As you have prob. guessed from my user-name, I am a percussionist(sp?) and have been for about 6 years. Anyways, I am a freashman in high school this year so it's my first year in the band.  While being sized for my uniform, the band mom who was sizing me brought up my hair here is our conversation:

Ms. P: your hair is so long

Me: it's really not that long yet

Ms. P: how short are you going to cut it for marching band season?

Me: excuse me?

Ms. P: well you have to put it all up in your marching band plume helmet

Me: yeah, I'll put it all up

Ms. P: but it wouldn't look as good

Me: it will look just as good as if it were short

Ms.P: don't you get tired of all that hair?

Me: not really

Ms.P: well, I think you should cut it

Me: what difference does it make to you?

Ms.P: I'll talk to Mr. Smith (band director).

Me: What the hell does it matter as long as it's up in the helmet?

Ms.P: you don't have to get so angry

Ms.P: ok, I'm done, i'll just give you a large helmet so you can put up all your friggin hair.

Me: Thank you (forces out)

ARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH- this ticked me off sooooooooooooooooooooooooo bad.  But really, why should it matter?  Do you think I was too mean?

"your friggin hair"??!!!!!!!! oh my god thats soooooo rude! how dare she?! grrrrrrrrrr! well done for standing up for yourself!

Kudos to you Drummergirl! When I was your age I was easily talked in and out of things.

Anais

I think she sounded incredibly rude!!  I've never been in a marching band so I don't know about regulations but
I would think as long as you can fit it all in a helmut, so
what, what difference does it make to them?
People have been telling me for years my hair should
be short ( because my hair is so fine and I have a small
face) but I've decided now I'm not going to listen anymore.  

OMG I was so mad, but looking back I wonder if I was also rude myself?

she told you to cut your beautiful hair off for a HAT! you werent rude....just outraged as you should be!

Hear, hear!  Don't second guess yourself, you weren't wrong... she was!

Way to go for standing up for yourself, drummergirl! Mrs. P was incredibly rude to you and no one should have to put up with that.

/Kate

Good for you! No one should tell you what you should do with your own hair! It grows out of YOUR head, not hers!

Those who don't have long hair don't realize what it means to those who do - the patience in growing it out, how much you take care of it, etc... they think snipping it off will just be easy. Yes, they don't understand, but it would be nice if they would at least try :). All of my teachers who have short hair just *love* my long hair and comment on how pretty they think it is!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!   ;D  ;D  ;D

When I was in 10th grade before I stupidly chopped all my hair, it was a HUGE spectacle to watch me put my hair up in the hat...I would sit there and brush every inch of it, and then wind it up in about three tight ponytail holders and glue all the flyaways to my head with hairspray and bobby pins, then I would sit there and braid it down as far as possible, then drown the BRAID in hairspray to glue down more flyaways, and then coil the braid into as tight a bun as possible, stick about a dozen more bobby pins in it, cover it with about five hairnets, put a scrunchie around it, and then pull my hat on and tighten the string under my chin as quickly as possible before the entire thing toppled. Then I would have to take the hat off and redo it about three times during the games.

But then, I have extremely fine, thin, oily, slippery, and flyaway hair, so that made it fairly difficult.

Ah, memories...makes me want my long hair back more than ever...

ya - isn't that always fun - i didn't know you had to put all your hair up for marching - so freshman year it was kind of interesting- alot of the time i would just put it in a ponytail - twist it into a bun sort of and then quickly put the hat on - now i just braid it and coil it - and it tends to stay up better - before i was always shoving it back up every five min. - ya - and i have to have the hat on so tightly that it gives me a headache - o well - they're is no way i'm giving up my hair for stupid marching band - i don't really even like marching - but the band i'm in makes us march so i have to

I'm lucky that we don't have a marching band. I'm in symphonic band... we can do our hair however we want to.  ;D

ok - i need to do a little ranting - ya - this year our marching band show is pirates of the carribean - which is all good - but now our band directer has decided that we're not wearing are normal uniforms for marching - we're going to wear pirate costumes - and today he comes and tells us that since we don't have our hats were going to have bandanas or something instead - and he wants all the girls to put there hair in little braids or dreadlock! - which the braids would take forever to do and i refuse to do it in dreadlocks - finally i just pulled my hairsticks out of my hair and went up to him and went how do you think i'm gonna do that - and he said i could just put it in one braid - so thats ok now - but the other half of all this was just the amount of comments i got on cutting it - i was just really annoyed by all the people that told me i should just cut it! - for stupid band! - ok - i think i'm done ranting for now

People are so insensitive, Lauraliz. Good for you for standing up for yourself!

/Kate

Hi!

I admit to being a "60's" girl (I am 51) but I do not recall the girls at Evanston High School having to put their hair up?

Some of them braided it or had a net that they put it into?

Anyway, I think she was rather nervy, and then to not understand when you got upset???

Grrrrrrrr!

Much long hair prayers and hugs:)

Manegirl

wrote on Sep 30^th, 2004 at 12:37pm:

Hi! I admit to being a "60's" girl

   
Me too, I feel lucky that when I was in high school long hair was the 'norm'. It made it easier to share hair tips and you never had be singled out for abuse in gym or anything like that. :)

I"m back, it's been a long time since I visited the website. lauraliz, I show a marching band show like that! what hs do you go to. by the way our band has won 2 grand champion awards, one 2nd place award, 3 first colorguards, 3 first percussions, 3 first first drum majors, 3 first marchings, 3 first effects, 3 first divion one overalls, and 3 first music awards. we've had 3  compitions. this saturday we go to western and te next week to BOA(bands of america) in Atlanta, BOA is a HUGE deal for a marching band. I'm so excited!

thats great! - the judges have really hated our show and we have really been doing terrible this year - whats the theme of your show? - i go to Antioch - where do you go?

Hey Drummergirl,

Just saying hello... good to see you on the board again ;)
Oh, and you went to Rome recently right? ? ? Be sure to post your Rome experience in our Lounge!!!! I'm dying to know how your trip because I've NEVER been to Europe before ;D ;D ;D ;D

Anais

Puts me in mind of this one time..

I was in a youth ballet in High School, and I tended to get 'character' roles.  For 'Peter and the Wolf' I was one of the hunters...  MALE hunters, of course.

My costume included this hat into which I was supposed to fit my hair.  Thing was, it was a bit small - even a flat bun stuck out like a knob and floated the hat a few inches above my head.  So I just stuffed it and pinned it and hoped...

Alas, all my efforts were for naught, as about halfway through, the compressed hair fought back and the hat went flying in a pouf of REALLY long hair *s*  So much for looking male...  not like I'd been able to strap my chest convincingly anyway.

But yeah, I took a lot of grief in High School, people always wanting to know when I was going to cut it and so on...  But then, I had a significant number who threatened to kill me if I ever DID cut it, so  :D

Hang in there and dare to be different.  The hat lasts for a concert - your hair is with you always :)

*peers at the date* right, so this is topic's a bit old, but it struck a chord so *shrug*

Trying to turn a female into a male for the stage, does seem to be more difficult than the other way around.  It is always easier to "add" than to "subtract".  ;)

Do you still dance?

Nah, developed early osteoarthritis just into College, had to stop my flamenco lessons :(.  Tried to keep the ballet longer, but point shoes are pret-ty painful on bad knees.  Is ok, though, there's always something else to do...  like early and celtic music  ;D

These days, I'm more about the quilting/ weaving/ knitting/ spinning/ anything but crosstitch (because I can't count  :-[ ), and get my excercise with low impact weights and some light biking.

Yep, making your curvy self look like a guy is an uphill battle to be sure.   Another production, I had strapped myself down with an ace wrap...  which worked until the ace wrap came undone and fell out of my shirt and onto the stage mid-leap  :o  Talk about your wardrobe malfunctions  ;)  Luckily, the hair stayed securely stuffed into my jester's hat that night.

I'm envious of your dancing.  I have 2 left feet.  My music abilities were limited to being a percussionist - I can march, but can't dance.

Some of your other interests fit right in here!  Glad you have you around.

I remember when I was about seven my ballet class were mice in a concert, and we were dressed in grey costimes, they were al all in one costume, long legs, and a hood (with ears) we even had these stuffed tails (the costumes had zipps)  The problem was, your hair had to be under the hood.  I had long hair back then, fortunatley it was very fine, so we were able to coil it around  my head so there wasn't too much of a bumb.  My friend had very long THICK hair, and no matter what she did, there was a bump.  Now, the ears were stuffed with cotton wool and sewen on, so what we did for her was take the ears off, un-stuff them, cut slits in the hood and sew the ears into the hood.  Then we did her hair in two buns, so the bumps they made were covered by the ears.  Lol, and her ears looked the best as they actually stood up...

Then a few years later I was  tuna fish, same deal, only this time instead of a dull, thick stretch grey costume it was a shiney blue/silver one, and the hood problem was worse for some reason...  But we were never told to cut our hair!

*laughs* ah, memories... yeah, we were discouraged from cutting bangs, and had to slick them back for performances if we had them.

I know this reply is late, but it caught my eye because it said "Marching Band."

I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WOMAN TOLD YOU TO CUT YOUR HAIR!!   You did good by not giving in.

I was in band too.  For those people that weren't, there are guidlines you have to follow like pant hems need to fall just so next to your shoe.  Same with arm cuffs.  Another is all hair must not touch the top of the band uniform.  At my school we had high collars, and I had a low hairline!  But they didn't tell me to cut my hair.  Instead we had to use globs of Aquanet and bobby pins.  Anyway, all these rules were to ensure that everyone looked exactly the same.  I guess it was more impressive to the judges.  *shrug*

Cynde