Tone, intonation, rhythm, form, and hours of practice – learning to play a single musical instrument is no simple or easy task; senior Alex Tompkins can play eight.
His musical path first began in elementary school with a couple years of piano lessons, but music truly became a passion when he joined his middle school band and learned to play the trumpet. From there, he explored more of the brass instruments, like the trombone, baritone, French horn, mellophone, and later the guitar and the drums.
“The trumpet is my favorite because that’s basically the one I’m the best at. It’s really fun to play the other ones because it’s like, ‘I’m not used to this’,” he said. “ The ombature, which is basically how you shape your mouth to the instrument, is all very similar. The only thing you change is basically the speed.”
He is currently involved in the Buena Jazz Band, Wind Ensemble, Marching Band, and Drumline with Buena Band director Daniel Algazy, who described Tompkins as a headstrong leader and a motivated student.
“Sometimes we like to dress [the musical] process up and call it perseverance, when most of the time it is very dull, very dry hard work. The only exception is the payoff is extremely gratifying,” Algazy said in an email.
For Tompkins, that dedication and hard work did pay off. He was recently accepted into a branch of the Drum and Bugle Corps, an internationally competitive marching band for college-aged musicians.
There are currently over 40 drum corps around the nation, and Tompkins was accepted into two of the most elite: the Santa Clara Vanguard and The Blue Devils. He ultimately chose The Blue Devils, even though that meant playing the mellophone instead of the trumpet.
The group will be rehearsing about once a month until May, when the “all-day” rehearsals begin. Then in the middle of June, they will begin touring around the country and performing for most of the remainder of the summer.
It wasn’t until his sophomore year of high school that he began to consider joining the Corps.
“They show the semifinals of the whole summer and the competitions in movie theaters around the country. I went to go see that and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is really cool… and I knew that I wanted to do it,” he said.
Sophomore Julianna Waller, who plays in the Buena Wind Ensemble with Tompkins, said she was glad he was accepted into the Corps.
“He’s been practicing for a really long time. It’s so exciting he made it in; I know he was nervous,” she said.
Of the 450 people who auditioned for a spot, only 27 were accepted into the section of the band Tompkins is in.
“To be a successful musician and be accepted into elite organizations requires an incredible amount of self-awareness and acceptance,” Algazy said. “The best musicians are those that can hear or sense that they have some issues to work out, musically, and are comfortable with spending hours upon hours honing and perfecting their skills.”
Though he doesn’t plan on pursuing a career in in music, he said it has impacted the way he thinks about and approaches situations in his life, along with making him a little more of a perfectionist.
“That’s something I really got from music and marching band: that you’re always improving,” he said. “Even at the highest level, like this, there’s always room for improvement. There’s judges that score these performances. It’s out of 100 and no one’s ever scored a perfect 100. They’ve gotten close, but never perfect.”
