Faking the Band

 

Organized school sports are an excellent way for young men and women to get together with their peers. By striving for the same goal, each will learn the discipline, respect, and determination that is required to succeed in our competitive world today. But naturally everyone can not participate in these games for a variety of  reasons, the main one being that they have and always will suck horribly at sports (not that I am drawing from personal experience here). This is why we have other activities, like Band.

 

Band requires the same discipline, respect, and teamwork that is needed for sports except in Band you get to sit down, there are no putrid smells in the storage rooms*, and you don't have to wear a jock strap. That's why it's so shocking when all over the country you see Boards cutting school music programs left and right. Don't they know that students who learn music in school score higher on tests? Especially tests about music?!

 

But screw the Board of Education! If they had any sense whatsoever, they would have given you bigger lockers! If you don't have a band in your school, you can easily form one with little effort. Just acquire the following, and you'll be off making horrendous, unworldly sound in no time:

 

The Instruments

What's a band without instruments? Very, very quiet, that's what. Instruments create sound by vibrating. This vibration slams the instrument against tiny little air molecules, which send them shooting across the room, their tiny voices shrieking in pain. The sound of their screams as they pass through your ear is what you hear as music.

 

Instruments are divided into three main types: Brash, Goodwin, and Concussion. You will need a few of each kind (it doesn't really matter exactly which now--they will all sound the same for a while) to get started. If you can't find any, all you need to do then is find some sticks and place them in front of a radio. These sticks will become empowered by the music and evolve into flutes or clarinets. If forced to go further, flutes will change into trumpets, which will coil into French horns, which will straighten out into trombones, which will eventually fatten into tubas. Clarinets will turn into oboloes, then bassoonets, then... uh... well, I'm not really an expert on Goodwins, but let me tell you one thing. Do not leave more than three clarinets together in one place. They will link into a colony, form an ugly, plaid membrane, and become bagpipes! Or a vacuum cleaner. It depends**. Once mature enough, place a Brash and a Goodwin together and allow them to breed. If you're lucky you will get saxophones, those lonely lovechildren of instruments from two different worlds (which is why they play the Blues so much, of course). Drums may be harder to make, because they are the reincarnations of bullies past who used to steal trumpet cases and give band kids swirlies. You may have to go to a school that already has a band to snipe a few for yourself.

 

In case you are interested, the instrument I play is the euphonium. And if you don't know what that is you go find out your own stinking self; I'm sick of explaining it to everyone! I chose it because of it's rich, mellow tone. Well, I guess I did, at least. I was around 10 when I had to pick an instrument, so I just as well could have chosen it for the fact I could hold it over my shoulder like a bazooka and make war noises.

 

The Players

Once you hook people up with the instruments, you will have players. Hopefully, they will all work in harmony, but if my band is any indication they will separate into little gangs. There will be the Flute and Clarinet Gang (a.k.a. "Those Whiny Squeakers"), the Trumpet and Saxophone Gang (a.k.a. "Melody Whores"), the Low Brass (a.k.a. "Us"), and the Drummers (a.k.a. "Idiots"). Now when something goes wrong during a rehearsal, it is customary for the guilty party in my band to blame someone else. The Melody Whores will blame the Whiny Squeakers for--what else?--squeaking and whining about their hair. The Whiny Squeakers will blame the Melody Whores for blaring their instruments to loud or playing their more primitive, organic instruments (if you know what I mean). If it's both of their faults, they blame the Idiots. No one ever blames us in the Low Brass. How can you blame a section who only plays the same two notes every song***!? We just sit back and talk while chaos erupts around us. Fortunately though, this is we have...

 

The Conductor

The Conductor is there to make sure the band remains in rhythm and peace. He uses a "baton", a small stick narrowed to a sharp point, to keep tempo... or poke your eyes out if you don't obey him!!! Heh, just kidding (in most cases). Our conductor is Mr. Stockman. He's a little eccentric and he has a bald spot so glaring that low-flying aircraft are frequently attracted to our rehearsals, but we love him and you can't have him so go find your own eccentric bald man with a stick, you jerks!

 

The Music

Music is paper with little dots and scribbles all over it. Each of these little marks represents a different tone at which you have to smack air molecules and for how long you must make them suffer. There is all kind of music out there, but a favorite in bands are marches. Don't ask me why; I thought that for a march to be effective you had to be marching, but for some reason they work well sitting down, too. Actually, we had a marching band once, and we were good, but that disbanded a few years ago. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it may be for the time we thought it would be fun if we marched through a McDonald's Drive-Thru^.

 

But of course music changes constantly, and not everyone will be happy with marches anymore. Fortunately, there is a wide variety of music that you can combine (or "fuse") to suit the likes of your bandmates. Take, for instance, the hip Rap-Classical Fusion song "Baby Go________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________it's funny when you march through their Drive-Thru.