I never found the right band. So I started my own.

-Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Have you ever been in a band?

Legal disclaimer: a band is not a group of people trying to sound good as a collective group. A band is a group of people sounding bad together.

Professional bands are (hopefully) really good.

Unprofessional bands are still good, maybe.

Middle school bands are going to make your marbles fall off your table.

Let’s break down the individual parts of a band that make everything such a horrible cacophony:

Trumpets

Contrary to popular belief, you do not puff out your cheeks when using a wind instrument. Yet, everyone depicts trumpeters with cheeks puffed. Just wanted to get that off of my chest before diving into the world of horns.

Depending on the way you play the trumpet, you can get different notes, which already poses some problems. You have three people playing G, and two people playing B, and one person playing C#, and two people playing the wrong song, and one trombonist who missed the “trumpets only” cue and starts playing “Mary had a Little Lamb”.

Trumpets have 3 valves, which can be pressed in a variety of combinations, and more often than not, the wrong valves will be pressed, leading to that one person who plays the wrong note and everybody knows.

In my middle school band class, whenever the teacher tells us to stop playing, the trumpets are always the last ones to stop.

(Show-offs.)

Flutes

Contrary to popular belief, playing a flute requires blowing over the mouthpiece, not into it. Weird but true.

The flutes don’t really have that many problems in my band class, except for the occasional wrong note or offbeat person.

So, instead of discussing all of the flaws of flutes, I’m going to spend the rest of the section talking about rocks.

ROCKS ARE GOOD! YEEEEEEEeEEEEAAAAaAAAaaAAaAAHhHHH!

Trombones and Baritones

Contrary to popular belief, trombones and baritones are not in my band so I have no idea what I’m talking about. I think that, like trombones have something called a slider? And you slider it to make sounds? And baritones are curly valve trombones?

…?

……………………………?

Saxophones

Contrary to popular belief, saxophones are woodwinds, not brass.

Don’t ask me why, people are weird. We make gas that kills everything and spread it into the sky. We play games where we get seriously injured by each other and tell the world about it. We created the word “hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia” just to spite people who have hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. (Yes, you can look up hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. I should probably stop saying hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.) I mean, you should probably expect this. These are the people who invented rphobia (fear of short words), aibohphobia (the fear of palindromes), and dodecaphobia (fear of the number 12, count the letters).

Anyway, there are only two saxophones in my band, who do their best to do their worst, sometimes on purpose. Mostly, though, they’re pretty good.

Clarinets

CLARINETS ARE PERFECT.

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH CLARINETS.

CLARINETS ARE THE BEST.

THIS IS NOT BECAUSE I PLAY A CLARINET.

CLARINETS ARE BETTER THAN EVERYONE.

CLARINETS KEEP TIME.

I PLAY CLARINET.

I DO NOT PLAY CLARINET.

I PLAY CLARINET.

CORNU POTESTATIS VOCEM MEAM AUDI OSTENDERE MUNDUM QUOD ES, MELIOR QUAM QUICUMQUE

CLARINETS ARE IN TUNE.

PLAY I CLARINET.

LLA MEHT FO TSEB EHT ERA STENIRALC.

I DO NOT PLAY CLARINET.

I PLAY CLARINET.

CBLEAYRTIHNEECTLSAARRIENTEHTESBOERSYTOOUFWTIHLELMFAALLLLO.

CLARINET PLAY ME.

YEEEEEEEeEEEEAAAAaAAAaaAAaAAHhHHH!