Containment - My Audition Story
I walked into my Varsity Drumline audition with sticks, nerves, and something nobody else had: an original piece I wrote myself.
The piece is called “Containment,” and even though it is a drumline audition piece, it became way more personal than I expected. I did not just want to write something that sounded cool. I wanted to write something that felt honest. For me, that meant writing about my OCD, the way it grabs onto little thoughts and refuses to let go, and also about the thing that helps me feel most like myself: music.
Writing “Containment” was stressful, exciting, weird, and honestly pretty fun. It pushed me to think like a composer, a performer, and a person trying to explain something hard without using words.
Why I called the piece Containment
The title came from how OCD can feel sometimes. It can feel like trying to keep something locked in a box, even when the box keeps shaking.
I wanted the music to sound like that pressure. Not in a scary movie way, but in a real life way. OCD is not just being neat or wanting things perfect. For me, it can feel like repetition, checking, spiraling, and trying to calm my mind when it keeps replaying the same beat over and over.
That made drumline the perfect place to tell the story. Drumline is already about repetition, control, timing, and precision. Every note has to land. Every rhythm has to line up. If one person rushes or drags, everyone feels it.
That connected to how OCD can grip my life. Sometimes my brain wants every single thing to feel “right” before I can move on. Drumline has that same obsession with exactness, but in music, that control can turn into something powerful instead of exhausting.
So “Containment” became about tension and release. It is about feeling trapped in a pattern, then finding small moments where the music breaks open.
How my love for music shaped the piece
Music has always been one of the places where I feel safe. Even when my thoughts are loud, rhythm gives me something to focus on. Counting, listening, and playing help pull me back into the moment.
That is why I did not want “Containment” to feel sad the whole time. Yes, it came from something difficult, but it also came from something I love. I wanted the piece to have energy. I wanted it to sound like fighting back, not giving up.
When I started writing, I thought about a few feelings I wanted to capture:
The first was pressure. I used tight rhythms and repeated patterns to create that feeling of being stuck in a loop.
The second was control. Drumline music depends on clean attacks, strong timing, and clear structure, so I tried to make the writing feel disciplined.
The third was release. I wanted certain moments to feel like finally taking a breath after holding everything in for too long.
That balance was the hardest part. If every measure sounded tense, the piece would feel flat. If everything sounded happy, it would not be honest. I had to keep adjusting until the music felt like both sides of me were there, the side that struggles and the side that keeps playing anyway.
The creative process was messy in the best way
Composing “Containment” did not happen in one perfect moment. It was a lot of trying things, playing them, hating them, changing them, then suddenly finding one measure that made me smile.
I started with rhythms before anything else. Since this was for drumline, the groove had to matter. I wanted the piece to feel playable, not just interesting on paper. Some rhythms looked cool when I wrote them down, but once I tried playing them, they felt awkward or did not fit the mood.
So I kept testing everything.
I would write a phrase, tap it out, play it on a pad, then ask myself if it sounded like the feeling I was trying to show. If it felt too random, I simplified it. If it felt too easy, I added more movement. If it sounded cool but did not mean anything, I cut it.
That was a big lesson for me. Composing is not just adding notes. It is choosing the right notes and being brave enough to remove the ones that do not belong.
There were also moments where I had to think like an audition candidate. I wanted the piece to show my ability, but I did not want it to sound like I was showing off just to show off. The music still needed a purpose.
That made me focus on clarity. I wanted the judges to hear the story, even if they did not know every detail behind it.
Being the only candidate with an original piece meant a lot
One of the coolest parts of this whole experience was realizing that I was the only candidate to compose an original work for the Varsity Drumline audition.
That was scary at first. Everyone else could prepare something already written, something proven, something that did not come directly from their brain. I was bringing in a piece that I had made from scratch. If it worked, it was mine. If it did not, that was mine too.
But that is also what made it special.
Playing someone else’s music can still show skill, dedication, and musicality. I respect that completely. But composing my own piece gave me a chance to show more than how I play. It showed how I think, how I listen, and how I turn personal experience into sound.
It also made the audition feel less like a test and more like a statement.
I was not just asking to be placed on the drumline. I was saying, “This is who I am as a musician.”
That felt huge.
What I learned from writing Containment
Writing “Containment” taught me that music can hold more than rhythm. It can hold feelings that are hard to say out loud.
It also taught me that being original is risky, but worth it. There were times when I wondered if I should have done something safer. Maybe I should have picked an existing audition piece. Maybe I should have kept my personal life out of it. Maybe I should have made it simpler.
But every time I came back to the piece, I knew why I was writing it.
I wanted to make something real.
I wanted to take the part of my life that can feel controlling and turn it into something I could control, even if only for a few pages of music. That is what “Containment” became for me. It was not a cure or some perfect explanation of OCD. It was a way to give the feeling a shape, a pulse, and an ending.
And honestly, that felt amazing.
The score is attached at the end
The full score for “Containment” will be attached at the end of this post, and I hope you take a look at it. Even if you do not read percussion music every day, I think the page still shows the journey: the repetition, the tension, the release, and the care that went into every measure.
This piece started as an audition project, but it turned into something much bigger for me. It reminded me that the things we struggle with can still become art. It reminded me that music can turn pressure into motion. Most of all, it reminded me that being brave enough to create something original is already something to be proud of.
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