What Is A Drum Major?

Over time, our experiences in life add up and contribute to who we are. The longer we live, the more we add to that vault of knowledge, perception, and should we allow it, character.

One of the experiences in my life that I often think on, dream about, and rely on for inspiration, was my time as the Drum Major of the University of Michigan Marching Band.

How I got the honor and privilege to be voted into that position is a long story for another day, but I’ll summarize by telling you that it was one of the toughest, character-building, and soul shaping journeys of my life to get to the point where I was worthy of that position.

Now let’s get into what a Drum Major is, and more specifically, what that role entailed for me back in 2002/2003.

In my heyday, the Drum Major was the student leader in the marching band. At the beginning of the season, the drum major would train and work with the leadership core of the marching band, both section and rank leaders, and would work them through a marching and pre-season “training camp” for several days. After returning to campus, the new marching band students, mostly freshmen, would join us, and the leadership core and I would work on training them for almost a week. Finally, the rest of the veteran marchers would return, and we would all begin to prepare for the first performance for the first football game right around Labor Day.

During the season, at practice, I would provide voice and whistle commands to the band, taking my cues from the director up on the tower as well as the staff surrounding the field. This allowed for efficient and well-organized rehearsals that enabled well over three-hundred people to learn a new half-time show with new music and formations week in and week out throughout the season.

Right about mid-week, we would start to string more of the music together on the field, and I could start integrating my baton twirling routine with the formations and music of the band. I enjoyed these rehearsals immensely as it allowed for a dynamic performance to evolve based on how the music inspired me, and how I expected to interact with the audience at the upcoming game.

Before kickoff, the band would load up in the tunnel of the stadium and get ready to perform the pre-game performance. Once the band was on the field and playing our school’s iconic fanfare, I would run out, cut through the formation, remove my hat, or “shako” and bend over backwards in full control, touching my head to the ground.

Whether back then, or today, over one hundred thousand people are tuned into that moment to see this feat performed. After touching my head to the ground, I would pull myself back up, and we continued the the rest of the pre-game show.

One of the games during my first year as drum major in 2002, there was a rare energy that afternoon. I could feel it before we even left for the parade to the stadium. And as we were all “loaded” in the tunnel for the pre-game performance to start, my hands were shaking with that energy.

We started the pre-game show, I ran out, executed the backbend, and when I pulled back to a standing position, I turned to the crowd, raised both hands, and roared in triumph. They roared back in return, and for this ever so small of a moment, I felt my consciousness expand with the connected focus of so many. Perhaps all of us, ensnared by this incredible energy, created some connection, only made possible by this special place and time.

In the Eartherians Series, I will expand and overly dramatize this little experience, as it will become a very important aspect of our lead protagonist’s journey. For me personally, I don’t think anything esoteric happened in that moment, but I am glad I can share it through my science fiction writing.

Now stepping back and having a little bit of fun, let’s theorize about the next step in human evolution when it comes to consciousness and our perception of space, time, and life itself.

Will we simply just get smarter and smarter until we perceive everything in this dimension and the next? Will we leverage technology and somehow combine the mind and artificial intelligence to create something new, and capable of perceiving, understanding, and navigating all that is out there from the quantum to the macro? Has anyone else, out there in the universe, figured this out already? Have we?

The Eartherians Series is going to give you an example 😉

Writing in my Dreams

So where do the scenes and imagery of the Eartherians Series come from? As I mentioned in the first Blog Entry, I didn’t start to feel true inspiration and ideation until I started typing the story itself. From there, I found my mind connecting all sorts of experiences, stories, and even dreams I have had during my life.

Indeed, early in Eartherians Reach Book 1, the lead character and protagonist describes such a vivid dream, and I must admit that I pulled it from my own vivid dream from a number of years ago.

In 2005, we unfortunately lost my incredible and inspiring younger sister, Christina, at the age of 20. After several months of coping and grieving, I was still trying to understand what this life and universe was really going to mean for me. I mean, how can it ever be fair or right if my sister can just be taken away like that? I’m oversimplifying, but if you have lost someone close to you, you know exactly what I mean.

One night I had the most vivid dream I have ever had in my life. I am not entirely sure if I was actually interacting with the spirit of Christina, but there was a deep sense that this was the universe, or maybe God’s way of telling me that she was ok, and she had many things to do in whatever plane exists after this life.

The dream was so real I woke to the feel of chill air from the wintery scene of the dream, and looked down at my feet under the covers, just moments ago where I had heard the crunch of snow and ice under my shoes.

My mourning did not end there, but I finally felt a peace begin to settle in my soul, and I was able to pick myself up and re-focus myself. Afterall, Christina would never want her memory to be the source of any hardship, and I think the dream was a way of helping me to remember her without the pian and guilt that often comes with loss.

At any rate, there will be many of my dreams, or at least bits and pieces of them, that will serve as ideation and inspiration in the Eartherians series. I’ll be sure to tell you about the big one here on the blog as we go along.

Why are we still on this Rock?

I remember being a child of the 1980’s and I marveled at NASA and all their incredible feats from regular trips to the moon, to the space shuttle, and the construction of the international space station. To me it felt like we were on a trajectory to work and live in outer space as a society, and this would be something I would naturally study and get a career in the future.

As I got older, I saw that the actual trajectory, and Elon Musk hasdiscussed this, was actually trending negatively. Regular trips to the moon were scrapped, the space shuttle and its large payload capacity to allow for space station construction and repair was retired, and commercial industry settled around near Earth orbits for communication, navigation, weather, and imagery.

Now, in my mid-forties, I lament that regular work in space or on objects in our solar system is still seemingly decades into the future, and not something that my kids will get a chance to do. Maybe their kids will…but that is only if our society remains focused on that goal.

Why is this? Well, quite frankly…there is little to no money in deep space exploration at this point in history. Sure there are plenty of start-ups looking at asteroid mining, energy distribution, and rapid transport around Earth, but the motivation isn’t to stretch out across the solar system, it is to enrich our lives here on Earth.

Now every dreamer I know is going to instantly raise a fist at these words, but these words aren’t for you. I salute every dreamer and foundational executor of the technologies that will make sure we get off of this rock, beautiful and lovely as it is, and truly become a space fairing society. These words are for everyone that hasn’t considered what it means to just stay hear on Earth. There are many people that have looked at and argued this point, so I won’t delve into it further here. Instead let me open up a question with some preamble.

During the Cold War, the U.S. and Allies and the Soviet Union stood tall against one another and created a cross-roads for human society, the result of American victory which has persisted through to present day. America won the space race with the Apollo Missions, and with the world at stake, the motivation to win the space race leading up to 1969 could not have been greater.

And now the question: What would it take to motivate our present day first world societies to stretch out into the Solar System? If it is merely leverage over one another, then I say this will be a long a drawn out process, where the house of cards stands to topple one or multiple times. But the conditions for humanity to transition into space will not be infinite, so that motivation…whatever it is…we need to find it and find it soon. Unless some of us have found it already…

Inspiration to Write a Book, in my case, Eartherians Reach Book 1

So how did Eartherians Reach Book 1 come to be? While the writing and editing process took about three and a half years until publishing, the journey started decades before that.

For years I tried to structure potential novels, build characters in advance, and plan out story arcs, only to leave frustrated and with nothing to show for it. I also probably spent way too much time having fun and relaxing before I became a family man, when I should have been writing!

During the summer of 2020, at the ramp up to the COVID pandemic, everything changed. I was in the middle of listening to a Jocko Podcast, (not sure which one…he has many) where Jocko was saying something to the effect of, “If you want to do anything…get in shape, start going to school, write a novel; don’t wait until tomorrow, don’t even wait 15 minutes. Start right now, right this very minute.”

Upon hearing those words, I felt liberated and possessed at the same time. I turned off the podcast, fired up MS Word, and started writing Book 1 of the Eartherians Reach Series.

I couldn’t have planned this book if I tried for 100 years. The more I wrote, the more the story and characters streamed into my mind, and the more the rest of the story, outside of this first book started to build. I swear it was like I had written this before in another universe and it was somehow being beamed into my mind from another dimension.

There are many people to thank for this, especially my wife Devon, who has supported me in giving me the time on nights and weekends and during kiddo naps to sneak some writing here and there. I have my Reedsy developmental editor, Shannon Roberts, my Reedsy copy editor Sarah Liu, and my Reedsy web designer Ingrid Getzan to thank as well.

In addition, there are a number of friends and family who served as beta readers for this first work, and they have my deepest thanks for giving me so much of their time. I also have author J.L Hyde (https://www.jlhyde.com/) to thank for sound coaching advice, which has been critical in getting ER1 off the ground.

To you amazing readers out there, I can promise you the rabbit hole will get far deeper with the characters, the unique portrayal of reality, and the overall story of the Eartherians Reach Series. It will be a journey that crosses space, time, dimensions, and all our history as we know it. I humbly request that you hang with me as a new and evolving author, and I promise to put in every spare ounce of energy and time to bring you entertainment, fun, and perhaps a sprinkle of inspiration. Thank you for coming aboard this journey with me, and I look forward to your feedback.