The roar of the crowd as you step out onto the turf, the soft buzz of the stadium lights, your heart beating in time with the drum line.

These are the moments that I live for.

Marching Band has become a way to relieve myself from the stresses of everyday life. It has become a big part of my life; in fact it became my life.

Between the endless hours during band camp and practicing everyday after school, and having to say, “I cant, I have marching band practice.”

For those of you who don’t understand what marching band is, it is a time intensive sport, from jazz running across the field with a flag, playing an instrument while marching, staying in time with the color guard members, hitting your dot and keeping the formation at the same time, is a lot of hard work.

People always ask me why I’m even in marching band? Why do I put myself through all this work? What do I get from all this?

The answer is life long memories. Forming special bonds under the moonlight at 8:30 at night, empathizing with each other’s complaints and glaring covertly at the band director for telling the famous lie “one more time.”

But all this work is worth it once we get to compete against bands from all across the state and nation. The band competitions always take up our Saturdays from six in the morning to twelve at night.

Those days consisted of long crammed bus rides full of singing, laughter and focusing on the day ahead.

The actual competition will forever be nerve wracking but the feeling of adrenaline is indescribable.

Pushing your self to play the part and to do everything perfectly, and to leave everything out on the field.

No one will know how much work gets put into a 15-minute show, except the ones who perform it.

Marching band has made me feel like although I am I small part in the bigger show, we are all equally important and rely on each other.

Marching band requires teamwork where everyone is accountable. We always get rewarded as a team and know that we don’t get special recognition unlike football, where you see one person’s name in the newspaper.

This season of marching band has been the best season that GRC has seen in 7 or 8 years. At our last competition we had our most outstanding performance of the season and all our hard work paid off; we earned our score of 80.

Some of you may not know what this means, but its an outstanding achievement that has taken a very long time for GRC Marching Band to get, ever since before I began marching band 3 years ago.

This activity has taught me that it’s not about being better than anyone else; it’s about being better than you used to be.

That feeling when you finish the show before the crowd starts to clap, right after the horns down; the feeling of breathlessness and accomplishment all in the same moment.

These are the moments we all live for.