This is a story/joke that band kids will get. (Where my band fam at???) Ok, on with the story.

So I was at this competition one year. It was the first competition of my freshman year and we had just preformed. By the time we had got back into the stands, the next band was about to start, we were in the finals and this was the last band before we heard the results.

The band started to play and they were really good. Like, really good. Everybody around me was convinced they were going to win.

The band was in tune with eachother, it didn't look like someone forgot how to march, and the color gaurd were in time and elegant.

The band did well through the music until they got to the last movement. It was all well and fine until they had a dramatic pause. An easy 8 count rest, many peices of music had it. Anyone could count to 8, right?

Wrong.

At about count 4, a trumpet played. It was just a bopped note, a player who quickly realised his mistake and stopped playing. Maybe it wasn't even intentional, maybe it was just quickly exhaled air. But it was a note played in the rest.

It may have been a short note, but it rang out across the stadium with a radiant sound. It was a gorgeous sound and it stood proud in the midst of silence.

Somehow, it got even quieter after the note. Like all of the band kids knew that poor, poor trumpet was going to hear it when they were done. That poor trumpet was going to get It by the entire band for costing them that competition. Oh that poor trumpet.

I, however, slightly amused by the mistake, still buzzing with the adrenaline that follows after a preformance, and giddy with the finish of my first competition, turned to my friend and said,

"I wonder where the ditch is that the band directors put all of the dead bodies after mistakes like that."

My friend laughed.

Now it's an inside joke between us, anytime we hear a wrong note in another band, we turn to eachother and wonder aloud where the ditch is.

We competed against that band a few more times that season, and we never heard that trumpet again.

Oh the joys of marching band.