Drum major Hannah Astin stepped up to the podium. She took a couple of deep breaths to prepare herself for the performance and turned to face the crowd under the stadium lights. The announcer called her name and she saluted before she placed her hat down on the podium. Then she turned back around to the band and raised her hands to start the show.
“I think being able to put your all into a performance, just being able to give everything you have and then that feeling after, your audience applauding,” Astin said. “It’s great and you’re just like, ‘That was fun.’”
Astin is the new drum major for the Flying Falcon Marching Band. She conducts this year’s marching band halftime show titled “Road Trip.” This is her fourth year in marching band, but her first year in a leadership position in the band.
Astin decided in eighth grade that she wanted to become drum major.
“It was Rugby Night, which is when the eighth grade band comes to the high school and plays with the high school band for the first and second quarter, and I saw (then drum major) Kathryn Gorgas in front of the band,” Astin said. “She looked so professional in her drum major uniform and I was like,‘I want to do that.’”
Astin went to multiple music camps and drum major auditions to earn her place as the band’s new drum major. She replaced Mollie Jones, who is now a freshman member of the Pride of the Mountains Marching Band at Western Carolina University.
“It was probably April or May of last year. It was super fast. Everyone went into the chorus room and did the audition. Then we came out and (band director Allen) Klaes came into the band room. I’m sitting there and I’m waiting like, ‘Oh my gosh,’” Astin said. “It was the best feeling ever because I had wanted to be drum major forever, so I was just completely overwhelmed. It was just such a great moment. I was smiling for the rest of the day.”
Klaes gave Astin and the other people trying out for drum major resources to help them prepare for being drum major.
“She’s a very mature student, very motivated, very ambitious and she wants to do well,” Klaes said. “She is very intrinsically motivated with lots of initiative and takes her jobs and responsibilities as drum major very seriously. Her most important attitude she has as drum major is that this leadership position is a service role and that she’s not in it for her own glorification, but in it to help the band and help all the students perform better.”
Astin competed with several other students to earn her spot as drum major including Sarah Gosnell, assistant drum major.
“Even though she was like my competition, she’s one of my best friends, and I truly do support her because at first I didn’t know how she was going to do. Being a first year drum major is tough, but then she’s really stepped out of her comfort zone and shone,” Gosnell said. “She’s really gone beyond what my expectations were and I’m really proud of her.”
Being drum major comes with some challenges. For Astin, the biggest challenge is overcoming her shyness.
“I’m really shy. I don’t know if you would pick up on that, but I’m really shy, so I’m not used to having everyone look at me,” Astin said. “This is the first year I’ve had a leadership position in the band so the most challenging thing is having all eyes on me.”
Her leadership of the band earned her a second place drum major trophy along with other awards at the Land of the Sky Marching Band Festival.
“I think we did really well,” Astin said. “It was rainy, and it was kind of unusual circumstances. I really do think we did well, and I’m very proud of every member of the band.”
For Astin, marching band has been about playing music and performing, but also teamwork and friendship.
“One of my favorite band memories is my freshman year we went down to Sprayberry High School for the Sprayberry Southern Invitational,” Astin said. “We were a rather small band and some of the others were as big as Western (Carolina University). I expected us to do well, but I didn’t expect us to get the Class 1A 2A 3A Champion (trophy). The whole band erupted in applause, and I was like, ‘I love this band.’ I just love being a part of the group camaraderie and joy.”
Astin says that becoming drum major has taught her many new things. She has grown in her confidence, learned the value and rewards of hard work, developed as a musician and learned how to lead.
“I’ve learned that I can really do anything I set my mind to,” Astin said. “I never thought I could stand in front of everyone or anything, but I can and not everything is as hard as it seems and once you’re there it’s not as daunting.”
By Bryn Bowen
