Why I Dumped Marching Percussion
If you’re looking for a lengthy deposition with details justifying everything down to the minute and coordinate, you’re in the wrong place. This post is not intended to cast aspersions on anyone, as I’m not in the business of “angsty blog clickbate.”
Any systemic defect or individual that contributed to my discontent are just living their lives and enjoying their craft—a craft that is no longer mine, and that’s okay.
Nonetheless…
After a decade, I left the marching arts because I was tired of endless nonsense sustained by narcissistic contemporaries, unhealthy economic models, entitled students, and exclusive coteries of judges, endorsement reps, and “creative” designers.
Interminable rehearsal schedules rob students and educators of a reasonable time commitment: a commitment to what is ultimately an avocation for 99% of those involved. Instead, the activity has normalized hour quotas that do nothing but justify Parkinson’s Law.
The attractiveness of the activity, perpetuated by social media gurus (along with inherent social pressures), coerces young adults to make abhorred financial decisions to participate for as long as possible. Unfortunately, these decisions often lead to stalling an education or start to their career at the very least.
Subsequently, the power dynamic in most organizations breeds an unhealthy hunger among students to become staff at too young an age. Often eager for control, these spring chickens veil their appetite for control and influence as “giving back” or some other lofty justification. Most find out quickly that true teaching is a painful, thankless job. The fight against this reality creates what I call “assholes.”
Ultimately, practical education (where it all began around the 1930s) is now secondary to adjudication pedantry and insta-hype. Checking boxes in a contrived system of favoritism and politics has usurped the practice of equipping kids with functional musical skills and thought patterns. Mix that with the ego-game and self-worth crisis of the 2020s and you’ll find some nasty stuff under the rug.
In many ways, this educational void fuels a perpetual war between collegiate and marching programs, causing drama, politics, and more. All fostered by ego, this relationship strips passionate kids of half their potential identity, especially percussionists.
Essentially, marching percussion en masse is no longer a culture or discipline that inspires me as it once did. It has changed, and that’s okay. It may be none of these things to you, and that’s okay too. I had a lot of fun, but now I’m done.