When I was in middle school we had a choice between two elective classes. We could take home economics, which didn’t thrill me at all. To this day I’m terrible in the kitchen and if you sat me down in front of a sewing machine I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do with it. The other choice was the band. Now, you may have this picture in your head of “band geeks” but in our school, the band kids were actually pretty cool.
They played at assemblies and concerts and because of a very progressive band conductor, the band actually played popular modern music. A bunch of middle schoolers playing instruments together sounds like a recipe for disaster, but in this case, it worked, very well actually. Because of my lack of interest in building my domestic skills, I joined the band and played the saxophone.
Why did I choose the sax? Because my brother played it before me so we already owned one. I was last chair, and absolutely terrible. To be honest, most of the time I only pretended to play. But, to this day, I’m still impressed with the skill and talent of a bunch of 10 to 12-year-olds. Particularly impressive was the percussion section, though of course, they were nothing like the jaw-droppingly talented drumline in this video.
When the Top Secret Drum Corps enter the gorgeous and slightly eerie set of the Edinburgh Tattoo in Scotland (a military tattoo is a military music performance), my heart starts to speed up and I found myself unable to breathe throughout their performance. They are perfectly in sync, never make a misstep or mistake, and they up the ante with their amazing skills as the performance ramps up to an astounding finale.
Click on the video below to experience this exhilarating performance for yourself. Please like and share it with family and friends!
