band for four years?

TotallyTrudy
Sat, 28 Feb 2015 12:47:01 +0000

Hi! I’m a junior. I was in marching band for two years (9th + 10th) and this is my third and last year in concert band. I play clarinet and really loved it. I took private lessons, made county-wide, region-wide, and state-wide honor ensembles. I truly had a passion for clarinet, but my band director is probably one of the worst people I’ve ever met. I could rant on and on, but to keep it brief, the way he taught us students was absolutely horrible and he made miserable, and consequently I lost so much interest in band that I’m quitting clarinet all together at the end of the school year. (I may try to pick it up again in college.) Anyways, I was able to join a lot more activites this year and try out things I would’ve never done before since band took up so much time! For example, I’m apart of a half marathon training group, something I couldn’t have done because band took up all my time on Saturdays.
As far as quitting band, don’t be afraid to. A girl from my school was in concert band in 9th and 10th grade. She quit after those two years and she was REALLY good. She quit because it was bringing her GPA down. But she was also apart of a very prestigious auditions-only youth orchestra unaffiliated with our school. So even though she wasn’t in band in school, she was still active in music in a way that was not too time consuming. And she’s currently attending Harvard btw.
So quitting band is certainly not jeopardizing your college application, and imo marching band is really only noteworthy on an application if you’re in leadership. So it’s alright to quit if you feel the need to, because you can always find an alternative activity to do, be it a youth orchestra or even something that’s not related to music. Good luck and don’t stress out too much over this!