Finding a vibe in Ill Suburbia

Michael Tommer
Sep 1, 2018 · 4 min read

I’ve been living in Monroeville now for almost a year. I’ve gone almost a year without hearing a rim shot or a silent four. Last fall I left Kansas City to come up here a get married to a woman that essentially waited on me to grow up and heal for over thirteen years. Leaving Kansas City was the best thing I’ve ever done but it was also the hardest.

Before I left, I had the pleasure and honor of volunteering for the previous five years in the same music program that created me. I met Reginald May when I was fourteen. I was one of a very few pale faces in a room and this phenom of a black man was yelling at me and I somehow liked it. As much as I want to and could tell you about this band and its storied legacy, that is not the mission of this story.

When I first got up here, I met Nichelle. She was in seventh grade that year. I met here while I was standing in my lot having a cigarette early one morning. She was carrying her clarinet up to the bus stop. A series of short conversations over the next few months would point me in the right direction. This is yet to be seen.

A couple weeks after the wedding, I reached out to her band director, at Gateway. He invited me over to rehearsal. For the next week I dreamed of this melting pot of a school, in this melting pot of a community, playing the HBCU arrangement of ESPN, over time. The evening that I showed up for my first rehearsal, the director was late and had actually forgotten that I was coming. I briefly met his staff and was given the district’s criteria for volunteer workers. He expressed to me in so many words that he could simply use another set of eyes during practice and that I was free to advise.

There were no introductions. There was no pomp or circumstance. I’m okay with all of that. The director actually seemed unbothered as to me being there at all. The only thing that felt like a bother was me for being there. I felt out of place. I was helping a band director, in southwest Pennsylvania, in the suburbs. The only familiarity that I found was being out on that parking lot.

The school that I was at, is actually comprised of three. This is a complex of a school. I’ve never seen anything like it. Their band room could house the one that I have spent so much time in. They have their own wood shop for making props for shows, and volunteers doing just that. The band room was encircled by trophy after trophy. I just didn’t see character or identity. What I did see were all of the signs of suburban money. These young people had resources and facilities that I nor the young people that I served for so long could only dream of. I have a hunch that most of this is by and large was taken for granted by most of the people involved.

Practice would then proceed. The students were proficient within their craft. For the most part they seemed disciplined. My assumptions regarding this band were correct and they were totally core style. Even the Marching Stallions were a core style band at on point and could easily return to that for a show. I immediately recognized what I had learned many years before. The heel to toe marching. What I did not recognize was that core style marching has gotten outright scientific. It was precise on a level that I had never seen before. I was blown away!

There was one student that I think I connected with. He initially thought that I somehow wrote their drill. I tried to tell him differently. He later expressed again that my corrections were uncannily good. He later expressed that to his director. We talked for a few minutes after rehearsal. He told me that he was glad I was there. That made a difference for me.

The rehearsal ended on the field and under the lights. Lights that I’ve been under many times before. It began to feel right. Their show is unlike anything that I’ve ever seen before. I have no idea, as of yet, what I’m even hearing, but I do find it beautiful. I watched from below the press box of the stadium as the band encircled their director. I’ll be going back next week. I have no idea how this is going to play out. I do think that I have reasons to stick around. This is gonna be interesting.

Michael Tommer

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Just a voice in the wilderness with a story to tell…