The Pseudomilitary Style Abuse of Marching Band

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I came from a broken home at a young age, which already predisposed me to abuse, and there were always plenty to go around. Our mother was always out working to support us or sleeping a few hours between shifts, and our father was rarely in the picture. So we had babysitters or weird roommates watching us, someone else's kids, not theirs. At some point I guess I figured out that getting attention for misbehaving is just as effective and a lot easier than for behaving.

The US educational music scene is wind bands in rural areas. Wind bands are based on US military bands, specifically the Marine Band of John Phillip Sousa (I won the award with his name because I was so good at playing the game). Being a military tradition, the reward for success is corporal punishment and verbal abuse. The reward for failure is corporal punishment, verbal abuse, and an extra helping of both. But for the first time in life I could control the attention I got.

I could skip class to practice, get abuse from the teachers whose classes I skipped, and then abuse from the music director for doing poorly in school but not quite well enough at music because it's damn hard to learn this shit on your own when you play someone else's borrowed instrument. Then, I'd miss more class and practice even more, and I'd play well, and then get berated for sacrificing for my art, and then praised for it as well.

Naturally this led down some weird paths, like getting thrown out of music school (twice), failing at several businesses despite having every advantage of knowledge, skills, and contacts. Holding down jobs for no longer than 12 months for 20+ years after giving up on music.

And of course, now, in tech, where every dude fancies himself some damaged misbehaving genius, for a long time I totally ate that up too, and sought out the meanest, baddest motherfuckers while being one myself, just to show them that I was good enough to be treated like shit and could dish it out just as good.

Fuck that.

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