Day 70 - A Proud View from the Pit Band

Today's post is from senior band member Leah Pinault

I want to take these next few minutes to tell you, whoever you are reading this, about the one thing in my high school career that makes all the stress and long hours and lack of sleep truly worthwhile. I want to tell you about a family, a dedicated, creative, cooperative, loving family that emerges every October and lasts for a lifetime. This family is the musical family. Before you dismiss it as cliché, hear me out. 

Starting only a few weeks into school, we spend every waking moment together. We're simultaneously dealing with the stress of piling up homework and late nights and trying to make this awful thing come together. All of us equally hate it and are in love with it. It consumes our days, determining our social life (or lack thereof), when we get to start our homework, etc. But it also lets us express our talents and the thing we love most: music. There are dark, dark times, but slowly light can be seen at the end of the tunnel. We are panicking more than usual, but we finally love what we're creating. 

We've become a community, a family that screams together and laughs together. We blurt out the songs that have been stuck in our heads for weeks, singing as horribly as possible, twirling and laughing until our scene is called. When we can't take the heat any longer, a joyful trumpet decides to teach us to twerk or talk in British accents. In the pit, we text each other nonsensical things, establishing inside jokes that would mystify an outsider. At the last moment possibly feasible to humans, we are ready to perform. 

The night comes and we are giddy with excitement. The air has a perpetual haze of hairspray to it but we breath it in like life itself. Defying all logic, the show goes well. There is late night Perkins, cast parties, and Bdubs to celebrate. Sunday night, when we are striking the set, we are so glad it's over, but we are going to miss it more than anything. Though the experience has come to an end, the relationship with the people involved has not. Friendships will continue to grow until next year, next October, when it all starts again. This family will come back together stronger than before, singing, playing, and laughing louder than ever. 

 

Leah Pinault

Pit Band

Cast and Crew of Copacabana

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