Sometimes you just need to show up
| When I was in high school, I won a spot with the Madison Scouts drum and bugle corps. We toured the entire U.S. doing shows the summer after graduation in 1994, and it was one of the highlights of my life.
The “corps song” is You’ll Never Walk Alone, from the musical Carousel. The arrangement that the corps played has a solo written in where the words, “Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown” occur in the song. It’s considered a great honor to be able to play the solo, and since I only played with the group for one year, I wasn’t able to do it. You must be in your 3rd year or higher to do so (that was the rule back then, it may have changed since.) You’ll Never Walk Alone was of course one of my favorite songs of all time from that point on. And not having played the solo with the corps was one of my big regrets. I had joined the army, so performing with them again wasn’t an option. I even asked the leadership if I could play it with the group years later, even if it’s a rehearsal, just so I could say I did it, scratch it off my bucket list. They said, “No, I’m sure you’re a great player, but it’s for members only.” Okay, fine. It’s not meant to be. Then 2014 comes along and the Madison Scouts are for some reason selected to perform in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and they open it up to former members who might want to join in. There were over 450 total in the group in a massive formation going down the streets of New York.
We had rehearsals for a couple of days prior to the parade, or maybe it was just one day, I don’t remember. All of a sudden, during the rehearsal, it’s announced we’re going to play the corps song. Okay, sounds good, we all think. Then one of the staff members comes right to the place where I’m standing (in the second row) and says, “We need a trumpet player to play the solo.” Immediately my hand shot up. “I’ve got it,” I said. And if I may be so bold, I nailed it. I played it on a borrowed horn (mine wasn’t silver) and a plastic mouthpiece because it was going to be super cold out. And so I got to scratch that off my bucket list. I think the youtube has over 50k views – far more than if it was performed at DCI Finals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qj19BYVJyg The solo starts around the 1:15 mark. Sometimes all you need to do is show up, allow fate to do the rest. |
