As I entered the middle school band room, I was greeted with the bright white glow of fluorescent light bulbs shining on the gross, soggy carpet. “Welcome to class” said Mr. Bottomley, who was my middle school band director, retired and then got inducted into the Florida Bandmasters Association Hall of Fame. We grabbed our instruments, like we do every day, made some noises (by all means in no way music). However, as I continued on with one of the easiest pieces, I found myself struggling to play it in a way that I could appreciate myself. I found that I was frustrated more than content with music and I lost all hope. I never practiced, my musical taste dwindled to pop and rock and I never really looked at or appreciated classical music. However, I continued with it despite the ultimate failure I saw in myself. Why wouldn’t I build up the nerve to practice?
“The tuba section really sounds that bad, we have the biggest in the county” cried my high school band director, Cynthia Berry, also a hall of fame inductee. It was my first year in marching band, my first year with high schoolers, as a high schooler. As I approached this harder music, I began to grow as a musician and as a player. I saw the other end of the spectrum. Eric Dana, the shortest kid I’ve ever met, now at Berklee pursuing tuba as a career, gave me a private lesson. He was our section leader, a big deal in my band as we are the size of a small-collegiate band, about 350 members. We worked together in the back storage room in the school, finally one day he said “You have a nice tone.” I’m not sure why but that sentence changed my life. I started listening and improving myself more, growing on the ideas I had from middle schools of playing and learning that it is a gradual shift.
Eventually, as concert season rolled around, we received our chair placements. I looked at mine with excitement, only to find one thing. Dead last chair, bottom band. My heart sank, and for once in my life I took initiative to improve myself first and realized that it was all my own fault. I dove into harder music to make myself stand out, I expanded my range and playing skills until eventually I felt comfortable with my playing. Eventually I reached a level that I was actually quite happy with, mind you while a freshman so it still wasn’t the greatest.
I stopped practicing at that point, what was the nead? I was already pretty good at my instrument. Needless to say I was “promoted” to middle band, where I sat 4th chair. Still uncontent. I dove into harder and harder music to push myself up the totem pole. I still had to work harder. I challenged my way up. While I continued to push myself what I didn’t see was my appreciation for the arts increase. All of a sudden I was listening to famous tuba players and listening to jazz, classical, everything that involved instruments. My tone towards classical music totally shifted, my favorite song back then and to this day is still “Mahler Symphony No. 2”. Anyhow, I spoke to my band director; “So, how do I challenge someone else?” Challenging was a term used to describe a kind of competition where the band director listens and determines who is better and then rearranges seating based off of that, a challenge takes two weeks, so I was on a time crunch to become first chair. He had a smirk on his face, a good one, and told me exactly how and I scheduled a date and time. Two weeks later, the day rolled around, I was so nervous despite having practiced for so long, a feeling to this day that I still cherish kind of like a natural “high.” My friend, Domenic, used some choice words before the mini-audition, that actually made me feel better, he was nervous. I ended up winning, my schedule was going perfectly, by the time we get to the last concert I will be first chair. Suddenly my band director looks at Domenic and says “Now, in order to make this fair, you have the ability to rechallenge Chris again, and you can take back your spot or Chris can win and you won’t be able to again.” “Deal” Domenic says in his snarky voice. I wait a week, same music, same excerpts. Again, the same response, same scores for both.
As I progressed in my musical vocabulary I found that I wanted to step up my level, going to see professional ensembles perform and sitting on stage with the tubist(s) during rehearsals, I was gaining traction in my musical-endeavors. Eventually I found myself wanting to play in an Orchestra so I tried out for the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra, a group that I have toured with to Carnegie Hall. As I stayed in the orchestra I found myself playing harder and harder music. Eventually we got a piece called “Divertimento” by Igor Stravinsky, one of his ballets. Stravinsky’s ballets are known for being insanely difficult to count and play. As I read through it and learned the piece I found a greater understanding of newer music and 20th century harmony.
As I began a greater appreciation for newer music, I was genuinely struck by a piece called “First Circle” written by the Bob Curnow and the Pat Metheny group. I was transfixed on the song, writing my own arrangements and posting them on social media for my friend to hear. I thought nothing of it. A few weeks later my phone rings, “Hey Chris, what’s up man? It’s Mr. Bushman.” My heart sinks. He was my intern my Junior year, band interns hold a special place in everyone’s heart in band. For many people, they are the person that you go to talk to and genuinely just good friends to have around, for me he seemed like a best friend; although we had to stop talking once he got a job at a high school, however I was about to graduate. I was ecstatic but tried not to show it over the phone.
“Nothing much, writing some music right now, how’d you get my number?” I said.
“Oh, I just contacted Mr. Wharton and he was pretty happy to give it to me, I noticed that you were writing some arrangements of First Circle, I was thinking of doing that piece for my halftime show next year.”
My mind was racing, this seemed like the culmination of 7 years on my instrument and my 3 years seriously studying music and scores.
“Oh, shit.” was all that I could think to say in that moment. He laughed and obviously, I graciously accepted, not expecting any pay as I am only a student (not even in college yet, just about to graduate high school.)
This was the start to a now almost constant income from arranging music for high school bands. As I worked harder on this piece than any other, I saw my ideas and skills come to life on the paper in front of me, everything seemed to fall into place. I learned new knowledge and ideas through writing the music, with the help of Mr. Bushman. He provided me with books and information in order to finish the show by myself and I had to actually relearn things like voice leading, and in turn learn general tips, like following your ear is the best way to write as opposed to using the rules that are written. As I finalized the product my feelings overwhelmed me, I was finally getting paid to do something with music.
This experience led me to continue with music at Florida State University and led me to be less cautious about my future, I feel like finally I have the ability to succeed in my career and go further than i would have before. The feeling of motivation and excitement for the future of my musical career and sharing it with my friends in the college of music is magical. We started our own band in order to play music, we have written music to play in the band and most importantly we are conducting our own ensemble. However, as I was conducting I realized the most important things in life, that we still have things to learn. I am excited to gain musical abilities and to understand music, as this next chapter in my life will ultimately lead to my future career and opportunities, which I can only be happy for all of them.
chrisbernhardt 