The lights are shining down on the stadium. The crowd cheers as the football team breaks for half time. But this is just when senior Arnav Batra is getting started. He climbs up the steps to the  podium and counts off the marching band.

Band has been a part of Batra’s life since fifth grade and from there, he has constantly improved and rose to the top, becoming a drum major. When introduced to the instruments, Batra chose the oboe, where he enjoyed the unique sound that the instrument made, he said.

“I started playing oboe in sixth grade,” Batra said. “What they do is as fifth graders, they bring all the private lesson teachers over and just have you tried all the instruments, and I really fell in love with oboe then, just because I liked how [the oboe] mimics the human voice much more than just altering a specific tone like all the other instruments.”

After having positive influences from his drum majors his freshman year, he decided to try out for the position to leave a positive influence on the underclassmen. Drum majors play an important role in marching band as they are responsible for counting off the band without the use of technology like a metronome, and teaching new members how to be a part of a larger band.

“My freshman year drum majors were Alyson Jia and Julian Savage,”  Batra said. “And those are people I had looked up to from the start. They made me feel really valued and made me feel really included. I knew I wanted to be like them. But still, I saw the amount of impact I can make from that position as well. So, that was something I had strived to strive for. I started JV and freshman year, and I loved how they made an effort to come over and talk to us. And that’s something I knew I wanted to continue and I knew there was something I could continue if I, you know, strove for that position.”

With becoming a drum major, there is a change from being a member of a section.

“So last year, I was more aligned with my individual section,” Batra said. “I was with a much larger group of leaders who were just focused on that specific section. So it was very easy to kind of piggyback off with someone’s idea and you know, just help them and just help them implement it. But as a drum major, it’s a smaller team. And so you have to be a lot more conscious about how you are coming off in relation to everyone else in your team. I learned very quickly that it’s not just about how technically skilled you are.”

Alongside the band, Batra participated in clubs, UIL and volunteer work. One thing that Batra has done this year is help the middle school band program. He wants to form a greater connection with the middle school band and the high school band. 

“I try to go to middle school and I tried to connect with the middle school oboists,” Batra said.  “I feel like this is something we started this year that I can really help with, increasing the amount of collaboration and connection between not just the high school program and the middle school program, but also specific individuals in the high school band program.”

The initiative started last year when Batra and other members of the band were asked to sit in on the middle school’s band practice.

“We went over to the middle school and we sat in and we played with them and just hung out with the middle schoolers,” Batra said. “It was a really fun time. And they responded really well. So, that’s something we are trying to do to bridge that gap of middle school and high school band.”

Batra has always had an interest in mathematics, which later turned into an interest in computer science. He competed in UIL for computer science and was a silver medalist during his sophomore year.

“I’ve always been a massive math person and I really enjoyed taking something that seems so abstract, like numbers, and being able to apply it to fields that can actually have an impact,” Batra said. “At the same time, I began to tap into my artistic side by playing oboe; music is both super mathematical and creative. That’s ultimately why I chose to do computer science, because coding gives me space to make something that just works, while also exploring how I would solve a particular problem, just like refining a piece of music.”

After high school, Batra plans to pursue computer science at the University of Texas at Austin. 

“I am going to school for computer science at UT,” Batra said. “It’s really close to home, which at first was a turn off, but I realized that it was a very good option because they have a lot of good [computer science] programs. I’m going to miss the camaraderie of band. I’m going to miss the feeling of just being in the grind 24/7 during marching season. I’m gonna miss the familiarity that Cedar Park has.”