Sometimes, what the heart wants is not always what’s best. Taking a step back and making a mature yet difficult decision can lead to happiness. If someone had asked me which college I wanted to attend in my sophomore year of high school, I would have said Ohio State University, yet somehow, I still ended up at ASU, just 30 miles from my hometown. I have always been a colossal band nerd. For the past five years, I have eaten, slept, breathed, and lived marching band. My experience in music embodies my path into adulthood and life-changing decisions.

My passion for band started in fourth grade when my older sister joined the middle school band. Her passion started after she sat in on a band practice when there wasn’t a substitute for one of her classes, and the students needed somewhere to go. Later in the semester, the local high school hosted a middle school night, inviting middle school students to come and play with them in the stands at a football game, which my sister took part in. Being the little brother who couldn’t be left home alone, I had to go as well. I remember walking into the stadium after the band with my mom, in complete awe of them. I can still imagine the tubas swinging in time to the drum cadence and the way the lone silver tuba among four gold ones gleamed in the stadium lights. I don’t know what captivated me, but I’m glad it did. I decided on the spot that I would be in band so I could be like them.

I began concert band in middle school. My playing embodied my young ambitions. At the time, my instrument, the trumpet, reflected my personality — loud, extroverted, flashy. I wanted attention and worked hard to get it. If that meant putting in hours a day on the trumpet to catch the eye of my band director or outlandishly taking shots of pickle juice out of bikini-shaped shot glasses, I would do it. Still a child in many ways, I had lots of growing to do before I could move on to the next phase of life. As the end of middle school approached, the need to grow up became more apparent. I was going to high school, a place where I would spend my last years of childhood, and I needed to be ready for whatever came after. 

I started the hellish experience that is high school band camp in the deadly heat of an Arizona summer. The tuba was excruciating to pick up and move, and every day was harder than the last. I was hot and exhausted for weeks. Everything hurt. Despite thinking I was going to drop dead at any moment, I survived and started the school year.

During concert season, I worked on my playing skills and found out that I’m not bad at the tuba: I was one of only four freshmen in the competitive symphonic wind ensemble. I devoted all my free time to the instrument. I had rescued an old, decrepit tuba from a friend’s trash — I saw its potential.

Just when I got it working again, I took it apart to give to a family friend who paints low-rider cars for a living; he said he would give it a custom paint job for me. With every breath, I craved the tuba. I started practicing more — enough that I was selected to be in the tuba section during my junior year and qualified for the Juniper Regional Band, the most difficult to get into in the state. Tuba was no longer just a hobby; it was part of my identity. 

This realization was a turning point. I tried even harder and got further. I started growing up. I became more responsible by taking on more projects in school and becoming a section leader in my band, in addition to working a part-time job. Other people took me seriously, too. My parents stopped treating me like a child and saw me as the adult I quickly became. I attribute this self-growth to pushing myself in music. More importantly, I took myself seriously. I realized that I had potential, and it would mean wasting a chance at a meaningful life if I didn’t aim higher than my part-time job and high school marching band.

Despite my band being a second home for me, the place I could become the best version of myself, it also functioned as a source of personal anguish. During my senior year, I struggled with my home and personal life. Marching band had always been a way for me to express myself, but in my senior year, stress and anxiety cast a dark shadow over every part of my life, including the parts that previously brought me the most happiness. Issues I had before were somehow amplified by having to go to practice every day. Any personal progress from the years leading up to my emotional downfall quickly dissipated.

When I thought all hope for me was lost, I turned to my band friends and realized that, without them, I would never have found my passionate self or maybe even be alive. For the second time, band became my foundation for rebuilding myself stronger than before. This cemented my need to continue my band career. 

Growing up means making decisions. I had always looked up to Ohio State University’s marching band: “The Best Damn Band In The Land.” For years, I wanted to be like them, just like I wanted to be in the high school band as a fourth grader. I really thought I was going to be, too — I was wrong. Financial reality can be brutal sometimes. Knowing I couldn’t afford OSU unless I wanted to be in debt into my mid-forties, I didn’t bother applying. With a heavy heart, I applied in-state, to ASU, knowing I was giving up on my dream. But at least I was going to make it through college without draining my parents’ accounts. Debt-free was better than dotting the “i” in “Script Ohio” (an OSU pregame tradition where The Best Damn Band In The Land spells “Ohio” in cursive, and a tuba player is the dot of the “i”). I was crushed, but I still needed to do band since it was the main source of my happiness. I needed something to keep my spirits up. I decided to make the most of my situation and started researching my options at ASU. I quickly learned I had been sitting on a goldmine for years without knowing it. The ASU Sun Devil Marching Band is one of the best marching bands in the country and in 1991, received the John Philip Sousa Foundation Sudler Trophy, the highest award in collegiate marching bands. Signing my name on my application to the SDMB felt scarier than signing my contract with ASU, but I pushed through.

Going to pre-band-camp events was terrifying. No one else from my high school had joined me, and I didn’t know anybody. Walking onto the practice field with 350+ strangers was the most intimidating thing I’ve ever done. I’m so glad I went through with it. Division I athletics definitely has its perks. After coming from an underfunded program in rural Arizona, a state well-known for slashing education budgets, I felt spoiled by the ASU budget, especially because I didn’t need to pay hundreds of dollars into the program as I did in high school because my tuition covered it. Instantly, I was awarded shirts, shorts, pants, a jacket, a backpack, a water bottle, food, and countless hours of top-rated instruction from the state’s best music educators. Though this is nothing compared to the stuff athletes get, it was life-changing. This last season has been one I wouldn’t trade for anything. Though a lifetime hasn’t passed yet, I know at the end of it, I will still be friends with the strangers I was so scared of in the summer of 2022. I’m happy I couldn’t afford to go to OSU because, if I had, I wouldn’t have become part of the SDMB.

This semester marks the end of my career thus far, but hopefully, I can start again in the fall. Through college band, I have matured immensely. My transition from a terrified high school student to a confident and comfortable college student taught me that good things can come from what initially seemed like a bad situation. I’ve become more adult in my decision-making by making life-changing choices, such as going to college and joining band, regularly. I can stand up for myself in ways I never thought I could a year ago, like when I was able to say no to participating in the well-known and wild ASU party scene because band practice and my education are more important. This year, I have learned how to become a better, more functional individual as I near the end of my metamorphosis through the band.

I was wrong, and that’s probably for the best. Some say to make the most of a bad situation, but the situation was never bad; I just didn’t realize how good it was. I love doing band and getting to pursue it, possibly one last time at this level, is the greatest privilege I’ve had. Doing band has been the most formative experience of my life so far.