Another memory I'll never forget was in the Jazz Band. I was a junior and it was Spring Concert. I was the solo alto sax player. When your solo part came up, you would stand. I was in the front row. The piece we started playing was "The Stripper" by David Rose . When my solo part came up, I stood and started playing. A few seconds later, the audience busted out laughing. Trying to be professional I continued playing and didn't look around to see what they were laughing at. After my solo ended, I sat down. It wasn't until then that I found out the brass section seated behind me, 3 of them had stripped down to their boxer shorts and waved their t-shirts around over their heads while I was playing. Fortunately, the concert was being recorded for a record album. Such were the times at East Bay and our very cool band director.

I was in band, and at our school we also had a stage band, a small group that did more popular things and oldies. At the end of my freshman year, the band director came up to me and handed me a folder of guitar music, and said to learn this over the summer. He had chosen me to play guitar in the stage band, and I wasn't even aware that he knew I played guitar. Turns out, the stage band guitar player before me, whom I knew, had recommended me. I was in stage band for the next 3 years, and later played banjo in our dixieland band, along with being a drummer in the marching band. Band was my favorite part of being in high school, and I also made out with girls a few times on the band bus.

Junior High I was in a play where I played the comedic sister of this really cute guy Freddie. Had a crush on Freddie who lived right down the street but we were just friends. In High School my closest friends could all sing. They were in Chorus. They decided to create a Madrigal Chorus and made me an alto. I have a terrible singing voice - but I performed with them.

Growing up, I was in the chorus in junior and senior high. I was also in the church choir. I have a LOT of fond memories from those days.

It's cool to see these stories (most of them, anyway) in light of music programs being decimated in recent years. A sad state of affairs.

I remember riding on a greyhound with the band to DC for a festival and my gf trying to teach me how to play euchre lol

The theater department in my high school put on some great shows. Unfortunately they played favorites and the same people got the big roles, looked down upon the people in the chorus, and even if you took a drama class in the school to try to improve, they never really taught you anything and it was overall very discouraging... I started going to a performing arts summer camp where the attitude was totally the opposite. They really encouraged you to grow and stretch, and treated everyone as an equal. I was in a few shows and felt like I belonged for the first time.

I do keep in touch with my classmate from primary 1 to high school the same 40 of us going throught the system and we kept in touch together with whatapps lost 2 of our freinds on the way
yeah we do joke an talk about the past what mischiefs we were up and is this memories that keeps us together

I never took music lessons in high school.

The grammar school every year put on a Broadway Tunes extravaganza...I can still sing snippets from "Oklahoma" etc etc etc....

When I was in my senior year of HS, our choir had 120 people (a sizeable chunk of the student body) and I remember the director was so excited because now we had enough people to sing Thompson's Alleluia. Despite its context, it's a beautiful and difficult piece to perform, but we went to state competition with that song and scored first plus, so we must have been doing something right. I remember my sheet music was a chaos of highlighted bits and arrows because, even with that many people, we needed a few folks with a wide range and a good ear to help with some parts. I bounced about from first soprano to tenor and points in between. It was challenging and fun, but I'm a vocal music nerd.

No. Our mission school had one kid per grade, I attended a US high school my sophomore year, but I was a singer and drummer in my own band by then.
I attended the American embassy school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, when I was 16, and there was no band, although, again, I was in my own band.

Got lucky in the bandroom in grade 7. Fun times had by all.

I have a funny story about high school orchestra. I played violin. A boy who played bassoon toward the back of the orchestra, rather far from us violinists, developed a crush on me. He asked me over to his house. I agreed to go mostly out of curiousity and I considered him good musician. At his house he introduced me to his nice family. I had dinner. Then he showed me his awesome stereo system in his living room. I'd never put on headphones before. You could relax in the floor, even lie down and listen to great music. It seemed so modern. He played a record of Dvorak's Carnival Overture. I'd never heard anything so wild and fantastic in my whole life! The evening was innocent. Back in school he ruined everything. Sitting in orchestra he started doing this odd thing. Puckering up his lips at me from across the room. I was so embarrassed. I could not look at him. Any more. Period. The good news is that hearing the Carnival Overture as I did solidified my love of orchestra music. And Dvorak became one of my favorite composers. I am glad I went over to that boy's house that one time.

Orchestra. I started piano lessons in 2nd grade. Was taught violin in 4th grade in my public school in Olympia, WA. In 5th grade my teacher asked me to be in the Garfield String Quartet. We earned a Superior rating in some adjudication, playing a movement from a Haydn quartet. We got a big picture in the Olympia newspaper. When I went to junior high, my orchestra teacher said Anybody want to learn viola? Linda... how about you? I said Ok! I played viola for those 2 years. In high school I went back to playing violin. All the while continuing my piano. I taught myself guitar. Played folk guitar and piano all during college. For 20 years I didn't touch my violin. Then soon after I had my 1st babg in 1976 I joined a community orchestra. I was 29 and have been playing violin and most recently viola in excellent non pro orchestras and chamber music groups in the Seattle area and now Bellingham. All because of my public school music program. For which I am very grateful. Too many school music programs have been dropped. Music is one of the 7 Intelligences. Music education is a joy. It's important. It should not be dismissed lightly. One never knows what joy it can bring you in your lifetime when you are child just beginning.