I have an awful story from when I was in middle school Honors band. So I was carrying a marching snare with the harness on because we were rehearsing a pep rally song. So I was carrying this thing and I was surrounded by the other percussionists practice stands and stuff and I had to move but without seeing, I had knocked over the concert snare which was still out. It made an obnoxiously loud sound and gladly the snare drum was perfectly fine. One of the other percussionists has laughed loudly and pointed at me and this lowered my self confidence a bit temporarily. He then later dropped the marching snare off the drum harness and broke the bottom head the month after and dropped both crash cymbals the next month after. That was karma that I enjoyed.
I marched cymbals for 2 years in my high school band, and one of my squadlings tapped me on the shoulder while we were playing in the stands. She held the cymbal strap in one hand, and the cymbal in the other. She looked at me and said I have no idea how this happened, so me being the good leader I am said looks like you need help with putting your strapon
My freshman year, My buddy and I where practicing stick tricks next to our drums, all set up in a perfect line. My buddy managed to launch his stick directly at my face. In fear of the oncoming projectile, I quickly moved to the right slamming directly into a snare drum, which then hit the next, which fell into the 3rd drum. That drum toppled over into our 2 tenors, which both fell down as well. The rightmost tenor did a spin into bass 1, which fell off its stand, and rolled towards me. That would've been funny, if my band director wasnt walking out of his office to watch the glorious domino effect, and the bass drum roll over to me.
My only awkward “band” moment was when I was outside playing snare for donations around the general area. So I get to one spot and a guy asks me to play something for him and I did, then I gave him my sticks and he played something. turns out a grumpy old man decided to flip out at him for “being annoying” when he could’ve asked him to stop in the first place. Then here I am 9th grade me in the middle of an argument, I haven’t said a word, everyone’s mad at the old man, so I found the closest restaurant and got myself some food. That was the craziest moment of my freshman summer
This story actually happened to a friend of mine when he was in his HS marching band. They were at a band competition and just finishing up having lunch. Apparently one of the kids encountered a delay on the line at the hotdog stand, and he was not able to eat before their band took the field for competition. He didn't want to throw away his hotdog topped with sauerkraut, so he decided to put it under his busby band hat (one of those tall types like the ones the Royal Guards wear at Buckingham Palace in England). As they were marching, my friend saw that the sauerkraut on the hotdog started dripping down all over the kid's face!
Here’s a hilarious story from this season (im a freshman). So we were playing our first away game of the season and we played our halftime show well, and as we were cadencing off the field, someone left a giant hole uncovered, and it had the sprinkler in it. (The hole was literally was a foot and a half deep and a foot wide) and all of a sudden you see our senior bass 5 DROP and trigger the sprinkler, and everyone started laughing. When we got back into the stands, the bass was SOAKED and so was the senior😂. It was my funniest band moment so far!
Last year, our marching band went to play in a college bowl game. I’m in the pit (front ensemble) and the people who were in charge of running the halftime show didn’t want all the bands to bring their pit percussion. That year, there were four of us in the pit, three of which went to the bowl game. One of us played cymbals, while the other girl and I… well, we played tambourine and triangle. In marching band. It was probably the most embarrassing thing I have done so far in life. I was standing there in a huge stadium, surrounded by like 500 other band players, standing with the drumline (who were playing actual marching percussion instruments), lightly tapping a TRIANGLE. It was so embarrassing and awkward, but the trip was still fun, and it was a good experience to be so embarrassed - however not-fun it was when I was currently experiencing it. Also, bonus shorter story that isn’t as awkward but still funny: At marching band practice, we were bringing the mallet percussion to the practice field. We had just gotten the xylophone to the field, but part of the frame at the bottom came unscrewed from the rest of it. I knelt down to fix it (it was quite easy to fix without any special tools or anything) and then a bass drum player just bowled right into me. I don’t blame him obviously, because I doubt someone with a huge bass drum strapped to their front would be able to see a small pit percussion girl knelt down in the grass beside a xylophone. Quite the funny.
I'll never forget this for the rest of my life.... This story happened while on dci tour and i was part of a bassline. The percussion caption head, after giving us a water break, wanted us to hustle back to our dots to get on with subs. Our water jugs were in the back of the field so we had to run from there to close to the front of the field. I noticed i was kinda lagging behind the rest, so i gathered up some energy to sprint back to my dot with my bass drum on my body. Halfway up the field, i felt a bang in front of my drum as if i ran into a wall, except what could be in the middle of the field that i could run into?? Turns out it was my drum major..... luckily he didn't have a concussion but he did need some stitches. I felt HORRIBLE for the rest of the season, even though our drum majors are very pleasant people and were way too forgiving.
Last year i was the sophomore drum major in the 130+ years of my high school band and while the drumline was doing a cadence i was dancing, and during the dance you were supposed to squat down during the cadence and when i squatted my pants split in front of everybody in the band, the band director, and the dancers while i was on the podium and i had to run quarter mile back to the band room to get new pants and sprint back to be back in time for half time
During a football game in the stands, we hadn’t set up our stands very well and the wind blew my drum off to the side. I tried to stop it, but it slid down into the snares and almost into the saxophones before someone else stopped it while I just stood there in the same pose for about 30 seconds, absolutely mortified.
My excruciatingly awkward story from freshman year. I left my sheet music in my room at band camp and I was about to have full ensemble with 100+ people that bear in mind, I hardly even know because the season started just over a week before this happened. The BD was talking and dumb freshman me thought that it would be a good idea to use my phone to pull up the sheet music PDF since it was on our battery facebook group. Just a few seconds later I see everybody (and I mean all 100+ people) staring at me and the BD was saying "excuse me, mr. blue shirt in the back, please get off your phone!" and told me that I had to take a lap after we were done with practice. He asked me if I understood so I nodded but he told me to tell him yes using words so I had to squeak out an embarrassed "yes" just loud enough for him to hear. I still consider this to be the most embarrassing moment of my entire life.
Bro I feel you. In my sophomore year I still wasn’t the best marcher in the band. One time the tech thought I was off my dot after a rep. He goes on to scold and yell at me in-front of a band of 225 people. Then he said do the rep again. We did it again, he was expecting me to fail. Long story short, I hit the dot perfectly, another tech looked at him and he never said anything to me again lol.
In 7th grade band, I got bored during a after school rehearsal and decided to flip one of my mallets in the air. The assistant band director say this and screamed at me that if I did it again, he would cut me. For the next 3 weeks every single band member asked me if I had broken something, And what the director had yelled at me for.
I played rack during this year's indoor season, and I was helping one of the marimba player's push it. We were still outside in line to go into the highschool. However, the wheel went off the sidewalk when we were pushing and we had to lift it back on. I pulled the wheel, not knowing it would fail, and whole wheel just came off and I was freaking out. It took us a solid 10 minutes to put it back on and I felt soooooooooo bad.
When I was in 6th grade and first starting out on trombone, I had forgotten that my slide was locked. So, when I started playing, I tore my slide lock off like it was nothing, and it flew across the band room.
During my first year in the drumline I marched base 3 and during our visual block we were running a set were the drumline is on the other side of the field away from the rest of the band. During this time I was stretching and the cargo shorts I was wearing ripped right down the side and this was at the beginning of practice and I had to go another 3 hours without people noticing. Later the next year I marched base 5 which was a 32 Yamaha base drum and as I was taking off the drum my new pair of cargo shorts ripped right down the seem and we were just about to perform our show for our parents
I have a story that was not so awkward as it was embarrassing. I was doing a Christmas concert my 7th grade year and I had my phone in my pocket, I had it set on silent but during the middle of a song where it was just me playing my part (the triangle), my phone inconveniently went off when everyone in the band could hear it. Idk why that happened because I made sure my phone was on silent, I couldn't do anything about it until the song was over. I'm in highschool now but the thought about still haunts me to this day.
Falling story: During my first year of marching band as a greenie, we had this giant ramp that some of us would go up and play hand drums. These were pretty precarious because they were very slippery and the shoes we wore were also slippery. So we played the part and started walking back down, but I entirely slipped off and went completely sideways off the part of the lower 4-5 foot part of the ramp. I also had the hand drum still around my neck. I just kinda laid there for a bit and once recovered, I just slowly crept back to the front (back) ensemble like nothing ever happened.
One time I was singing with the school choir and we were sat on some tiny stage about 4ft high. The chairs were right on the back and every time we stood up and sat down the chairs would creep back slightly until eventually 6 of us fell off the back head first.
Reminds me of the time I locked myself in the bus bathroom on age out night in 07. Or the time my battery caption head paid a horn kid $5 to swim a lap in the schmarmy shower water that wouldn’t drain at our housing site in Alabama in 05. Or the time one of our trumpet players went to inspect one of the doors in the guys locker room and was then pushed through it when his fellow trumpet buddies realized the door led directly to the parking lot where the busses were parked. It was during shower, pack and load...... homeboy was in line for a shower when he went to check the door... oops... I’ve got a million of these...
This wasn’t at my school, but another in my district. The basses were marching backwards during their show, and I don’t remember which one started it, but one of them tripped and fell, which caused the rest of the basses to trip and fall.
It was summer of 2019. I was an 8th grader who got asked to join my highschool marching band. It was my first day of band camp. We were working on attention and stuff like that inside. For some reason I wasn’t feeling good and I was lightheaded. (Note i am almost 6 foot) so I ran to the bathroom and I had to stop and puke all over the floor in my high schools hallway. I don’t even attend the highschool and I’m already puking in it. The 6th and 7th grade director came to me and said go to the bathroom. After that I was fine. Almost like 4 weeks ago we were talking about it at my middle school and he said. “Oh yeah I thought you were some hungover senior but that was because I didn’t know you” and this was that 6th and 7th grade band directors first day there.
During my first year of marching band, I was on bass 4. This was the end of a 4 day mini-camp that was mostly for the rookies. It was the end of the day and the drumline was walking in to join the rest of the band for the last full ensemble. I was the first one in and heard my director talking, so I tried to pay attention to him. Well, I should’ve payed attention to where I was walking because the bass 1 player wasn’t there that day and left her drum out in the open. It was pretty much silent and then all of a sudden there was a huge thud. I tripped over the drum and my drum cane out of the harness and I landed on it and split my knee. Everyone sat there in shock while the two drumline section leaders ran over to see if I was okay, and the drums of course. (Which FYI, I split the left rim on my drum, smh. Even though they were Dynastys, I guess they weren’t indestructible.) So yeah, it was pretty awkward for a few minutes, but no one thought much of it. So, we got into playing parade music, and I feel something trickling down my right leg. When I split my knee, it wasn’t a huge split, only like half an inch, and when it did split, it wasn’t bleeding. So I look down and see blood gushing out of my knee. I stopped playing and ran to the fitting rooms where the first aid was and cleaned myself up. When I did this, everyone else stopped to see if I was okay. (So I guess they did care lol). All in all, it was really embarrassing for me since it was my first year, but luckily I didn’t need stitches or anything, and I was still able to play the band’s annual kickball game.
2 bad moments here 1- My buddy was free balling it and ended up conducting a song. Well right during the crowd participation part his pants came down and the whole crowd saw his junk. The percussion section couldn't make it through the rest of the song due to us laughing so hard. 2- During a halftime performance a friend of mine and I both play the kit and during one of the songs there is a dance break we stand up on our kits with one foot on the throne, one foot on the kick, and a hand on the crash. Well unfortunately my kit was a rental for this one and the stand gave out and I fell off the riser onto the ground. I was fine but my pride wasn't
We had a prop in our show, called all in all we are, it was a table on wheels so we could move it around the field, so when it was my turn to stand on the prop and play I did and everything was fine but as I was getting off I fell so hard. I march trombone and it was the first thing that hit the floor.
So one day during drum line practice at my high school (I was a Freshmen), our drum line captain wasn’t there that day to give a tap off. So my drum line instructor told me to do a tap off to start warm ups and stuff like that. So he gave off a tempo and I just awkwardly stood there trying to calm down and give a tap off to start the warm up. I literally just stood there in silence for a good 30 seconds until he told me to calm down. Eventually though I did do the tap off correctly but one time I was way too slow... so yeah
My band and I were at an away football game. I had my snare drum on. I was walking down the stands to go to the field for half time. But no I trip and slide down the stairs, land on my ass all the way at the bottom of the walkway to the stands. My drum, in perfect condition all the way by the fence and me on my 6th grade ass wanting to cry. But no, I stood up and like a man and realized 0.5 seconds of standing. I broke my tailbone I fall straight back down to the ground. I should have went to the hospital right ? My mom says and I quote “ Nah you’ll be fine just get some ice on it and lay down” I’m like thanks mom. So I left early from the game iced my ass and I ended up being ok to tell the story again. 😂
My freshman marching band season I was bass 5 and we had this moment in the show where the basses walk up a very large see saw bass 1 first. During a certain rehearsal either the top basses went up too fast, or I was too slow, but I had not reached the bottom of the see saw when it started to topple the other way. I panicked and I attempted to stomp down on it before it got too high, and I missed with my foot and ended up bruising my shin. The bottom of this very large seesaw then hit the bottom of my bass drum and began pushing the drum and myself upwards. I quickly realized that if I let go or let it slide past me then the whole seesaw will topple the other way and my other bass friends would be killed (Bass one is about 6 feet off the ground at the top). I used up all my strength to push down on my bass drum to force the seesaw down using only my upper body since it was on my carrier and with the weight of the other 4 drummers on it, then I had to raise my foot about 4 feet with the drum on to add my weight and push my side of the seesaw down. The whole band was staring at this ordeal while my percussion director was booking it to me and I had to hold the whole seesaw down so we could get the other bass drummers off of it. My director told me to sit out for the rest of the rehearsal in order to inspect any cuts or tears in my legs(thankfully no, just a bruise for 2 weeks), but since I was out for the rehearsal, The other drummers had to temporarily walk alongside the seesaw instead of on it since I couldn’t be there to counter balance it. However, bass one forgot I was missing and the situation nearly mirrored itself again.
I was bass so I was setup at the bottom of the stands with the other basses. The snares were setting up at the top of the stands and I hear a loud boom. When I look up I see a snare coming right for the basses from the top of the stands. None of us moved because everyone was in shock and went silent. She picked it up and brought it to the top of the stands, then halfway through the game during a stand tune. Boom and it’s coming at us again, everyone stoped playing and watched in pain as it fell again. We had just gotten these drums two weeks before this and the things on the side that the tension rods go into were bent and the shell was cracked. The band director wasn’t “mad” he said but you could tell he was furious and still holds a grudge two years later. Gonna be three this season.
It was my first season marching indoor percussion. I was playing tenors and we were about to finish our rehearsal with a full run of the show. In one section of the show, the tenor line had a set where we had to go from the front of the floor to the back, so we had to march backwards with extremely big step sizes, and it didn’t help that this movement was fast as well. I was marching next to my buddy JJ (not his real name), who I would go on to March quads with in college and still do. As we were marching back, JJ fell backwards and his drums came up and hit him in the head. The rep was stopped and I looked back to check on JJ. He had a gash in his head and there was blood running down his face and shirt. Thankfully, he was okay and didn’t require any stitches.
On my first day of marching band rehearsal, I was a freshman on bass 4. I was walking off the field to go to lunch and there was a tuba laying on the ground. This was before I knew about putting the bass drum on one shoulder so I couldn't see in front of me. I tripped over the tuba and smashed the bell with the bass drum. I was fine and the bass drum was fine as well. but the tuba was damaged pretty badly. This was literally my first day
Mine Is Extremely Embarrassing I was in 7th Grade at the time, i was a pretty good snare player but not the best. I was invited to play at a school pep rally with my friends, so i went. I set up my snare drum played a few cadences then made the stupid decision of walking over to play the quads, i left from my drum played the quads for a sec then headed back to my drum, in the process i tripped over a kid sitting down and completely wiping out knocking over my snare and making a big boom. Everybody in the gym looked at me, including the band director just to see me on the ground and my snare on the ground. But it was hilarious the snare was okay and now we think it was pretty funny.
As a sophomore in high school, one of my awkward band moments in marching band was that I almost fell and I kept on squeaking on my saxophone because the weather was really bad. It was raining and windy which messed up our performance. It was also the 2021 senior farewell. When I was in 7th grade, I’m bass clarinet solo started out awkward as well since my instrument wasn’t cooperating with me. A good thing was that my band director was nice enough to fix that for me.
It was my first year of summer band and we had just finished marching in the 4th of July parade. I was tired and had a bass drum on. While we were waiting to be told to stop marching, we passed a weird part of the road where there was a curb and brick in the middle of it and the road split into two roads. I was walking past it (or what I thought was past it) and the bass drummer next to me says 'watch out.' I couldn't see down, so I had no idea what she was talking about. Half a second before disaster, she reaches out, grabs my harness, and pulls me further in, away from the curb. I didn't fall, but it was really embarrassing for me. What a way to start your marching career.
When i was in 8th grade, i was at this jazz competition and we were playing sing sing sing, so i had a solo on the drum set, immediately after the solo my drum stick broke while we were in competition and i had to go the rest of the way with the broken drumstick and use the butt of it. About a month later at our schools art festival, we played sing sing sing again, and near the end of the song the bass mallet for the pedal just flew out so there was no bass drum for the end of the song.
At the end of last school year, this was 7th grade concert band, we were rehearsing this one really cool piece called "Awake the Iron", and I was on timpani. After we played our rep, the conductor called me out on how I was muting the timpani, because I was pressing down on the head, and he said "Instead of hearing 'bum bum bum, stop', I'm hearing 'bum bum bum, wEEE!'" And everyone, including me started laughing hysterically at it. Then, we had a rehearsal on April Fools Day. So as a reference to the conductor calling me out on my muting technique, my instructor told me to, on the very last note of the piece, to floor the tuning pedal and glissando up. So I did this, and the conductor just gave me this look of confusion and put his baton down without saying anything. All the rest of the percussionists were laughing hysterically at this, it was extraordinarily funny.
when I was back in high school. I was in battery during marching season and french horn during concert season, so I didn't really know how to properly play most, if not all, concert percussion instruments properly. We had two group, concert band and symphonic band, the symphonic band bass player couldn't go to the festival so the band director tell me to come and play the bass drum for symphonic band. I said yes, and did the performance. It was after the festival and came back, one of the drummers from a different period (our band is splits into two periods during school hours), told me that I was mocked by the judge for playing the bass drum wrong: I play it with my left hand, instead of my right hand, while it was on the left of me. I didn't know that and nobody told me lol. And that's one of the embarrassing thing I did during my high school years lol
Freshman year of marching band. I mainly played baritone, but we had a small trombone solo that I also played. We played through the solo, and when we went to march to our next dot, I forgot to lock my slide. While marching to the next dot, my slide fell off mid field. The trombone in front of me tripped over it, creating MASS CHAOS.
So this story takes place during freshman year when I was on front ensemble. We had just gotten back from an indoor drumline show and we had unloaded all of our equipment and left to go home. Little did I know I left my suspended cymbal from my xylophone on one of our trailers. I was aware of this but didn’t have the guts to ask the director to get it for me. So I ended up going through an entire week of practice before our next competition with no cymbal on my xylophone and the director, even the techs, didn’t notice it was gone. We finally reached the day before we left for our next competition and I thought I was home free but out of nowhere I get a direct text from the director of a picture of him holding my cymbal asking me why he found it on the trailer. It was the most awkward exchange of my life.
At a high school marching band competition where it had been raining all weekend, the natural grass field was in terrible shape due to the football game the night before. We ended up marching in thick mud. My fellow trumpet player friend had decided to show up wearing slip on shoes instead of the traditional laced shoes. While marching on the thick mud, his shoes slipped off his feet and he continued marching in just his socks. We marched off the field and our drum major had to run onto the field to pull my friend’s shoes out of the mud.
I'm in marching band at U of Arizona and this year (2022) we had an away game at San Diego State. Our director said if we got sick before the trip then just stay home, but here's the thing: I got sick DURING it so I just decided to perform anyway. It was SUPER hot that day as well because of a heat wave
at the end of my 8th grade year (the first year i was ever in band) we had spring camps for the marching season and i knew nothing about drumline. i was trying out for bass 2 because a buddy of mine told me i should and so we went to the room where they would teach us warm ups and technique and then we would head to visual. well as we were about to leave i asked the section leader to help me put the bass on the harness so we could leave and it wasn’t secure so halfway through the hallway it just dropped and made a super loud noise. at least i got 2nd bass lol.
In high school for our pre-game show, we basically would just run onto the field and end in our school abbreviation. One of our tenor players tripped over the orange pylon in the end zone and fell. He ended up going to the hospital in the ambulance, ended up with a broken rib.
so when I was a freshmen in high school, I played bass 4, and as we were walking back from the field to the band room after practice, we had to walk through the parking lot. well the parking lot was super old and had a ton of pot holes in it. since I couldn't see over my bass I ended up tripping in the pot hole, breaking the bass drum in half, and shoving 2 teeth into my upper jaw. I had to get braces and oral surgery multiple times over a span of 3 years to fix it
So once upon a time in marching band season, we practiced outside so that drumline could get some sectional time alone. The winds were terrible and it didnt make it better that our drums were on stands. I played 2nd bass that season and the 3rd bass behind me set up his stand wrong and the wind ended up blowing his drum off the stand on to the concrete and down a hill bouncing all the way to the 50 yard line! Then, a genius move, he goes after it and ends up spraining his leg because he rolled down the hill with the drum. Needless to say his drum needed to be retuned...
My freshman year we had ladders as props. Somehow a ladder had fallen down during the halftime show and the sousaphones were marching backwards from the front of the field. One of the sousaphones tripled over it since he couldn’t see it and crushed the ladder. I saw how destroyed it was when he took it off the field after we finished 1st movement.
My last marching show of senior year. My left shoe came off during the show, the quad player next to me picked it up and threw it away from me, so I marched the rest of the show with one shoe and I didn't get it back until we were marching off when a clarinet player found it and gave it to me.
Speaking of awful band moments. Just the other day(I’m also a percussionist) me and another perc we’re putting the xylophone back and o e of the wheels fell off. I left the other guy to hold the xylo so I could put the wheel back on. He wasn’t lifting it high enough, so I pulled it up a bit and he lost his grip and the xylo fell over. No one was hurt, but bars were hanging off the side and it was embarrassing. Luckily the percussion teacher wasn’t in there at the time And you can’t forget that memory, and of course it mate a LOT of noise... like, A LOt
This isn’t a story where I was involved, but it happened on our trip to Dayton during indoor season. My group stayed at a YMCA camp, and our head director was using the restroom in a stall. One of our snare drum players thought that someone from the ensemble was in there doing his thing, so he jumped onto the stall door and looked over. It was awkward because our director is a really respected guy so it was really weird.
Hey, my name is Emry. I march bass drum in the Ohio State school for the Blind marching band. Everyone in this band has a visual impairment, most people have a marching assistant to help them march on the field. In my senior year of high school, we were marching through a 3 mile parade, and my marching assistant had to leave me marching by myself for a few minutes to help out another girl, who was struggling. next thing, I know the bottom of my shoes came out from under me I tripped and fell and busted my drum on the ground. Luckily, I got back up and kept going as if nothing happened.
I have never fell while holding my tuba, but we were at a rehearsal marking our drill, for the 4th movement. My high school band director said reset. So I turned and ran to my set, but I didn’t realize the director was right behind me so when I turned to run. I slammed right in to his back, and I hurt my glasses so I just fell to the ground.
My pristine conn 20K got lots of dents and dings in it because other people don't seem to realize when somebody has a sousaphone, it takes up atoms and thus space and you can't phase through it. It got covered in dents and scratches and people always blamed me for not having eyes in the back of my head, even though my spatial awareness is better than most. it makes my blood boil just thinking of some of those people.
At our state competition in San Antonio, our band director sent out a very aggressive group message to the rest of the band asking for two of our students to come see the directors immediately. Turns out, those students climbed on top of the Alamodome and posted the video on snapchat. We were penalized 20 points as a result
My Senior year in high school it was a really rainy day and our band trailer has a wooden door with no grip tape. I was unloading the bass drum cart so I could get to my tenors, slipped and woke up on the ground 15 feet away from the trailer door, and the cart was 5 feet away from me. What happened was as I was unloading it by myself, I slipped, face planted into the handle of the cart, rolled down the trailer door along with the drum cart. The cart rolled over my head and all I got was a minor concussion because I'm built tough. I am responsible for at least 4 safety briefings and major unloading procedures.
This story is very recent (literally 5 days ago from when I'm writing this) It was our second show of our indoor drumline season and we had to drive a good 40 minutes away from our high school. We make it to the school that our show is taking place at and we're just unloading everything from our trailer. Once we unload our things to our zone we find out that some of our props were missing. Everyone is panicking looking for our props and we found one out of like 4 missing things. Not only that but after 30 minutes (at this point we're like an hour and a half before performing) turns out that a vibraphone player left their mallet bag at the school... that also had all of the cables and microphone. So while everyone is panicking even more, a pit tech had to drive the 40 minutes back to our school and get the mallet bag. Luckily the vibe player got their mallet bag. Unfortunately once we get back to our school we find all of the missing props they were ALL in the loading bay.
A bird crapped on one of my quads in the middle of a practice run at band camp. I had to keep playing and the bird poop started splashing and got everywhere. Pretty gross. I also broke a drum head the day before a competition.
This isn't my personal story, but it is really funny so I though I would share. So my band was playing at an away game. On the way to the stadium, the drumline was just having one of those weird drumline conversation (you know exactly what I'm talking about) when I spotted a fire hydrant in our path. I warned the rest of the drumline because the last thing we want is a broken drum, especially right before a performance. But of course one of my fellow drumline mates, let's call him Alex, had his airpods in! He ran is snare directly into the fire hydrant and popped his bottom head. He had to play what was practically a marching tom for the entire game. If that's not embarrassing enough, we later learned that he DID see the fire hydrant. He tried to STEP OVER IT. This dude is like 5'9" and his snare was DOWN. To this day, the drumline still doesn't know what went through Alex's head that day.
In my first year of marching band, in 9th grade, (I was taking the snare drum) we had two parades, the second one was in front of the whole town as we marched down the rode. Right in the heart of the parade my stick slipped out of my hand. (It was wintertime and I was wearing gloves) I kept going, and tried to fake it until my instructor handed me the guys next to me stick.
Okay, this wasn't my band, but during a competition, a band was coming on the field and their gong fell, it made a huge crash and they flipped it over and then they saw that the gong had cracked right down the middle, they definitely didn't win best pit crew...
So the story about someone flattinging a trombone reminded me of one of my stories . So it was my freshmen year of highschool and we were on one of the last days of band camp and we were headed to the field to practice and we had a back field poteum were our drum major stood . So anyways one of my drum major in the middle of the show got off the podeum to play his trumpet so he set it next to the poteum and i was 4th bass so i couldnt see where i was going and ended up flattening my drum major (My best friends) trumpet
At the end of my sophomore year in high school band kids an I were cleaning our storage room, and my buddy the drum major grabbed a random stick on the floor saying "I'm gonna use this for sex !" not knowing the band director was behind him, only to say "It's not being thrown away, and it's not gonna be used for that !!! "
Okay, so I'm a clarinetist. And this story comes from my sophomore year in high school. In the climax of the third movement of our show. We had a set that involved a gradual accel. To a sprinting Jazz run. After this set we transition straight into the woodwind feature that began our Fourth Movement. This Next set was very difficult to get to. So this Jazz run set Involved three lines running past each other And I was towards the end of one of these lines. One time when we were rehearsing this set. The string that held drill book of the person in front of me snapped as she began to speed up causing the drill book to fall. With no time to react I tripped over it. I did a martial arts style roll on the ground and popped back up to my set just in time to play the woodwind feature. Now my favorite part of this story Is that only two people saw me do this The person behind me and the woodwind caption head who is in the Box. And when it was her turn to hold the mic she said something like " AJ I have no idea how the heck you did that, but that was amazing." and handed the mic over So now the entire band was wondering what the heck this kid did.
So it’s my sophomore year in college, I’m center quad on my BEAUTIFUL line of 5 quad players(it was awesome). One rehearsal evening we’re cleaning up our opener drill and we happened to keep repping the one long haul for the drumline across the field. One of the cymbal players fall on the move and nobody stops. You can see pure terror from the other cymbal players, shock from the snares, and laughter exploding from the quads. The best part is we all just hopped over her on the ground WHO HAS NOT MADE AN EFFORT TO GET UP and one of the other cymbal players is literally yelling at her the whole time to get up and get back on the drill and just other profane things. At the end of the set our director asked if we were ok and all we can do is laugh. He asked if the cymbal player was alright too...she was but it was just a lot to process. I’ve learned I can hop a human being while crab marching with quads
Trombone here, in the opener for our show, the very first public run, we had these circles with tuba/trombone on the circle & 2 quads in the center jammin out(this later got changed). I had already nearly passed out from stage fright but to put the cherry on top, I hit the quad in the center of the circle, needless to say I Broke down after.
I remember this one time in 9th grade when me ( a percussionist ) and my boyfriend ( a tuba player ) snuck off to instrument storage and our band director came to find us and walked in to the storage area to find us in the middle of our make-out session.
One time in high school marching band we were performing our halftime show on the field and the flute section were slightly out of position and coming a little too close to the trombone section where I was. They were in front of us going right and we were behind them going left. We had very tall white plumes in our shakos and nobody wore the straps, so I personally removed roughly half a dozen flautist's shakos, one after another which were then promptly stepped on, kicked, tripped over, I think one person even got one stuck on their foot. The show went on and miraculously nobody mentioned it afterwards.
We did a Halloween parade freshman year, and three of the other snares all did the same decoration for their drums, and the other did something very similar. I made my own jenky decoration. It looked like crap. Everyone hated on it and I can't honestly blame them. This year's parade was much better. We dressed as chef boyardee.
My freshman year I marched 4th bass and on the day of my first competition, we had just finished our morning practice and were walking off the field back to the band room. But i tripped over one of our props and my bass drum went rolling through the grass. Of course the rest of the battery came running to ask "IS THE DRUM OK?" The drum was ok but i had to march with a bruised leg at the competition that afternoon. And literally the same day after our performance, i fell *again* going up the stairs to the band trailer.
My first year marching... during a competition the drum line was re-forming a block but I was too close to the snares and my base caught the back of one of their uniforms. I had to turn around so we could get it off.
I was in Freshman year, our drum line changed together in the closet where we stored our drums. One night after a game and all was said and done, I was changed into my normal clothes getting ready to put my uni away when a junior bass drum player thought it would be HILARIOUS to pants me in front of the whole band room. (by this point everyone in the room had finished changing too, no unmentionables showing..yet) I was wearing some slim fit jeans at the time, and so yeah everything came down and my junk was on display for all to see, for about half a second. Everyone else LEAPT into action to cover me up and slam the doors closed. I to this day still don't know who saw my junk and who didn't. Good times.
Freshman year first bass, playing our show at regionals, I blank out, and I move 8 counts before I'm supposed and run in to bass 2 behind me, no one falls, and in the post show reviews, apparently none of the judges noticed me, so that's sick
It’s my freshman year and during one of our Football games we were in the bleachers playing some songs and cadences. Our Bassline leader said to lay our basses flat down on the bleachers as more comfy( keep in mind I have bass 4 in a 5 drum bassline) and during one of our cadences… I SMACKED MY DRUM IN THE END AND IT FELL FORWARD ON ONE OF OUR COLORGUARD. Lucky it fell ON BEAT SOMEHOW and the color guard was very chill abt it and helped me get it back up ASAP
Freshman year. I was in a pretty young marching band program. When we were performing our school song on the stands the 10 ft tall podium collapsed on our head band directer which squished his leg(he was fine, he was out of crutches 2 weeks later)
So here I was sophomore year... We were at our second band competition. We March around the field on the track and we go to march on to the 50-yard. As we turn to walk onto the field there's a giant metal bench that I didn't see because of my bass drum. So I trip over this bench and have to get up in set with judges staring at me
I have an awkward moment when I was in county band and I had to play cymbals( not a cymbal player at all, snare for life) and I had a song at 50 bpm and I had one note and came in one measure early. Then the second time through I didn’t have enough emphasis with my cymbal playing. Then I finally got it the third time and this was all in front of 200 upper class man since it’s not meant for freshman like me. Another experience is my first year of high school band and I got snare but every game I looked very out of place since I am almost a whole foot shorter than everyone else, but the one half time show against our rivals, I got way out of step and had to really run to get to with the snares since I have really short legs and it’s hard to run in it. Keep up with the great videos!
During my freshman year indoor season, we had finished performing so we were in the stands watching others when a marimba player from my school came back from the bathroom a couple seconds before another group performed and so, knowing he isn’t supposed to walk around while other groups are performing he just stood in the middle of the bleachers a few steps up blocking everyone’s view and embarrassing our whole drumline
7th grade I played Bass 5, on the A line bc we had so many people they had to have two drum lines. Anyway on the way to the football field I hit my drum on a pole, and I fell back. Thankfully no one saw that one. Once we got to the football field, I tripped over the pylon, and fell on to the drum. My director saw it and check out the drum, then yelled at me. I walked on the field hit bass 4 during performance, keep in mind that I was tall, about 5’11” and could see over my drum. Walking off my drum fell or again, don’t know how it just did. Monday me and the director had a long talk. I played the tenors through high school. Collage got back on bass for the corps. I had a bad day:(
Ik I'm late but I have an amazing story. Freshman year we were at a football game. There were these little kids running up and down the stands in the band area where they weren't supposed to be. One of them their head on a tenor drum and sent it flying down the stands. Our band director just screamed "CATCH THE DRUM" as it was hitting and knocking people down left and right. The children were laughing demonically the whole time.
Fun story here. First competition of the season. We just got changed and are about to head outside to warm up. Rookie on 3rd bass reeeeally has to take a dump. He runs to the bathroom, leaping and bounding by people and obstacles with ease like a wild rabbit. At the end of his journey, merely a few feet away from the bathroom, there were stairs. Naturally, stairs are bad. He hops the last few and on the landing, he hyperextends his knee and tears his ACL. Out for the rest of the season, absolute tragedy. The kicker? He shit himself on impact.
Freshman year I was on snare drum. We were at band camp in sectionals when they called us over to full ensemble. We were called last because we’re drumline so the whole band was already there. We ran to “The Chaple” which is where we have full ensemble when I tripped on a root, flipping over my snare drums and landing on my feet. A graduated assistant came up and took my drum off and checked on me. I was ok other than my ego getting destroyed.
I once fell down a flight of stairs while carrying my saxophone and nearly flattened it. Incredibly, I was able to take it to an instrument repair shop and got it back to a condition where I was able to still play it!
One time during a concert band show, I accidentally bit my lip while we were playing a piece, and audibly screamed. everyone heard it, and I still live with it.
Our lead trumpet's valves failed during a practice. When it came time for his solo, he sang it. It worked, but it sounded so bad that everyone was laughing. My director had just enough strength to call a water break before bursting into laughter himself
I have a story from when I was in 7th grade and our high school marching band was performing a halftime show with the middle school which consisted of a song and dance, then the middle school would march off the field and the high school would perform Script Ohio which was a traditional drill that they do for one of our state colleges, and during the dance, I did fine but when I crouched down to get my saxophone and hook it to the neck strap, I fell back, and I was rushing to get back up after everyone else , and I thankfully got my saxophone hooked to my strap. It kinda lowered my self confidence a little, thankfully, not that many people saw it, but it still haunts me, especially when I watch the halftime video that was published after the show.
DCI 2015: we were at a night show in Minnesota, and the field was grass and slick. We started our show by running around, and laying down in a form. I was running into my set, and I slipped and fell right onto the lead pipe of my euphonium. I was late getting into the form, so I had to roll into my dot (luckily, I wasn’t too far off). After we get up to begin the show, I find out my lead pipe got bent down, so I had to march the show with my head towards the sky.
So our drumline comes in the week before band camp to practice the show music and cadence's, and unfortunately, one of our bases were out the whole week, so our drumline instructor filled in her spot during sectionals to practice the runs. This meant that snares were left unattended. So we were practicing outside near a bridge, and right before it was over, one dude on snareline said he had to take a crap. We offered him money to go take a crap under the bridge. Not thinking he would actually do it, I sweetened the deal by saying I would pick up his sh*t with my bare hand if he did it. Long story short, he did it, and as a man of my word, I stuck to my end of the deal. I now get called poopyhands by tons of people in the band. The most awkward part was that when we got back from sectionals, we had a rehearsal of our music, and the bathroom was closed, so I didn't get to wash my hands until I got home after rehearsal. The entire drumline was just smiling laughing the entire run through of the music.
This was at our first show of the season, luckily it was just a jamboree, but our drum section leader was getting off the stands to go to the bathroom and his stand with the snare still on it fell over. It left a hole in the bottom and cut some of the snare wires.
Okay so maybe for the next one. My first year in marching band I was on bass 2. We went to ovacs long story short I tripped on a concrete parking block fell back and my bass came off the hooks and gave me a black eye. It's my third year now I'm on snare and that drum still scares me....
I have an awful story from when I was in middle school Honors band.
So I was carrying a marching snare with the harness on because we were rehearsing a pep rally song. So I was carrying this thing and I was surrounded by the other percussionists practice stands and stuff and I had to move but without seeing, I had knocked over the concert snare which was still out. It made an obnoxiously loud sound and gladly the snare drum was perfectly fine. One of the other percussionists has laughed loudly and pointed at me and this lowered my self confidence a bit temporarily. He then later dropped the marching snare off the drum harness and broke the bottom head the month after and dropped both crash cymbals the next month after. That was karma that I enjoyed.
Адонис Кастильó that’s awkward, but must’ve been some very satisfying karma for you
Why does this sound like my story
Eamont Montufar
It isn’t your story of the blond guy in your section was the guy who laughed at you and dropped the marching snare and cymbals.
Sorry I meant close to my story
Eamont Montufar
Yea ik I was just saying if it was that close enough
Eric. 2019 DCI finals... If you heard someone yell, "I love you Eric", from the stands... It was me. alright good talk
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You literally screamed "OMG REFHAT. YOU RIPPED THE MAT. IS THE DRUM OK THOUGH?!" when I tripped over YOUR binder in the middle of the floor🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️
I marched cymbals for 2 years in my high school band, and one of my squadlings tapped me on the shoulder while we were playing in the stands. She held the cymbal strap in one hand, and the cymbal in the other. She looked at me and said I have no idea how this happened, so me being the good leader I am said looks like you need help with putting your strapon
My freshman year, My buddy and I where practicing stick tricks next to our drums, all set up in a perfect line. My buddy managed to launch his stick directly at my face. In fear of the oncoming projectile, I quickly moved to the right slamming directly into a snare drum, which then hit the next, which fell into the 3rd drum. That drum toppled over into our 2 tenors, which both fell down as well. The rightmost tenor did a spin into bass 1, which fell off its stand, and rolled towards me. That would've been funny, if my band director wasnt walking out of his office to watch the glorious domino effect, and the bass drum roll over to me.
My only awkward “band” moment was when I was outside playing snare for donations around the general area.
So I get to one spot and a guy asks me to play something for him and I did, then I gave him my sticks and he played something. turns out a grumpy old man decided to flip out at him for “being annoying” when he could’ve asked him to stop in the first place. Then here I am 9th grade me in the middle of an argument, I haven’t said a word, everyone’s mad at the old man, so I found the closest restaurant and got myself some food. That was the craziest moment of my freshman summer
This story actually happened to a friend of mine when he was in his HS marching band. They were at a band competition and just finishing up having lunch. Apparently one of the kids encountered a delay on the line at the hotdog stand, and he was not able to eat before their band took the field for competition. He didn't want to throw away his hotdog topped with sauerkraut, so he decided to put it under his busby band hat (one of those tall types like the ones the Royal Guards wear at Buckingham Palace in England). As they were marching, my friend saw that the sauerkraut on the hotdog started dripping down all over the kid's face!
Here’s a hilarious story from this season (im a freshman). So we were playing our first away game of the season and we played our halftime show well, and as we were cadencing off the field, someone left a giant hole uncovered, and it had the sprinkler in it. (The hole was literally was a foot and a half deep and a foot wide) and all of a sudden you see our senior bass 5 DROP and trigger the sprinkler, and everyone started laughing. When we got back into the stands, the bass was SOAKED and so was the senior😂. It was my funniest band moment so far!
Last year, our marching band went to play in a college bowl game. I’m in the pit (front ensemble) and the people who were in charge of running the halftime show didn’t want all the bands to bring their pit percussion. That year, there were four of us in the pit, three of which went to the bowl game. One of us played cymbals, while the other girl and I… well, we played tambourine and triangle. In marching band. It was probably the most embarrassing thing I have done so far in life. I was standing there in a huge stadium, surrounded by like 500 other band players, standing with the drumline (who were playing actual marching percussion instruments), lightly tapping a TRIANGLE. It was so embarrassing and awkward, but the trip was still fun, and it was a good experience to be so embarrassed - however not-fun it was when I was currently experiencing it.
Also, bonus shorter story that isn’t as awkward but still funny: At marching band practice, we were bringing the mallet percussion to the practice field. We had just gotten the xylophone to the field, but part of the frame at the bottom came unscrewed from the rest of it. I knelt down to fix it (it was quite easy to fix without any special tools or anything) and then a bass drum player just bowled right into me. I don’t blame him obviously, because I doubt someone with a huge bass drum strapped to their front would be able to see a small pit percussion girl knelt down in the grass beside a xylophone. Quite the funny.
I'll never forget this for the rest of my life.... This story happened while on dci tour and i was part of a bassline. The percussion caption head, after giving us a water break, wanted us to hustle back to our dots to get on with subs. Our water jugs were in the back of the field so we had to run from there to close to the front of the field. I noticed i was kinda lagging behind the rest, so i gathered up some energy to sprint back to my dot with my bass drum on my body. Halfway up the field, i felt a bang in front of my drum as if i ran into a wall, except what could be in the middle of the field that i could run into?? Turns out it was my drum major..... luckily he didn't have a concussion but he did need some stitches. I felt HORRIBLE for the rest of the season, even though our drum majors are very pleasant people and were way too forgiving.
would be first but gotta watch all 31 secs of this ad
Last year i was the sophomore drum major in the 130+ years of my high school band and while the drumline was doing a cadence i was dancing, and during the dance you were supposed to squat down during the cadence and when i squatted my pants split in front of everybody in the band, the band director, and the dancers while i was on the podium and i had to run quarter mile back to the band room to get new pants and sprint back to be back in time for half time
During a football game in the stands, we hadn’t set up our stands very well and the wind blew my drum off to the side. I tried to stop it, but it slid down into the snares and almost into the saxophones before someone else stopped it while I just stood there in the same pose for about 30 seconds, absolutely mortified.
My excruciatingly awkward story from freshman year.
I left my sheet music in my room at band camp and I was about to have full ensemble with 100+ people that bear in mind, I hardly even know because the season started just over a week before this happened. The BD was talking and dumb freshman me thought that it would be a good idea to use my phone to pull up the sheet music PDF since it was on our battery facebook group. Just a few seconds later I see everybody (and I mean all 100+ people) staring at me and the BD was saying "excuse me, mr. blue shirt in the back, please get off your phone!" and told me that I had to take a lap after we were done with practice. He asked me if I understood so I nodded but he told me to tell him yes using words so I had to squeak out an embarrassed "yes" just loud enough for him to hear. I still consider this to be the most embarrassing moment of my entire life.
Bro I feel you. In my sophomore year I still wasn’t the best marcher in the band. One time the tech thought I was off my dot after a rep. He goes on to scold and yell at me in-front of a band of 225 people. Then he said do the rep again. We did it again, he was expecting me to fail. Long story short, I hit the dot perfectly, another tech looked at him and he never said anything to me again lol.
In 7th grade band, I got bored during a after school rehearsal and decided to flip one of my mallets in the air.
The assistant band director say this and screamed at me that if I did it again, he would cut me.
For the next 3 weeks every single band member asked me if I had broken something, And what the director had yelled at me for.
I played rack during this year's indoor season, and I was helping one of the marimba player's push it. We were still outside in line to go into the highschool. However, the wheel went off the sidewalk when we were pushing and we had to lift it back on. I pulled the wheel, not knowing it would fail, and whole wheel just came off and I was freaking out. It took us a solid 10 minutes to put it back on and I felt soooooooooo bad.
When I was in 6th grade and first starting out on trombone, I had forgotten that my slide was locked. So, when I started playing, I tore my slide lock off like it was nothing, and it flew across the band room.
During my first year in the drumline I marched base 3 and during our visual block we were running a set were the drumline is on the other side of the field away from the rest of the band. During this time I was stretching and the cargo shorts I was wearing ripped right down the side and this was at the beginning of practice and I had to go another 3 hours without people noticing. Later the next year I marched base 5 which was a 32 Yamaha base drum and as I was taking off the drum my new pair of cargo shorts ripped right down the seem and we were just about to perform our show for our parents
Had that happen to me during my Junior year. Thankfully one of the drum majors saw my situation and lend me a spare pair of his shorts XD
Bass*
Two shoutouts in one video! Eric, how did you know my birthday was last week? Thanks for the gift!
I have a story that was not so awkward as it was embarrassing. I was doing a Christmas concert my 7th grade year and I had my phone in my pocket, I had it set on silent but during the middle of a song where it was just me playing my part (the triangle), my phone inconveniently went off when everyone in the band could hear it. Idk why that happened because I made sure my phone was on silent, I couldn't do anything about it until the song was over. I'm in highschool now but the thought about still haunts me to this day.
Falling story: During my first year of marching band as a greenie, we had this giant ramp that some of us would go up and play hand drums. These were pretty precarious because they were very slippery and the shoes we wore were also slippery. So we played the part and started walking back down, but I entirely slipped off and went completely sideways off the part of the lower 4-5 foot part of the ramp. I also had the hand drum still around my neck. I just kinda laid there for a bit and once recovered, I just slowly crept back to the front (back) ensemble like nothing ever happened.
One time I was singing with the school choir and we were sat on some tiny stage about 4ft high. The chairs were right on the back and every time we stood up and sat down the chairs would creep back slightly until eventually 6 of us fell off the back head first.
Okay this is interesting 😂 I haven't seen any comments about choirs
Reminds me of the time I locked myself in the bus bathroom on age out night in 07. Or the time my battery caption head paid a horn kid $5 to swim a lap in the schmarmy shower water that wouldn’t drain at our housing site in Alabama in 05. Or the time one of our trumpet players went to inspect one of the doors in the guys locker room and was then pushed through it when his fellow trumpet buddies realized the door led directly to the parking lot where the busses were parked. It was during shower, pack and load...... homeboy was in line for a shower when he went to check the door... oops... I’ve got a million of these...
This wasn’t at my school, but another in my district. The basses were marching backwards during their show, and I don’t remember which one started it, but one of them tripped and fell, which caused the rest of the basses to trip and fall.
It was summer of 2019. I was an 8th grader who got asked to join my highschool marching band. It was my first day of band camp. We were working on attention and stuff like that inside. For some reason I wasn’t feeling good and I was lightheaded. (Note i am almost 6 foot) so I ran to the bathroom and I had to stop and puke all over the floor in my high schools hallway. I don’t even attend the highschool and I’m already puking in it. The 6th and 7th grade director came to me and said go to the bathroom. After that I was fine. Almost like 4 weeks ago we were talking about it at my middle school and he said. “Oh yeah I thought you were some hungover senior but that was because I didn’t know you” and this was that 6th and 7th grade band directors first day there.
During my first year of marching band, I was on bass 4. This was the end of a 4 day mini-camp that was mostly for the rookies. It was the end of the day and the drumline was walking in to join the rest of the band for the last full ensemble. I was the first one in and heard my director talking, so I tried to pay attention to him. Well, I should’ve payed attention to where I was walking because the bass 1 player wasn’t there that day and left her drum out in the open. It was pretty much silent and then all of a sudden there was a huge thud. I tripped over the drum and my drum cane out of the harness and I landed on it and split my knee. Everyone sat there in shock while the two drumline section leaders ran over to see if I was okay, and the drums of course. (Which FYI, I split the left rim on my drum, smh. Even though they were Dynastys, I guess they weren’t indestructible.) So yeah, it was pretty awkward for a few minutes, but no one thought much of it. So, we got into playing parade music, and I feel something trickling down my right leg. When I split my knee, it wasn’t a huge split, only like half an inch, and when it did split, it wasn’t bleeding. So I look down and see blood gushing out of my knee. I stopped playing and ran to the fitting rooms where the first aid was and cleaned myself up. When I did this, everyone else stopped to see if I was okay. (So I guess they did care lol). All in all, it was really embarrassing for me since it was my first year, but luckily I didn’t need stitches or anything, and I was still able to play the band’s annual kickball game.
2 bad moments here
1- My buddy was free balling it and ended up conducting a song. Well right during the crowd participation part his pants came down and the whole crowd saw his junk. The percussion section couldn't make it through the rest of the song due to us laughing so hard.
2- During a halftime performance a friend of mine and I both play the kit and during one of the songs there is a dance break we stand up on our kits with one foot on the throne, one foot on the kick, and a hand on the crash. Well unfortunately my kit was a rental for this one and the stand gave out and I fell off the riser onto the ground. I was fine but my pride wasn't
We had a prop in our show, called all in all we are, it was a table on wheels so we could move it around the field, so when it was my turn to stand on the prop and play I did and everything was fine but as I was getting off I fell so hard. I march trombone and it was the first thing that hit the floor.
Our show was all in all we are not our props
One day I was sitting in geography and my teacher out of no were pulls out a Cohen shaker and tambourine and stared playing in the middle off class
So one day during drum line practice at my high school (I was a Freshmen), our drum line captain wasn’t there that day to give a tap off. So my drum line instructor told me to do a tap off to start warm ups and stuff like that. So he gave off a tempo and I just awkwardly stood there trying to calm down and give a tap off to start the warm up. I literally just stood there in silence for a good 30 seconds until he told me to calm down. Eventually though I did do the tap off correctly but one time I was way too slow... so yeah
My band and I were at an away football game. I had my snare drum on. I was walking down the stands to go to the field for half time. But no I trip and slide down the stairs, land on my ass all the way at the bottom of the walkway to the stands. My drum, in perfect condition all the way by the fence and me on my 6th grade ass wanting to cry. But no, I stood up and like a man and realized 0.5 seconds of standing. I broke my tailbone I fall straight back down to the ground. I should have went to the hospital right ? My mom says and I quote “ Nah you’ll be fine just get some ice on it and lay down” I’m like thanks mom. So I left early from the game iced my ass and I ended up being ok to tell the story again. 😂
My freshman marching band season I was bass 5 and we had this moment in the show where the basses walk up a very large see saw bass 1 first. During a certain rehearsal either the top basses went up too fast, or I was too slow, but I had not reached the bottom of the see saw when it started to topple the other way. I panicked and I attempted to stomp down on it before it got too high, and I missed with my foot and ended up bruising my shin. The bottom of this very large seesaw then hit the bottom of my bass drum and began pushing the drum and myself upwards. I quickly realized that if I let go or let it slide past me then the whole seesaw will topple the other way and my other bass friends would be killed (Bass one is about 6 feet off the ground at the top). I used up all my strength to push down on my bass drum to force the seesaw down using only my upper body since it was on my carrier and with the weight of the other 4 drummers on it, then I had to raise my foot about 4 feet with the drum on to add my weight and push my side of the seesaw down. The whole band was staring at this ordeal while my percussion director was booking it to me and I had to hold the whole seesaw down so we could get the other bass drummers off of it. My director told me to sit out for the rest of the rehearsal in order to inspect any cuts or tears in my legs(thankfully no, just a bruise for 2 weeks), but since I was out for the rehearsal, The other drummers had to temporarily walk alongside the seesaw instead of on it since I couldn’t be there to counter balance it. However, bass one forgot I was missing and the situation nearly mirrored itself again.
9:54 love the ditty
I was bass so I was setup at the bottom of the stands with the other basses. The snares were setting up at the top of the stands and I hear a loud boom. When I look up I see a snare coming right for the basses from the top of the stands. None of us moved because everyone was in shock and went silent. She picked it up and brought it to the top of the stands, then halfway through the game during a stand tune. Boom and it’s coming at us again, everyone stoped playing and watched in pain as it fell again. We had just gotten these drums two weeks before this and the things on the side that the tension rods go into were bent and the shell was cracked. The band director wasn’t “mad” he said but you could tell he was furious and still holds a grudge two years later. Gonna be three this season.
It was my first season marching indoor percussion. I was playing tenors and we were about to finish our rehearsal with a full run of the show.
In one section of the show, the tenor line had a set where we had to go from the front of the floor to the back, so we had to march backwards with extremely big step sizes, and it didn’t help that this movement was fast as well.
I was marching next to my buddy JJ (not his real name), who I would go on to March quads with in college and still do. As we were marching back, JJ fell backwards and his drums came up and hit him in the head. The rep was stopped and I looked back to check on JJ. He had a gash in his head and there was blood running down his face and shirt.
Thankfully, he was okay and didn’t require any stitches.
On my first day of marching band rehearsal, I was a freshman on bass 4. I was walking off the field to go to lunch and there was a tuba laying on the ground. This was before I knew about putting the bass drum on one shoulder so I couldn't see in front of me. I tripped over the tuba and smashed the bell with the bass drum. I was fine and the bass drum was fine as well. but the tuba was damaged pretty badly. This was literally my first day
Mine Is Extremely Embarrassing
I was in 7th Grade at the time, i was a pretty good snare player but not the best. I was invited to play at a school pep rally with my friends, so i went. I set up my snare drum played a few cadences then made the stupid decision of walking over to play the quads, i left from my drum played the quads for a sec then headed back to my drum, in the process i tripped over a kid sitting down and completely wiping out knocking over my snare and making a big boom. Everybody in the gym looked at me, including the band director just to see me on the ground and my snare on the ground. But it was hilarious the snare was okay and now we think it was pretty funny.
As a sophomore in high school, one of my awkward band moments in marching band was that I almost fell and I kept on squeaking on my saxophone because the weather was really bad. It was raining and windy which messed up our performance. It was also the 2021 senior farewell.
When I was in 7th grade, I’m bass clarinet solo started out awkward as well since my instrument wasn’t cooperating with me. A good thing was that my band director was nice enough to fix that for me.
It was my first year of summer band and we had just finished marching in the 4th of July parade. I was tired and had a bass drum on. While we were waiting to be told to stop marching, we passed a weird part of the road where there was a curb and brick in the middle of it and the road split into two roads. I was walking past it (or what I thought was past it) and the bass drummer next to me says 'watch out.' I couldn't see down, so I had no idea what she was talking about. Half a second before disaster, she reaches out, grabs my harness, and pulls me further in, away from the curb. I didn't fall, but it was really embarrassing for me. What a way to start your marching career.
When i was in 8th grade, i was at this jazz competition and we were playing sing sing sing, so i had a solo on the drum set, immediately after the solo my drum stick broke while we were in competition and i had to go the rest of the way with the broken drumstick and use the butt of it. About a month later at our schools art festival, we played sing sing sing again, and near the end of the song the bass mallet for the pedal just flew out so there was no bass drum for the end of the song.
At the end of last school year, this was 7th grade concert band, we were rehearsing this one really cool piece called "Awake the Iron", and I was on timpani. After we played our rep, the conductor called me out on how I was muting the timpani, because I was pressing down on the head, and he said "Instead of hearing 'bum bum bum, stop', I'm hearing 'bum bum bum, wEEE!'" And everyone, including me started laughing hysterically at it. Then, we had a rehearsal on April Fools Day. So as a reference to the conductor calling me out on my muting technique, my instructor told me to, on the very last note of the piece, to floor the tuning pedal and glissando up. So I did this, and the conductor just gave me this look of confusion and put his baton down without saying anything. All the rest of the percussionists were laughing hysterically at this, it was extraordinarily funny.
I march bass 5, I tripped over a sousaphone on the sideline and completely broke it
when I was back in high school. I was in battery during marching season and french horn during concert season, so I didn't really know how to properly play most, if not all, concert percussion instruments properly. We had two group, concert band and symphonic band, the symphonic band bass player couldn't go to the festival so the band director tell me to come and play the bass drum for symphonic band. I said yes, and did the performance. It was after the festival and came back, one of the drummers from a different period (our band is splits into two periods during school hours), told me that I was mocked by the judge for playing the bass drum wrong:
I play it with my left hand, instead of my right hand, while it was on the left of me. I didn't know that and nobody told me lol. And that's one of the embarrassing thing I did during my high school years lol
9:52 is that ditty I hear?
It is, my good man
Freshman year of marching band. I mainly played baritone, but we had a small trombone solo that I also played. We played through the solo, and when we went to march to our next dot, I forgot to lock my slide. While marching to the next dot, my slide fell off mid field. The trombone in front of me tripped over it, creating MASS CHAOS.
So this story takes place during freshman year when I was on front ensemble. We had just gotten back from an indoor drumline show and we had unloaded all of our equipment and left to go home. Little did I know I left my suspended cymbal from my xylophone on one of our trailers. I was aware of this but didn’t have the guts to ask the director to get it for me. So I ended up going through an entire week of practice before our next competition with no cymbal on my xylophone and the director, even the techs, didn’t notice it was gone. We finally reached the day before we left for our next competition and I thought I was home free but out of nowhere I get a direct text from the director of a picture of him holding my cymbal asking me why he found it on the trailer. It was the most awkward exchange of my life.
At a high school marching band competition where it had been raining all weekend, the natural grass field was in terrible shape due to the football game the night before. We ended up marching in thick mud. My fellow trumpet player friend had decided to show up wearing slip on shoes instead of the traditional laced shoes. While marching on the thick mud, his shoes slipped off his feet and he continued marching in just his socks. We marched off the field and our drum major had to run onto the field to pull my friend’s shoes out of the mud.
I'm in marching band at U of Arizona and this year (2022) we had an away game at San Diego State. Our director said if we got sick before the trip then just stay home, but here's the thing: I got sick DURING it so I just decided to perform anyway. It was SUPER hot that day as well because of a heat wave
at the end of my 8th grade year (the first year i was ever in band) we had spring camps for the marching season and i knew nothing about drumline. i was trying out for bass 2 because a buddy of mine told me i should and so we went to the room where they would teach us warm ups and technique and then we would head to visual. well as we were about to leave i asked the section leader to help me put the bass on the harness so we could leave and it wasn’t secure so halfway through the hallway it just dropped and made a super loud noise. at least i got 2nd bass lol.
In high school for our pre-game show, we basically would just run onto the field and end in our school abbreviation. One of our tenor players tripped over the orange pylon in the end zone and fell. He ended up going to the hospital in the ambulance, ended up with a broken rib.
so when I was a freshmen in high school, I played bass 4, and as we were walking back from the field to the band room after practice, we had to walk through the parking lot. well the parking lot was super old and had a ton of pot holes in it. since I couldn't see over my bass I ended up tripping in the pot hole, breaking the bass drum in half, and shoving 2 teeth into my upper jaw. I had to get braces and oral surgery multiple times over a span of 3 years to fix it
Damn!
So once upon a time in marching band season, we practiced outside so that drumline could get some sectional time alone. The winds were terrible and it didnt make it better that our drums were on stands. I played 2nd bass that season and the 3rd bass behind me set up his stand wrong and the wind ended up blowing his drum off the stand on to the concrete and down a hill bouncing all the way to the 50 yard line! Then, a genius move, he goes after it and ends up spraining his leg because he rolled down the hill with the drum. Needless to say his drum needed to be retuned...
My freshman year we had ladders as props. Somehow a ladder had fallen down during the halftime show and the sousaphones were marching backwards from the front of the field. One of the sousaphones tripled over it since he couldn’t see it and crushed the ladder. I saw how destroyed it was when he took it off the field after we finished 1st movement.
My last marching show of senior year. My left shoe came off during the show, the quad player next to me picked it up and threw it away from me, so I marched the rest of the show with one shoe and I didn't get it back until we were marching off when a clarinet player found it and gave it to me.
Speaking of awful band moments. Just the other day(I’m also a percussionist) me and another perc we’re putting the xylophone back and o e of the wheels fell off. I left the other guy to hold the xylo so I could put the wheel back on. He wasn’t lifting it high enough, so I pulled it up a bit and he lost his grip and the xylo fell over. No one was hurt, but bars were hanging off the side and it was embarrassing. Luckily the percussion teacher wasn’t in there at the time
And you can’t forget that memory, and of course it mate a LOT of noise... like, A LOt
This isn’t a story where I was involved, but it happened on our trip to Dayton during indoor season. My group stayed at a YMCA camp, and our head director was using the restroom in a stall. One of our snare drum players thought that someone from the ensemble was in there doing his thing, so he jumped onto the stall door and looked over. It was awkward because our director is a really respected guy so it was really weird.
Hey, my name is Emry.
I march bass drum in the Ohio State school for the Blind marching band.
Everyone in this band has a visual impairment, most people have a marching assistant to help them march on the field.
In my senior year of high school, we were marching through a 3 mile parade, and my marching assistant had to leave me marching by myself for a few minutes to help out another girl, who was struggling. next thing, I know the bottom of my shoes came out from under me I tripped and fell and busted my drum on the ground.
Luckily, I got back up and kept going as if nothing happened.
I have never fell while holding my tuba, but we were at a rehearsal marking our drill, for the 4th movement. My high school band director said reset. So I turned and ran to my set, but I didn’t realize the director was right behind me so when I turned to run. I slammed right in to his back, and I hurt my glasses so I just fell to the ground.
My pristine conn 20K got lots of dents and dings in it because other people don't seem to realize when somebody has a sousaphone, it takes up atoms and thus space and you can't phase through it. It got covered in dents and scratches and people always blamed me for not having eyes in the back of my head, even though my spatial awareness is better than most. it makes my blood boil just thinking of some of those people.
At our state competition in San Antonio, our band director sent out a very aggressive group message to the rest of the band asking for two of our students to come see the directors immediately. Turns out, those students climbed on top of the Alamodome and posted the video on snapchat. We were penalized 20 points as a result
My Senior year in high school it was a really rainy day and our band trailer has a wooden door with no grip tape. I was unloading the bass drum cart so I could get to my tenors, slipped and woke up on the ground 15 feet away from the trailer door, and the cart was 5 feet away from me. What happened was as I was unloading it by myself, I slipped, face planted into the handle of the cart, rolled down the trailer door along with the drum cart. The cart rolled over my head and all I got was a minor concussion because I'm built tough. I am responsible for at least 4 safety briefings and major unloading procedures.
This story is very recent (literally 5 days ago from when I'm writing this) It was our second show of our indoor drumline season and we had to drive a good 40 minutes away from our high school. We make it to the school that our show is taking place at and we're just unloading everything from our trailer. Once we unload our things to our zone we find out that some of our props were missing. Everyone is panicking looking for our props and we found one out of like 4 missing things. Not only that but after 30 minutes (at this point we're like an hour and a half before performing) turns out that a vibraphone player left their mallet bag at the school... that also had all of the cables and microphone. So while everyone is panicking even more, a pit tech had to drive the 40 minutes back to our school and get the mallet bag. Luckily the vibe player got their mallet bag. Unfortunately once we get back to our school we find all of the missing props they were ALL in the loading bay.
During my sixth grade concert, the band director not only made us restart a piece, but announced it to the entire audience who messed up.
A bird crapped on one of my quads in the middle of a practice run at band camp. I had to keep playing and the bird poop started splashing and got everywhere. Pretty gross. I also broke a drum head the day before a competition.
This isn't my personal story, but it is really funny so I though I would share.
So my band was playing at an away game. On the way to the stadium, the drumline was just having one of those weird drumline conversation (you know exactly what I'm talking about) when I spotted a fire hydrant in our path. I warned the rest of the drumline because the last thing we want is a broken drum, especially right before a performance. But of course one of my fellow drumline mates, let's call him Alex, had his airpods in! He ran is snare directly into the fire hydrant and popped his bottom head. He had to play what was practically a marching tom for the entire game. If that's not embarrassing enough, we later learned that he DID see the fire hydrant. He tried to STEP OVER IT. This dude is like 5'9" and his snare was DOWN. To this day, the drumline still doesn't know what went through Alex's head that day.
Music went through Alex’s head
In my first year of marching band, in 9th grade, (I was taking the snare drum) we had two parades, the second one was in front of the whole town as we marched down the rode. Right in the heart of the parade my stick slipped out of my hand. (It was wintertime and I was wearing gloves) I kept going, and tried to fake it until my instructor handed me the guys next to me stick.
Okay, this wasn't my band, but during a competition, a band was coming on the field and their gong fell, it made a huge crash and they flipped it over and then they saw that the gong had cracked right down the middle, they definitely didn't win best pit crew...
So the story about someone flattinging a trombone reminded me of one of my stories . So it was my freshmen year of highschool and we were on one of the last days of band camp and we were headed to the field to practice and we had a back field poteum were our drum major stood . So anyways one of my drum major in the middle of the show got off the podeum to play his trumpet so he set it next to the poteum and i was 4th bass so i couldnt see where i was going and ended up flattening my drum major (My best friends) trumpet
One time during band camp l was in the middle of a cymbal roll and my mallet head flew off. Thankfully the drum tech found it 20 yards away.
At the end of my sophomore year in high school band kids an I were cleaning our storage room, and my buddy the drum major grabbed a random stick on the floor saying "I'm gonna use this for sex !" not knowing the band director was behind him, only to say "It's not being thrown away, and it's not gonna be used for that !!! "
Someone pantsed me while I was carrying a bass drum on the stairs... seriously
Okay, so I'm a clarinetist. And this story comes from my sophomore year in high school. In the climax of the third movement of our show. We had a set that involved a gradual accel. To a sprinting Jazz run. After this set we transition straight into the woodwind feature that began our Fourth Movement. This Next set was very difficult to get to. So this Jazz run set Involved three lines running past each other And I was towards the end of one of these lines.
One time when we were rehearsing this set. The string that held drill book of the person in front of me snapped as she began to speed up causing the drill book to fall. With no time to react I tripped over it. I did a martial arts style roll on the ground and popped back up to my set just in time to play the woodwind feature.
Now my favorite part of this story Is that only two people saw me do this The person behind me and the woodwind caption head who is in the Box. And when it was her turn to hold the mic she said something like " AJ I have no idea how the heck you did that, but that was amazing." and handed the mic over So now the entire band was wondering what the heck this kid did.
My most awkward moment was when I was ran over but ironically a bass drum player and both of us hit the ground
So it’s my sophomore year in college, I’m center quad on my BEAUTIFUL line of 5 quad players(it was awesome). One rehearsal evening we’re cleaning up our opener drill and we happened to keep repping the one long haul for the drumline across the field. One of the cymbal players fall on the move and nobody stops. You can see pure terror from the other cymbal players, shock from the snares, and laughter exploding from the quads. The best part is we all just hopped over her on the ground WHO HAS NOT MADE AN EFFORT TO GET UP and one of the other cymbal players is literally yelling at her the whole time to get up and get back on the drill and just other profane things. At the end of the set our director asked if we were ok and all we can do is laugh. He asked if the cymbal player was alright too...she was but it was just a lot to process. I’ve learned I can hop a human being while crab marching with quads
Trombone here, in the opener for our show, the very first public run, we had these circles with tuba/trombone on the circle & 2 quads in the center jammin out(this later got changed). I had already nearly passed out from stage fright but to put the cherry on top, I hit the quad in the center of the circle, needless to say I Broke down after.
I remember this one time in 9th grade when me ( a percussionist ) and my boyfriend ( a tuba player ) snuck off to instrument storage and our band director came to find us and walked in to the storage area to find us in the middle of our make-out session.
One time in high school marching band we were performing our halftime show on the field and the flute section were slightly out of position and coming a little too close to the trombone section where I was. They were in front of us going right and we were behind them going left. We had very tall white plumes in our shakos and nobody wore the straps, so I personally removed roughly half a dozen flautist's shakos, one after another which were then promptly stepped on, kicked, tripped over, I think one person even got one stuck on their foot. The show went on and miraculously nobody mentioned it afterwards.
We did a Halloween parade freshman year, and three of the other snares all did the same decoration for their drums, and the other did something very similar. I made my own jenky decoration. It looked like crap. Everyone hated on it and I can't honestly blame them. This year's parade was much better. We dressed as chef boyardee.
Yo, we have the same name. That's so cool.
My freshman year I marched 4th bass and on the day of my first competition, we had just finished our morning practice and were walking off the field back to the band room. But i tripped over one of our props and my bass drum went rolling through the grass. Of course the rest of the battery came running to ask "IS THE DRUM OK?" The drum was ok but i had to march with a bruised leg at the competition that afternoon. And literally the same day after our performance, i fell *again* going up the stairs to the band trailer.
I ran into a vending machine with bass 5 on the way to a pep rally
3 times
My first year marching... during a competition the drum line was
re-forming a block but I was too close to the snares and my base caught the back of one of their uniforms. I had to turn around so we could get it off.
I was in Freshman year, our drum line changed together in the closet where we stored our drums. One night after a game and all was said and done, I was changed into my normal clothes getting ready to put my uni away when a junior bass drum player thought it would be HILARIOUS to pants me in front of the whole band room. (by this point everyone in the room had finished changing too, no unmentionables showing..yet) I was wearing some slim fit jeans at the time, and so yeah everything came down and my junk was on display for all to see, for about half a second. Everyone else LEAPT into action to cover me up and slam the doors closed. I to this day still don't know who saw my junk and who didn't.
Good times.
Bass 4 Freshman at my school was setting up her drum when she dropped it. And got a massive gash on her shin.
Freshman year first bass, playing our show at regionals, I blank out, and I move 8 counts before I'm supposed and run in to bass 2 behind me, no one falls, and in the post show reviews, apparently none of the judges noticed me, so that's sick
Note, bass 2 was behind me in the drill, and we were facing one of the ends of the field
It’s my freshman year and during one of our Football games we were in the bleachers playing some songs and cadences. Our Bassline leader said to lay our basses flat down on the bleachers as more comfy( keep in mind I have bass 4 in a 5 drum bassline) and during one of our cadences… I SMACKED MY DRUM IN THE END AND IT FELL FORWARD ON ONE OF OUR COLORGUARD. Lucky it fell ON BEAT SOMEHOW and the color guard was very chill abt it and helped me get it back up ASAP
Freshman year. I was in a pretty young marching band program. When we were performing our school song on the stands the 10 ft tall podium collapsed on our head band directer which squished his leg(he was fine, he was out of crutches 2 weeks later)
So here I was sophomore year... We were at our second band competition. We March around the field on the track and we go to march on to the 50-yard. As we turn to walk onto the field there's a giant metal bench that I didn't see because of my bass drum. So I trip over this bench and have to get up in set with judges staring at me
I have an awkward moment when I was in county band and I had to play cymbals( not a cymbal player at all, snare for life) and I had a song at 50 bpm and I had one note and came in one measure early. Then the second time through I didn’t have enough emphasis with my cymbal playing. Then I finally got it the third time and this was all in front of 200 upper class man since it’s not meant for freshman like me. Another experience is my first year of high school band and I got snare but every game I looked very out of place since I am almost a whole foot shorter than everyone else, but the one half time show against our rivals, I got way out of step and had to really run to get to with the snares since I have really short legs and it’s hard to run in it. Keep up with the great videos!
Also the director called me out in front of the 200 kids every time
During my freshman year indoor season, we had finished performing so we were in the stands watching others when a marimba player from my school came back from the bathroom a couple seconds before another group performed and so, knowing he isn’t supposed to walk around while other groups are performing he just stood in the middle of the bleachers a few steps up blocking everyone’s view and embarrassing our whole drumline
7th grade I played Bass 5, on the A line bc we had so many people they had to have two drum lines. Anyway on the way to the football field I hit my drum on a pole, and I fell back. Thankfully no one saw that one. Once we got to the football field, I tripped over the pylon, and fell on to the drum. My director saw it and check out the drum, then yelled at me. I walked on the field hit bass 4 during performance, keep in mind that I was tall, about 5’11” and could see over my drum. Walking off my drum fell or again, don’t know how it just did. Monday me and the director had a long talk. I played the tenors through high school. Collage got back on bass for the corps. I had a bad day:(
Ik I'm late but I have an amazing story. Freshman year we were at a football game. There were these little kids running up and down the stands in the band area where they weren't supposed to be. One of them their head on a tenor drum and sent it flying down the stands. Our band director just screamed "CATCH THE DRUM" as it was hitting and knocking people down left and right. The children were laughing demonically the whole time.
Fun story here.
First competition of the season. We just got changed and are about to head outside to warm up. Rookie on 3rd bass reeeeally has to take a dump. He runs to the bathroom, leaping and bounding by people and obstacles with ease like a wild rabbit. At the end of his journey, merely a few feet away from the bathroom, there were stairs. Naturally, stairs are bad. He hops the last few and on the landing, he hyperextends his knee and tears his ACL. Out for the rest of the season, absolute tragedy.
The kicker?
He shit himself on impact.
Freshman year I was on snare drum. We were at band camp in sectionals when they called us over to full ensemble. We were called last because we’re drumline so the whole band was already there. We ran to “The Chaple” which is where we have full ensemble when I tripped on a root, flipping over my snare drums and landing on my feet. A graduated assistant came up and took my drum off and checked on me. I was ok other than my ego getting destroyed.
I once fell down a flight of stairs while carrying my saxophone and nearly flattened it. Incredibly, I was able to take it to an instrument repair shop and got it back to a condition where I was able to still play it!
One time during a concert band show, I accidentally bit my lip while we were playing a piece, and audibly screamed. everyone heard it, and I still live with it.
Our lead trumpet's valves failed during a practice. When it came time for his solo, he sang it. It worked, but it sounded so bad that everyone was laughing. My director had just enough strength to call a water break before bursting into laughter himself
I have a story from when I was in 7th grade and our high school marching band was performing a halftime show with the middle school which consisted of a song and dance, then the middle school would march off the field and the high school would perform Script Ohio which was a traditional drill that they do for one of our state colleges, and during the dance, I did fine but when I crouched down to get my saxophone and hook it to the neck strap, I fell back, and I was rushing to get back up after everyone else , and I thankfully got my saxophone hooked to my strap. It kinda lowered my self confidence a little, thankfully, not that many people saw it, but it still haunts me, especially when I watch the halftime video that was published after the show.
DCI 2015: we were at a night show in Minnesota, and the field was grass and slick. We started our show by running around, and laying down in a form. I was running into my set, and I slipped and fell right onto the lead pipe of my euphonium. I was late getting into the form, so I had to roll into my dot (luckily, I wasn’t too far off). After we get up to begin the show, I find out my lead pipe got bent down, so I had to march the show with my head towards the sky.
So our drumline comes in the week before band camp to practice the show music and cadence's, and unfortunately, one of our bases were out the whole week, so our drumline instructor filled in her spot during sectionals to practice the runs.
This meant that snares were left unattended.
So we were practicing outside near a bridge, and right before it was over, one dude on snareline said he had to take a crap. We offered him money to go take a crap under the bridge. Not thinking he would actually do it, I sweetened the deal by saying I would pick up his sh*t with my bare hand if he did it.
Long story short, he did it, and as a man of my word, I stuck to my end of the deal. I now get called poopyhands by tons of people in the band.
The most awkward part was that when we got back from sectionals, we had a rehearsal of our music, and the bathroom was closed, so I didn't get to wash my hands until I got home after rehearsal. The entire drumline was just smiling laughing the entire run through of the music.
I'm dying
This was at our first show of the season, luckily it was just a jamboree, but our drum section leader was getting off the stands to go to the bathroom and his stand with the snare still on it fell over. It left a hole in the bottom and cut some of the snare wires.
Okay so maybe for the next one. My first year in marching band I was on bass 2. We went to ovacs long story short I tripped on a concrete parking block fell back and my bass came off the hooks and gave me a black eye. It's my third year now I'm on snare and that drum still scares me....