Assignment 21 Danielle Dutton

Last spring I decided to audition to be a drum major for the marching band. I went to trainings for several weeks, memorized a section of music to conduct for the band directors, conducted an etude in front of the school's wind ensemble, and sat through a leadership interview. A group of about twenty started the long process, and around ten of us continued all the way through it. In the end, three were chosen, and I was not among them. However, I almost didn't feel like I had failed at all. After the results were announced, all of us who had gone all the way through, those who had succeeded and those who had not, hugged and expressed how proud we all were that we had auditioned together. We were all genuinely happy for the three who were chosen. We may not all have become drum major, but we had all learned a lot about conducting, leadership, and building each other up. Since then, I've auditioned for several other various honors - some successes and some failures - but in all of them I've learned to value the process as much or more than the result.