'I bought a bunch of marching band books online': Music teacher fakes their way into a job where they "had no idea what they were talking about"

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jun 16, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

Fake it til you make it! It's a piece of advice that works weirdly well. It's true: if you walk in somewhere and act like you belong there, people tend to accept you. If you say you can do something, folks will just take your word for it a lot of the time. 

This person, u/Imjustheretogetbaned, had a great story about when they faked it until they made it, and they took a risky bet on it. They shared that they were already a music teacher, but they'd only taught a handful of students. Of course, as a music teacher, you need to be able to read music, work with students, and have lots of patience as you teach the kids to read music and play all of their various instruments, including drums, guitars, pianos, tubas, horns, or violins. 

Props to this dude for knowing that a lot of successes in life come from just showing up and trying. They saw an opportunity and took it! 

After that, this construction boss faced off with a persistent client and his team of pros trying to stop construction, and was thrilled to tell the client, "We're just gonna go ahead and sell you the property you've stolen."

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  • 01
    AHA
    via Katrina Berban on Unsplash
  • 02
    Got a job! Shortly after I got engaged I realized the job I had was going to keep me away from my future wife way to much. So I started looking for a new job. I ran across an add for a band director in a little town north of Houston. I've had a small music studio of piano and guitar students since I was 13 so I figured it couldn't be all that hard.
    via u/Imjustheretogetbaned
  • 03
    I applied and got an interview pretty quick. I'm decent at interviews and had them pretty well convinced I was the guy for the job. Problem was I've never been in any kind of marching or concert band. So when we got to the final set of questions they stated asking some very specific questions relating to how I would run the program. Most of which I had no idea what they where talking about.
    via u/Imjustheretogetbaned
  • 04
    Instead of panicking, I asked what the previous director had done. They went on and on about how amazing of a job he had done with teaching military style marching band (once again, I had no idea what that meant). With as much enthusiasm as I could muster I told them "that's a program I can get behind!". They ended up offering me the job just a few min later.
    via u/Imjustheretogetbaned
  • 05
    I bought a bunch of marching band books online and learned as much as I could over the next few weeks before school started. It ended up being a great experience. I taught for 2 years and tripled the size of the program all because I acted like I knew what I was doing in the interview!
    via u/Imjustheretogetbaned
  • 06
    tomsawyerisme Its great how you focused. on doing the job well after you got it rather than just squandering an opportunity your acting skills gave you.
    via u/tomsawyerisme
  • 07
    El_Zarco Good on you for sticking around, most people would. just skip town once they collected all the townsfolks' money for instruments and uniforms
    via u/El_Zarco
  • 08
    Imjustheretog... OP Can I just say how much I appreciate y'all interacting with me? It feels really good to reminisce about that time in my life!
    via u/Imjustheretogetbaned
  • 09
    FruitySloth Coming from another musician, that's fantastic! I know marching band is close to religion in Texas, so busting your and building the program is a great feat! Congratulations on driving through!
    via u/FruitySloth
  • 10
    drumstyx I'm pretty sure this is actually the correct way to get a job, and the everyday embellishing people do in interviews essentially amounts to this, just generally prepared and not on-the-spot.
    via u/drumstyx
  • 11
    Good job though, that's pretty astounding given that teaching/instructing positions are very hard to come by these das.
    via u/drumstyx
  • 12
    TergiversationNat... 6y ago • This is a great, great story! It really is a bit like The Music Man (which just happens to be my favorite show, since a kid) — down to Librarian - Marian's final plea to the townsfolk that everything Professor Hill promised came true, despite his being just a bang-beat, bell-ringin, big-haul, great-go, neck-or- nothing, rip-roarin', every- time-a-bullseye salesman.
    via u/TergiversationNation
  • 13
    One of my favorite high school memories was our half-time show (or maybe competition?) where, after the first number, they turned off the stadium lights and we switched on the flashlights taped to the sides of our shoes (and this before LED torches) for some fancy stepwork in the
    via u/TergiversationNation
  • 14
    dark. Then for the third number, still in the dark but with more stately formations, we played a rousing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" with a surprise aerial fireworks display fired off just outside the stadium at the crescendo. And the crowd went wild...
    via u/TergiversationNation
  • 15
    GlassJoe32 6y ago This is encouraging for me! I too have been looking for a new job, I'm currently working a swing shift that goes well into the night typically getting home at 130 am of which I've been doing for 3.5 years. And after 8 years with my girlfriend I'm getting married too. I've also been trying to switch gears career wise,
    via u/GlassJoe32
  • 16
    from operations to something in sales or training where I'm engaging with people more. I believe I have a personality for it but my lack of experience really makes me feel intimidated. I'll remember this story during my next interview.
    via u/GlassJoe32

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act like you belong Music job kids new hire marching faking it fake it til you make it teacher marching band workplace interview musicians
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