White Socks?! (2023) alto saxophone + piano accompaniment · 6 minutes · advanced
White Socks?! was written for Nick May as part of the I Exist Project.
To purchase the score, send me an email at sebastian.zhang.music@gmail.com with the subject "White Socks?! score".
I'm a trans guy.
When I was in high school, I wore a tuxedo for the first time in a concert my junior year. Throughout my younger years, I had a lot of people make disparaging comments towards me, regarding what I was doing—everything from my hair to my instrument to my gait to the way that I stood while quietly listening, to the fact that I was wearing the "wrong" clothes.
So I sat there, nervously putting on tuxedo shoes in the percussion room of my high school. I sat there, and my new band director walks by me, and glares at me, and exclaims "Seriously?!", and I felt the familiar dread of looking at the now and the future of my life and seeing nothing but question marks and strangers' faces laughing and jeering and I think that everything is over, everything is so completely and utterly over, that the path I so eagerly wanted to forge in music was not possible now and never was, and never will be.
So I look up to face my doom, and I hear:
"…COME ON, WHITE SOCKS?!"
And then everything was going to be okay.
That band director turned out to be one of the most supportive teachers I had in high school. Supportive teachers are so incredibly important for queer kids, especially those who would otherwise lack a support system.
I hope that, perhaps all of you—teachers, peers, friends, even fellow strangers to strangers—all realize how important this is—to look beyond a stereotype, to see someone that is different but not wrong; that the word "normal" can be diverse.
Musically, White Socks?! draws upon third stream, jazz-classical fusion, video game and anime music, the modern chiptune scene, and contemporary percussion repertoire.