“Makes Me Wanna Go Gaga”

During my sophomore year of highschool, I was a part of the marching band at Oakwood High School playing piccolo. I always had a love for music. I loved dancing, listening, and singing to music. At the age of six, I realized my passion for music and because I enjoyed being a part of volleyball teams, it was a natural thing for me to be a part of the marching band.

A collage of me being in band in high school: 2010-2014

During marching band season of my sophomore year, we ended up doing one of my all time favorite shows which was Lady Gaga. As we were not a competition band, we did not perform competitively so we got to learn new music and shows every week. This week was special since we were preparing to do a Lady Gaga show at one of our home games.

The first song we played was “Poker Face” by the queen herself, Lady Gaga. Our drum major or field commander was hidden in a giant egg that we made as band for him to hide in and then he popped out during the middle of the song. The rest of the band members started to make a big spiral and then it became smaller and smaller while we were playing “Poker Face”. We got to the end of the song and we just, as my band director said, “lost our minds and were doing it all wrong” by playing wrong notes and everyone falling down, landing into a super weird positions and making the band look absolutely ridiculous. This was to reflect Lady Gaga’s unique sense of style.

We then screamed and ran to our next positions for the next song which was “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga. The song started off with the band standing and playing while we had a group of people do a choreographed dance, similar to the one Lady Gaga uses in her music video. So that their performance was directed at the home stands. All of the band members had to wear a towel as a cape due to the field being extremely muddy which went along with our crazy Lady Gaga outfits. We had a lot of fun picking our own unique outfits to wear. We continued to play the song until it was over and until the dancers were done and then we all froze into a standing position except for the dancers. This was another fun way to show her sense of style, including the actual dance from her video.

We then transitioned to our last song which was not a Lady Gaga song. We heard the whistle blow and ran to our positions and got ready to play “Party Rock Anthem”. This song consisted of us screaming and being crazy until being commanded to put our instruments up and then we began to play the song. Our two field commanders danced and had their own choreography to the beginning of the song. We danced and yelled as a band the words, “everyday I’m shuffling” and then the drum section played a cadence for us and all danced to a choreographed version of this song that Ohio University did.

Party Rock Anthem- “Everyday I’m Shuffling”

We learned the dance moves so we would be able to perform while the drums played. Being in sync for this dance took hours to perfect, but it was worth it. We slowly finished our dance and picked up our instruments and finished playing the song. Once we were finished playing “Party Rock Anthem”, we all stood as a band in a power pose position and held it there. We always had the tradition to then end our shows by playing our fight song.

Being a part of marching band in high school taught me that everyone has to work together, not just on the music and how we sound but also we had to help each other by suggesting ideas of costumes for the Lady Gaga show, talking about masks or wierd, bright colored shirts. We also had to practice as a team, so with all the choreographed dances we did we had to learn like we were a team and make it look Gaga-like and most of all, have fun while performing. The best part was enjoying the different shows we got to learn and music to play along with it and the experience of making lifelong friendships. The constant practices after school, in the evenings, before game day, and traveling always made us that much closer as a band and team!

Being a part of marching band through high school was one of the best experiences and I was able to create unforgettable memories. One of these memories was on October 21st, 2011 when we did our Lady Gaga show.