The hammer comes down with violent, crushing blows. With every thump I feel the brittle structure compromising before me. I know this hunk of iron can’t take much more of this punishment but I have to keep up the tempo. Then, with one final swing, there is a cringe-inducing scream of metal collapsing and the whole thing shatters into a thousand pieces and all eyes are on me. My face turns scarlet as the entire ensemble of the band gawk at the one kid who managed to break the most indestructible instrument.

I walk into my first class on the first day of junior high, the sun isn’t awake and the world hasn’t been programmed yet. This vast room before me is illuminated by harsh fluorescent lights and has the scent of dust bunnies and pine sol. There are massive steps that take up the entire width of the building with various black cases littered throughout the room. The muggy August air leaves a blanket in the atmosphere with no window to flee. I disappear into the sea of my peers and find a nook in the corner to stand. This place is strange and has unique gadgets and gizmos all along the back of the room. I feel nervous, I will for the next few months. Little do I know that I will come to love this musty old room.

During my odyssey throughout junior high, I have changed in every sense of the word. I used to be a slight, wiry fella with milk chocolate hair and dark chocolate eyes. I had never played sports as a kid, thus I was skin and bone and freckles. You could regularly find me wearing sweatpants and hoodies with skateboard shoes even though I couldn’t skateboard. I was the kind of kid that you could simply look at and tell that I was an introverted loner just from body language. Everyone knew of me, lots of people knew me, but few people actually achieved the status of friend. It sounds like a sad story, but that was just how I wanted it. Throughout band, I found a real sense of community and made some amazing friendships. This was one of the first places that I found so many like-minded individuals whom I could talk on end with about all the things I love. With these people I found my own charisma and brought it with me into life.

Although I enjoyed band, it had its fair share of bad points. I started to have doubts about continuing with band around the end of my eighth grade year, and I almost dropped the class on my freshman schedule but I am glad I didn’t. When I walked into the high school, it was a similar experience to the first day of Junior High. I had come from being the top dog to the lowest on the food chain, a great white in the safari. Everything was foreign and I was lost in a labyrinth. Then at the end of the first, anxious day of school, I stepped into my last hour and was greeted with the old familiar smell of dust and cleaner that took me back to a warm and safe place. I spy all the friendly faces I’ve gotten to know and was welcomed by the ensemble. That safe class really helped me get used to the high school and I’m thankful for that.

Over my career in band class, I have played a number of questionable instruments as a percussionist. You have your standard snare drum, bass drum and symbols, but the interesting things include a vibrating stick, a tube filled with rice, jugs of water and even just thumping a shelf with a drumstick. However, my favorite by far is a brake drum from a Honda Civic with an old cookie sheet draped in top of it. I played this monstrosity of sound by thwacking it with a claw hammer from an old toolbox. This lovely instrument was appropriately dubbed “the clang”. I love this concoction not only because it is so random, but because it represents my final year and essentially my entire experience in the school’s band. Although I liked being a part of the band, I seldom ever boasted about it or told everyone. Yes, it was fun to play music and yes, I am good friends with some of the people in the class, but the attitude and the personality of the majority of the band students never signed up with my own. I never truly saw band class as a family like lots do, I saw it as an activity. That is why the clang resonated with me so much. It is lots of fun and a novelty, but it is far from an instrument, just like I was a good band student but I never took on the full experience.

I started playing the clang around the autumn of 2016. By smacking the brake with my hammer every day, I could see the progression of metal wearing away as I continued to grow apart from the band community. The clang began to show slight cracks and minor chips but it performed its job nonetheless. It ironically reached its breaking point during one of the last times it was supposed to be played. We were running through the song and I could feel the structural integrity shifting with every swing. The once indestructible iron now felt brittle and soft. I kept pounding away then I brought down the fateful straw that broke the camel’s back and the ring of metal shattered and collapsed. I took one of the many shards from the rubble as a souvenir.

To this day I still carry that piece of brake drum around with me in my backpack. The fragment is about three inches long and is a dark charcoal color. It has some jagged edges but it mostly smooth. I carry it to serve as a reminder of all the memories I made with the band, the good and the bad. These experiences helped mold me into the person I am today and if I went back in time, I wouldn’t change a single thing.