My Life- Those Days...

     It was Wednesday night. A few friends and I were sitting in the hall, watching the performances of the Wushu Club members. Everyone was so enthusiastic as the thundering sounds of the twenty four seasons adrum stroke the ears and made our hearts pounded along with the rhythms. Slowly but effectively, it drew my mind back to nine years ago...

     I was in standard six and I was one of the school band members. I used to be the drummer in the percussion group. There were other instruments as well such as the trumpets, trombones, horns and others. Every Wednesday afternoon we would have our practice session under the guidance of Mr. Ma, our conductor. Each time of the practice session we would start with some basic practices and continued with new scripts. We would be divided into small specific groups according to the instruments to practice the new song. So, I had spent most of the time with my friends from the percussion group. There were seven of us, taking charge of the small drums, big drum, cymbals, xylophone and others. Sometimes we did shift our instruments or some of us might be playing more than one instrument if there were more percussion instruments needed in that particular song.

     Under the guidance and teaching of our conductor, we changed from a ‘nobody’ to the members of a famous school band. We used to get invitations for performing whenever there were special occasions like sport days and also the invitations to take part in competitions. During the preparations for the competitions especially, although sometimes we did get scolding from the conductor but we never give up at all. Instead, we helped each other out to make the performance a perfect one. In order to perform a song with emotions and dynamic expressions, all of us were actually related to each other. For an instance, the trombones and horns needed the drums to know the correct timing while the percussion instruments depended on the melody line of the song. Hence, the most memorable part of all was that there was a strong bond formed between all of us, as if we were one big family. All were team work and this was the most significant reason that brought us the second prize in the fifth School Band Challenge. We were contented by the result as we had put in a lot of effort in practicing despite the heavy school work that loaded on us.

    

     As the twenty four seasons drum performance came to an end, I smiled to myself.

  “Those were the days…” I murmured contentedly. It was indeed a nice experience to be cherished.

*In this photo: The standing row, second from the right is me.