This was the slogan I designed for our band t-shirts my senior year in high school. That along side a treble clef on fire looked pretty cool and other band geeks out there couldn’t help but smile when they saw it and nod in agreement.

I became a band geek before I even picked up my saxophone. My brother started playing drums two years earlier and from then on, I knew I was destined for the long hours in practice rooms, forgetting to take my neck strap off, and carrying reeds in my pocket (never knew when you might need them), and sometimes wishing my horn was a missile launcher in case I had to save the world.

After only a couple years playing I began to discover that the sections of musicians’ personalities were made up of the same type in each group. The trumpets, tubas and trombones; all of them acted the same, depending on which instrument they played. Playing a bari sax, the only one in the whole band, I was able to make these observations. If you’ve been in a band long enough and you think about it, you know it’s true. The instruments they played very much reflected the personalities of the players themselves. I will explain now the different personalities that make up a concert band.

As a side note, I have played all of these instruments at one point and played at least one line of music well so I could understand a little of what it was. Plus, I used to be a music major and it was part of the classes.

These descriptions apply to the ones who were the most serious about band.

We’ll start with the flutes. “This thing is soooo heavy, I can’t march with it!” or “Can you get the door for me?” were the most common things I heard on the field or walking into a room, looking over at them with a tuba on my shoulder with a sudden urge to want to “accidently” hit them with the bell. Those phrases, though, were mainly made by the flute players who weren’t geeks in the truest sense. Most flute players, whether they cared about band or not, generally made sure their hair was done nice, makeup looked good, and spoke only to each other. Occasionally, they would spare a word for a clarinet player. Not all flutes were like this, but the majority were. Though they would, when they knew you were having a bad day, do what they could to cheer you up, and they were always the first to give you a compliment and mean it. As flighty and as prim as they could be at times, they were sweet people.

Piccolos set themselves apart by taking the lead and the more challenging parts in the solos. Imagine having to make that tiny little stick be heard over the entire band. They were a lot like flute players, except they would always open a door and were more concerned about other things than their hair and makeup.

Clarinets are tricky to place. They share the melody with the flute players and a lot of the same hair and makeup concerns. Another group who kept to themselves. I noticed it was the really good clarinet players that were the nicest; the less talented players were bitter and had a tendency to show it.

Then there were the bassoons and oboes, the double reed instruments. They were great people– two of my closet friends played these. Most of the ones I met were a little quirky but extremely intelligent. They were rarely arrogant and never showed off. Most of them were normally required to switch from one instrument to another. They were real troopers; they often had to learn how to play another instrument within a month before a concert. They were very dedicated band geeks.

Now for the saxophone section. There are three types of saxophones common to the concert band, for three different personalities.

The altos were a group who liked to have fun, but sometimes I highly doubted anyone other than them realized what they were talking about. I played alto for a long time before I went to bari so I remember this. Altos would talk to anyone around them and they had fun, but they were never really ones to disturb the band on purpose. You wouldn’t usually hear them complain and when you did, they normally had a good reason. Unfortunately, altos also had a tendency to be a little pretentious and not realize it.

There are normally two tenor saxophones in a band and they are cards. Great musicians, but I noticed that if there was a break in their part, they would space out either talking with each other or daydreaming and about 3 notes before they were supposed to play again they would ask each other where they were in the music. Sometimes they didn’t make it in until three notes after they were supposed to play, followed by a very quick, “Oh sh*t!” But I had to hand it to them– they never got caught, and they had some of the best band spirit in the group.

In the last of the woodwinds, too, is my instrument, the baritone saxophone.

There is generally only one player with this instrument. Someone normally starts playing either in middle school or high school. Most kids are just too damn small to play it till then. My fingers are about an inch shorter than the average player and I had to take the thumb rest off of it so I could reach the notes, but I love it. I was normally a woodwind who felt more like a brass player. I played most of the same parts as the tubas, trombones, and baritones, and I could play just as loud as any of them. I’ll admit that we’re a strange breed; no two are the same. Most of us spent time observing and watching those around us. We tried to sit back and be calm but when you weren’t looking we knew how to be a little sly and go unnoticed when pulling a prank, and we never got pranked back. We were usually serious when playing but other times we just sat back and went with the flow.

Now we go to the brass.

French horns were brass players who could be… how do I put this delicately… up tight. Don’t get me wrong, they were nice people, but lacking in sense of humor. Jokes that almost any other normal human being would understand and sarcasm just seemed to hit a brick wall. Either they heard and didn’t understand, or heard and decided not to acknowledge it. Fine musicians and my props to being able to play the french horn– I tried my hand at it a couple times and it wasn’t easy. But lighten up and get a funny bone and when I say that, I don’t mean perform surgery to take one out of someone else. There was one in high school whom I still stay in contact with, who probably didn’t know what to think when he first met me. But eventually he got his funny bone. Our high school band went to Paris to march in a parade and I hooked him up with one of my friends– now they’re married.

We’ll move on to the tuba section. I marched a tuba for a semester and discovered that the low brass section have a very high opinion of themselves. I even had a bit of that when I played. But how can you not when you have this huge hunk of metal; when the chance came to play fortissimo, nothing made you feel better. Normally they were quiet except with other low brass players, or the bari sax players and percussion. They just knew that not many understand the power behind a tuba until they try it.

Now the baritone horn. I marched this one when I was in my first year of college. Yeah, that was fun. I hadn’t practiced in a couple years and they stuck me on a solo with it. It’s sad, really. There are a few out there who really do love to play it, and it is a very lovely sounding instrument. Baritone horn players are generally tuba players or trombone players who have graciously given up their first choice to play the baritone because baritones were needed. That means those who played it had the ultimate sense of duty. They were generally quiet individuals with a sense of pride, knowing that when they picked up the horn they had to learn to play it very quickly and very well, and they all did it wonderfully. Nobody made fun of the baritone players or gave them grief in the low brass section. If for no other reason than they knew it could as easily have been them. I have seen them learn to love playing it, though their first instrument of choice was still their favorite.

Trombone players were the unsung comedians of the band. Always making quick and witty remarks that you wouldn’t have gotten if you weren’t listening at just the right moment. They always looked like perfect angels, but every now and then you could catch a shimmer of mischief in their eyes. Then you couldn’t help but keep an eye on them. They were funny and good people, but were never above knocking their slide into your elbow or leg on purpose because you annoyed them, or just because they felt like it.

Trumpet players wanted to think they were the comedians in the band and that they ran the place, but they didn’t carry either of those torches. They could be very funny sometimes. Once the band director told every single trumpet that if they couldn’t hear the bari sax player they were playing too loud. That got every one of them either whispering to me or tossing notes that said “Play Louder”. They never did seem to learn how to control their volume. Trumpets are just a bunch of fun loving folks, but when it came time to be serious they made sure that everyone else was doing their job too.

Finally, we come to a group that is near and dear to my heart: percussion.

My big brother is a percussionist as were many of his friends in high school. Thanks to him always taking me to the drum line practices (it was the only way I could get him to take me to school), I have never needed to use a metronome and if I got lost while marching on the field I didn’t look at the drum major; I just listened to the drum line and I could find my place.

The drum line were the true bad asses of the band. They wielded raw power, working up a sweat and building muscles so they could keep the heart beat of the band going steady. With just a look from them they could put anyone back into check if they were screwing around or doing something they didn’t like. You wanted to be on their good side. Having my big brother on the drum line was good and bad. Nobody ever dared to mess with me my freshman year because they knew the entire drum line would be on them for it. I spent a lot of time with them and my brother outside of school and they looked after me and my younger sister like they were our brothers. Not that I needed them to look after me, but they couldn’t help it. The bad side was that I had to keep the beat and I couldn’t screw up. If I had ever lost the beat or messed up on the marching field, I would’ve had a drum stick shoved up my ass sideways. I learned to get real good real fast to the point that after my brother graduated, both my junior and senior year and even my freshman year in college I won the march downs.

All in all, there was one thing that every single member of the band had in common, from the most serious players, to those there who were just trying to get a credit: pride. When you marched onto that field or walked on stage a sense of honor and duty came over you. It sounds cheesy and it is, but it’s the truth of all band geeks of present, past, and future.

Lady B