Barrett Case

Henry McAlindon once said, "Do not follow where the path may lead. "Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." With those words said, my reason for applying to be a Stephenson High School drum major is to not follow someone else's path, but to create my own and allow other individuals to follow it and exceed. I've got a great start at creating my path by serving as tuba section leader for the 2011-2012 school year. Throughout the year, I have experienced many challenges but conquered them just as a leader is supposed to do. Overall, I enjoyed teaching and mingling with new and old faces in my section. They taught me a lot of things that helped me not only become a better leader, but a better person. Being section leader, I also contributed a lot to my section. From motivating members of my section while running the track at summer band camp to helping someone learn all 12 major scales, I have been a motivator while serving as a leader of the tuba section.

During the school year, I discovered many strengths as well as weaknesses in the tuba section. One strength that we have is unity. Most of the time, we are all on one accord from the music all the way to the field, making perfect diagonals. While having unity, we also have our weaknesses as any other section does. One weakness we have is that some members of our section tend to have slight discipline problems. Even though we have improved tremendously on discipline, there still are some very small problems that still need to be fixed but not by me, but by individuals outside of the band room. Specific goals for my section are to keep improving on discipline and to keep improving on individual sounds in the section. Solutions to these goals are to engage in more individual practice sessions and to just simply follow directions given by our directors.

Individually, I am blessed to have many strengths. One of my strengths is the ability to work extremely hard and the ability to never give up. If I don't accomplish a goal the first time, I will be guaranteed to work twice as the next time around. Another strength I have is the ability get along with multiple personalities. Any person you shall throw at me, I will get along with the person. Being able to understand and to "pick up" objectives swiftly is also one of my strengths. I understand that drum majors are held responsible to accomplish many tasks, but with my team work skills, I can get the job done. Despite all my strengths, I also have set goals for my personal life. One goal would have to be completing four or more years of college. Not many members of my family went to or completed college.

...