(This is from 1997…I’m in there somewhere!)

I used to play trumpet in my high school marching band. It didn’t particularly love the music, it was just something to do if you went to a Black high school in the south. You either played sports, marched in the band, or were a spectator…and I had no interest in playing sports or being a spectator.

Marching band was amazing because you got to be a part of something larger than yourself. It gave me the opportunity to add my voice to a chorus of other voices in relative anonymity. Sure, I had to earn my spot in band class and at practice but once I was on that field I was part of a corp. Everyone wore the same uniform. Everyone played their parts. I stood out because I blended in so well.

I was a decent player. Good enough to get second chair at my high school, but not great by any means. It was because I was decent that I kept playing the trumpet after football/marching band season. I joined the jazz band ( a much smaller and more exclusive fraternity of musicians) and the concert band. I also took private lessons. Concert band was very similar to marching band in that it was relatively large and homogeneity was encouraged. Not so with the jazz band. In the jazz band rugged individualism was valued over conformity to group norms. The improvising soloist was the star…not the band.

I played in a three person ensemble in a concert once and I was terrified. I no longer had the band to hide my sound. I had to play on my own and I was terrified. I had never felt so naked and exposed before in my life and my performance suffered for it. I missed notes and unnatural sounds came from the bell of my horn. But I finished the performance, bowed before the crowd, and left. My failure very nearly made me quit playing that day.

I returned to school and to the jazz band feeling broken. I had embarrassed myself and realized that my ambitions far exceeded my talents. I didn’t quit though. I continued playing in the jazz, concert, and marching bands for a number of years after that embarrassing concert. I never made first chair or got that solo…but I made myself a place among musicians with far more natural talent than I ever had.

That failure taught me that even if my natural talents weren’t as great as those around me, my work ethic and drive can create a place for me…if I want it.

I try to teach my students who struggle with mathematics the same lessons every time they face failure. I try to teach them that the road to success is paved with failures and that we only truly fail when if we give up.