What do you think when you hear the word percussion? Do you think dedication? Maybe you think awesome? Or of course you could always follow that old cliché and think......stupid. Whatever your opinion may be, when I think of percussion I think.......life. For the past three years I have been a percussionist at North Posey. Since my freshman year (definitely a learning year for me) I have come to think of percussion as a lifestyle.

When people talk to me about how it feels to be out on the field and playing I futilely strive to find the words, because what I feel on the field cannot be put into words. The best way to describe a good show would be to say that one experiences a complete unity with the world around them. It is like a forest to get lost in where the instruments are the trees and the music is the leaves whispering in the ear of the audience.

Some of you may be saying to yourself, He is exaggerating. I assure you that if you ever come to love something so much as I have then you will see what I mean. There is no other feeling better to me than that of playing a big hit and being able to feel the goose bumps raise not on my own skin but on that of the audience. Just last year we had props that we ran behind and right after one of those big hits a fellow snare and I were behind the props and all we could do to express ourselves is look at each other and scream and laugh.

The family aspect of being in band is heavy, but the family aspect of drum line is even more apparent than any other part of the band. When you spend as much time with these people as I do, then you tend to form bonds with them. They see you bleed, sweat, cry, get angry, become happy, or curse. They will see every side of you, but that is all right because you will see all those sides of them. You will share your problems with them, and they will be there to help you solve them. These people also see you at your best and your worst looking. At band camp it gets so hot that you have to invent a whole different form of touching simply because you are all so gross that you do not dare touch each other. They are the people you stand around with in the hot sun of band camp for three hours at a time coming up with some of the stupidest visuals known to mankind. These are the people that you laugh with at the stupid jokes on the popsicle sticks at band camp. These are your people.

There are, of course, the sad aspects of this lifestyle. You see some of your best friends come and go with the years. I, being a senior in this upcoming year, have seen some of the best friends I have ever had come and go and will never forget the friendships I formed with them during all the times we shared together. I still remain in contact with all of them one way or the other and we still reminisce about the days where the phrase Run that one more time was the staple phrase of the day.

This next year being my last, I will either be the section leader of the percussion section or I will share great responsibility. After this year, I will be the person with the most marching experience in the line. This will be a big change since I was always the nuisance to the section leader constantly inquiring as to when it was ok to breathe and where to move when it was time to do so. It will be a big difference finally being the one to whom the underclassmen come to and ask, Am I really human, or just an endlessly wandering newbie? If you were to ask my section leader from my freshman year who was the biggest pain to deal with he would, probably not in the most loving way, instantly tell you that it was me who was constantly letting my eyes drift from place to place, or scratching my leg when we were supposed to be at attention. Since then though, even he will tell you that I have shed the exoskeleton of that former self and have undergone an evolution of sorts.

Every year in our band we go to see a DCI show of some kind. My freshman year we went and saw Drums on the Ohio at Reitz, my sophomore year we went to the Midwestern Finals at Da Dome as we have lovingly referred to it, and this past year we went to Drums Between the Rivers at Murray State. From the first to the last note of each show I was telling myself that I would do that one day if I had anything to say about it. I went to DCI finals last year and the biggest thrill of my life was getting to hear all twelve of the top corps in the nation play the America/O’Canada Medley in unison. Hearing them play this was like feeling the ocean sweep over you. If you would have asked me three years ago what I thought of that I probably would have told you it was no big deal, but after these years of marching band I would now tell you that I have never heard anything more beautiful and flowing than that. You may ask, What does this have to do with anything I had been previously talking about? Well, since I have joined the percussion, marched shows, absorbed the crowd’s energy into myself, and was humbled by the experiences this great pastime had to offer I have become a different and better man. I will never regret the times I have experienced in this family.

In Loving Memory of Joshua Allen Palmer