Our high school band played "Sleigh Ride" every year. It took me years to hear that song again and not cringe, and to this day, I still can only tolerate the version by the Squirrel Nut Zippers.
Sadly, most of my high school band memories are negative because the evil man who taught it was one of the biggest jerks I have ever met in my entire life. He made someone cry at least once a day. You should not make people cry over how they play music, unless it's that they're so good it brings tears to one's eyes. My mom used to feel bad for him that there would be a long line of angry parents waiting for him at every parent/teacher conference day, but admitted that he deserved it. I was an extremely well-behaved, goody-two-shoes type in high school and even I got involved in the passive-aggressive behaviors we used to get back at him.
Incidentally, he's even the reason why I only ever learned the right hand in piano as a kid. My mom had heard of him when we were young for private music lessons. I think I was about 7 at the time. I hated him so much even then that I refused to continue and my mom cancelled the lessons. He told my sister that she'd never make it to high school band with her flute and not only did she do so, she stuck it out the whole four years. For my part, I also made it to high school band with my flute, but only did two years before fleeing to the select choir.
Anyway. The point of all this is to demonstrate the difference between your fond high school band memories with an instructor who got through to you and let you have fun, and my cringe-worthy ones. And the point of THAT probably got lost in there somewhere.
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Sadly, most of my high school band memories are negative because the evil man who taught it was one of the biggest jerks I have ever met in my entire life. He made someone cry at least once a day. You should not make people cry over how they play music, unless it's that they're so good it brings tears to one's eyes. My mom used to feel bad for him that there would be a long line of angry parents waiting for him at every parent/teacher conference day, but admitted that he deserved it. I was an extremely well-behaved, goody-two-shoes type in high school and even I got involved in the passive-aggressive behaviors we used to get back at him.
Incidentally, he's even the reason why I only ever learned the right hand in piano as a kid. My mom had heard of him when we were young for private music lessons. I think I was about 7 at the time. I hated him so much even then that I refused to continue and my mom cancelled the lessons. He told my sister that she'd never make it to high school band with her flute and not only did she do so, she stuck it out the whole four years. For my part, I also made it to high school band with my flute, but only did two years before fleeing to the select choir.
Anyway. The point of all this is to demonstrate the difference between your fond high school band memories with an instructor who got through to you and let you have fun, and my cringe-worthy ones. And the point of THAT probably got lost in there somewhere.