Bᵇ
In high school my easiest classes were always math, english, or science. Anything from Japanese to CTE and beyond. It all came so easily to me. Sure they were challenging, but I would never call them difficult to accomplish in the end. I had nearly all straight As. And of course, there was one class that was nearly impossible to fail: band. All you had to do was attend and play, or at least pretend to. When they first let us pick our instruments in elementary school, I went for the hardest instrument: the flute. Objectively, it was the hardest for a young student to play right off the bat. My hands wouldn’t fit for a violin, the instrument my mother desperately wanted me to play. Like every striving immigrant child, of course I went for the flute since I couldn’t go for the violin. But it wasn’t just that it was a difficult instrument that made me so attracted to the flute. There was a video our teacher showed us of “flute boxing”. It enamored me. I had never been one to go for the conventional way. I liked adding my own twist to things, making it fun for both myself and peers. I liked wearing headbands every day. I liked shopping at justice, being decked out in unicorns and rainbows. I happened to do every single simple task in the most convoluted way possible. I constantly forgot and misplaced things, items, words, and names. I didn’t do things the way they were meant to be done. Yet, at the same time, I was desperately afraid to stray from the rules. When I saw the video of the lady beatboxing into the flute, bending those boundaries of what sounds it could create, by god I was grappled.
So for nearly a decade I've been playing the flute. But I could never call myself a flautist. Maybe at one point I would have. In elementary school, there were about 10 of us, but no one could manage to make a sound in months. So in middle school we dropped to maybe 5 or so. I was good then. Nobody truly practiced, so my level sat at or beyond my peers. Or perhaps it was stupid silly child confidence that made the blunders sound like a blend to my ears. In the last year I inquired about playing the piccolo, but some challenges came along the way and I never really got to it. Maybe if I had pushed, I would have achieved more. In high school: it was maybe 5 or less, then 4, then 3, then 2. It was fun when we started, but the pressure started to build. The notes were tiny and I, we, were expected to count our steps to a choreography at the same time. Everyone struggled in the start, but it felt as if others seemed to grasp it much faster than I could. I learned a new part of the functions of a marching band every year, but that pace was much too slow to keep up with the rigor. I saw, I heard, my skills falling far far far behind. My closest friends in the section had other, better things to do. And many of them were actually decent players. I wish I had done the same up to a certain point, when I realized my time here was done.
I hardly felt as if I was part of the band anymore by junior year. The seniors in my flute section felt miles away, and some nearly cold. I felt the shift below my feet, I was being put in second place. Before, there weren't really rankings of the best to worst players. But as we thinned out, I could see it and it was stark. I felt alone, ostracized, and generally as useless as a- well something useless- maybe the saxophone section. But I can’t say much on the topic, every single one of them were far more skilled than me. I witnessed the direct isolation and favortism from my own section and I didn’t say much, there would be few to defend me, although I did have close friends within the band (I didn’t want to bother them with something quite so petty). But until the end of my junior year I didn’t realize quite how big of a mental toll the socialization of the band took on me. I used to ask why there were so few of us left, but now I can sense it. I had a lot of hate and conflicting values with people within my own section and others within the band, but mostly within my own sections. Members of then and now in the past. I still believe many of it to be true and valid feelings of hatred- maybe not hatred. But hurt. I was truly in band for the friends. To have more. But I’m nearly done with my senior year, yet I hardly know half of the members. It’s mostly due to the invisible barriers from relationships of others. You gotta be in it to know. I would have liked to have been friends with my senior flutes, I would have liked to have been friends with many of my peers. I regret that. I don’t regret the friends I have now, by god they are simply wonderful. But as any aspirational young student, I wanted more.
I believe and in fact I know that much reason for the unfriendliness of some of the other members of my section was due to my subpar skills as a flute player. But I hardly saw any reason for them to just about hate me for it. To gossip and to smile at me after. After all- inalltruthIheardmuchoftheirplayingandhadquiteafewcritiquesofmyownthatIbitmytongueonafterallIhadtobepoliteyet… they never quite offered that same generosity to me. But that’s simply how I felt. Perhaps not exactly true to others- I wouldn’t know- I had never been told directly. But it was true: I didn’t ever practice.
I had tried in my freshmen year, to catch up seemed more feasible then. But my attention was drawn to other issues. From drama. From pettiness. For my own inadequacies. And in my sophomore to especially my junior year I had gone through something rather devastating. It had halted me from leaving my home any more than necessary. It made me shelter myself. I could hardly focus on more than just keeping my grades afloat and keeping myself sane and safe from a very real danger. Afterall: Band is an easy A. I could hardly practice without feeling hopeless. I could hardly play during class without shying away in fear of ridicule I wouldn’t ever really witness. Maybe it was an irrational fear to fear to play but to play was not my fear. I truly should have practiced more back then. But I think my eyes couldn’t quite keep sight on multiple things at once, it would risk my delicate balance of sanity. Somedays I had to step out to the bathroom during class to pep my step. To not cry out in the middle. To not cry
The questions erupted in a melody in my senior year. I had a great experience with the new round of freshmen. They had been too young to judge me, I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t experience what I did. But I’m not sure others had in mind what I had. I feel as if I failed a few of them.
But back to ???, I had real i z e d
I can’t tell wh a t t h e teeempoo i s
Wh
A
T
Is the
Ry
Th
M
?
WhAt iS in TuNE and WHAT is NOT
?
WHSFT NOTES ARE THERSE?
I didn’t know how to play
I didn’t know any of it
I was lost
And I realized I had not something that everyone else in the room had
Love
For their instrument
For music
The
Whole thing
Nearly a decade and I didn’t know a THING about playing the flute about reading the music and I realized I had Never loved the flute?
Forgotten how to love
I looked down to see the rusted, poorly padded, oxidized poor animal in my lap.
Arrest me for neglect
For I had committed the deed and neglected to commit.
Oh how the time and hatred and numbness had shown physically.
For some reason, whenever I had cramps and was playing the flute, the pain would go away as I played. It healed me, the music healed me. It was as if it was magic. I couldn’t understand how sound came out of our my instrument .s. How? Amazing! It felt like the music was physical and others in my class could see it and read it, not just on the paper. It felt as if the music was hiding itself from me. I had little passion for the flute and I hated playing it. What I truly hated was the experience I had while playing it. If I had practiced more perhaps I would have liked it, perhaps more others would have liked me. I don’t truly really hate mostly anyone in my band. Maybe some of the creeps, there were a ton of creeps. But the rest of whom I claimed to hate, but as I had declared about my instrument who purred at my lap with hair and metal matted, rusted almost… I never truly hated it. You.
I imagined how great it could have been and I felt a deep regret. I wish I could have loved and understood music. While, I love listening to it, I could not play it. I had never played music on my flute before. Because to play is to nearly sing through a throat of metal and wood. I had simply spoken, spelled out words and said letters.
Band was by far my most hardest class. Difficult, infuriating, stupid, I hated that class.
But it was challenging, and I liked challenging, I happened to always do challenging.
I know I was a bit challenging at times.
By now, at this point: I have given up on the flute.
Once I graduate, I will have kissed it goodbye for the very last time.
Blown my goodbyes and hugged its keys.
I wish I had loved the flute I wish I had befriended more of my peers I wish I had loved playing music. I wish I had played at all.
But now I move onto a career the very least related to music in every which way. Farewell my flute, my friends.