. When we go to a parade or a festival of bands, yeah, of course, we want to win, but we are told that nothing will change if we don’t, that we’ll just have to work harder in practice to become better than the bands we faced and lost against. Practices are long and hard, most people who don’t play an instrument or are in marching band don’t realize that we actually do things in our practices besides sitting and blowing through hollow pieces of metal. No, just, no. We work just as hard if not harder than some sports teams, running charts/sets and sprinting back to the first set just to do it all again. In most sports, if you need a drink of water you just walk to your water bottle and drink, man I wish. Water breaks are short and very spaced out, I think we get maybe 3 or 4 in our 3-hour practice. So that’s just for the people who say we don’t do anything.
So, ambition, I’d say that the Litchfield Senior High Marching band has a bit. Because, yeah, we do want to win, and we’d do anything to do it. We practice long hours with grueling conditions just so we can say we did it and got more trophies than the football team. Ambition carries over throughout the year in the band, between marching band and concert band, it also carries throughout life.
Tune It Or Die 