The Junior High School Band Concert by David Wagoner

The Junior High School Band Concert

by David Wagoner

When our semi-conductor

Raised his baton, we sat there

Gaping at Marche Militaire,

Our mouth-opening number.

It seemed faintly familiar

(We’d rehearsed it all that winter),

But we attacked in such a blur,

No army anywhere

On its stomach or all fours

Could have squeezed through our crossfire.

I played cornet, seventh chair,

Out of seven, my embouchure

A glorified Bronx cheer

Through that three-keyed keyhole stopper

And neighborhood window-slammer

Where mildew fought for air

At every exhausted corner,

My fingering still unsure

After scaling it for a year

Except on the spit-valve lever.

Each straight-faced mother and father

Retested his moral fiber

Against our traps and slurs

And the inadvertent whickers

Paradiddled by our snares,

And when the brass bulled forth

A blare fit to horn over

Jericho two bars sooner

Than Joshua’s harsh measures,

They still had the nerve to stare.

By the last lost chord, our director

Looked older and soberer.

No doubt, in his mind’s ear

Some band somewhere

In some music of some Sphere

Was striking a note as pure

As the wishes of Franz Schubert,

But meanwhile here we were:

A lesson in everything minor,

Decomposing our first composer.

I thought we could all use a sweet, fun, and funny poem today, and this one, by David Wagone, fits the bill. It was published in 1999, in his book Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems (University of Illinois Press).

The language is a giveaway that we are to laugh with the poet/speaker as he remembers his days in his junior high band. The conductor is a semiconductor. The comparison to an army is clearly tongue-in-cheek.

Stanza two is full of music references, interrupted by a "Bronx cheer." The third stanza, focusing on the very serious parents of the band members, plays with language to keep the tone light. Those proud and hopeful parents have to contend with paradiddle, brass bulled,

slurs, snares, and sooner, plus a Bible reference (again, showing the absolute "this is so not important in the scheme of things despite all of the people involved acting like it is" of this junior high school band concert).

The last stanza focuses on the band teacher, who, at the end of the ordeal, looks "older and soberer." He imagines a perfect school band somewhere out there.

The last three lines are perfection:

But meanwhile here we were:

A lesson in everything minor,

Decomposing our first composer.

In case you did not get the point earlier--these things that seem so important at the time are not; Wagoner even gets a musical word in here--minor. And more word play ties up the whole poem: decomposing/composer.

I hope this poem brought a smile to your face! I dedicate this post to my friends I spent my youth with, many of whom were in the band! Cheers!