For Max the Japanese American Gray Haired Kitty on St. Patrick's Day

Everything I learned about teamwork, conformity, competition, creativity, harmony, love, inspiration, and jealousy I learned in junior high band. And as the kids of the Ramsey Junior High School band showed last Thursday night in their spring concert, the lessons are still being learned.

Under the direction of Maestro Bruce Maeda, the kids of Ramsey put on a performance full of the emotions, skills, squeaks and squawks of the best of junior high bands, orchestras and choirs. With the musical notes swirling in the air, I couldn't help but remember back to my own days as the first chair trumpet of Parkview Junior High.

Being the youngest member of a musical family, by the time I studied under the sleepy eye tutelage of Mr. James Kelley, it was just expected that I would be a talented musician. While lacking the technique of my brother or the discipline of any of my sisters, my talents depended more on my ability to stand apart from the rest. One of the first reviews came from Mrs. Sally Olson who commented to her son (later to be my best friend) Steve, that the band sounded good but all anyone could hear was the little oriental kid on trumpet.

The best part of junior high band was the camaraderie and the shared times. The worst part was having to try to sound like all the others around you and before you. Though I later learned to better blend my sounds with the rest of my bandmates, I never quite mastered the styles or the behaviors that were expected of me. I was good enough to stay out of trouble but rebellious enough to keep the band from being better than it was. I remained one of the more recognized leaders of the band, along with our wonderful first chair clarinetist, the fabulous Susan Weiss. One of the major reasons to be involved in music was to have an outlet for expression for all the emotions roaming inside. For me, Sue was the compass, the inspiration behind and for whom my musical attempts were meant to reach. Many days of junior high and senior high were made much easier listening to the dulcet tones of Ms. Weiss, and making eye contact and realizing no matter how much angst existed inside, one should never take themselves, or their teenage life too seriously.

Playing in a band was much like playing for an athletic team. Early in the process, we sounded rough, trying to find the right notes, the right balance, the right way to interpret our sounds together. Through practice and repetition and the molding of Mr. Kelley's vision, we somehow turned the notes on the paper in front of us into something uniquely our own. Individually Mr. Kelley had to allow us a little freedom (I forever frustrated him with my posture and unorthodox style) while still melding the sounds of the many into something coherent. One person could screw up all the rest.

Later on my attitude suffered so much that Robbie Hanson and I spent most of our junior year of high school improvising our parts and adding a dissonant sound to the rest of the band. I never found the right combination between being myself and being part of the group. Now I understand that contradiction, then it was just one mass of confusion. How can you be what you think you should be when it doesn't mix with the rest of the group? The one time it worked, the one memorable moment of productive triumph was during one of our final concerts in our performance of The Russian Sailors Dance when Mr. Kelley cut us off four measures earlier than he was supposed to, or from what we had practiced and were used to. Some of the band stopped, some did not and the mixture of sound and silence left a horrified look on everyone's face including the usually calm and serene Susan Weiss. Nobody knew what to do. Should we skip four measures ahead, regroup and hope we all ended up together? Or should we stop and end the piece right then and there? I took a look at Ms. Weiss and could swear she smiled and nodded as I jumped in and started playing. Sue joined in and the rest followed and somehow we all survived the chaos and the mess and maybe no one in the audience ever noticed it wasn't the way it was supposed to be.