Ludwig van Hamlet

Ages and ages ago (maybe in October or so of this current school year) my teacher was in the middle of a campaign to get the majority of the band to learn to syncopate, or at least count. I don't think it really worked; we're still suffering from lack of rhythm and reading. His new slogan, "Play the ink, not what you think" hasn't really paid off.
Anyway, true to form, I'm getting off topic. One day, he'd written on the board: "To syncopate or not to syncopate, that is the question". Now, as a true Shakespeare nut who reads Antony and Cleopatra for fun, I immediately took it and ran with it. I dragged along my friend Nadia who sits next to me in class (credit to her is well-deserved) and together we began to convert the entire suicide contemplation speech into a speech bemoaning music. We only did some lines, but showed our director it anyway, and he absolutely went mad for it. He said once we finished it, he wanted it, and would have it made into a poster.
Well, that was way back when that he said it, and we hadn't finished it until maybe a half hour ago. I finally was sick and tired of it hanging over my head, and sat down and completed the rest of it. It's not just word replacement, I'd like to think; reading over it, it seems to have an actual poetic quality (aside from the lines where I couldn't keep the syllable pattern and shot it to hell).
We're both proud of it, and it just sounds really awesome, so I thought I'd share it with you guys. Feel free to leave comments or send me a note if you want. Hopefully this will make poster form in a few weeks, where Nadia and I will live in infamy on the band room wall until probably Mesches, the director, leaves.
Drumroll, please...

To syncopate or not to syncopate, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The signs and patterns of outrageous rhythm,
Or to take arms against a sea of ties,
And by subdividing end them? To tie: to slur;
No more; and by a slur we say we end
The articulation and the thousand natural accents
That song is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To tie, to slur;
To slur: perchance to sing: ay, there's the rub;
For in these measured bars what sounds may come
When we have shuffled off these rested minutes,
Must give us pause: there's the breath
That makes calamity of so long line;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The conductor's wrong, the first chair's contumely,
The beats of despised sharps, the beat's delay,
The insolence of soloists, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his glory make
With a bare melody? Who would second chairs endure
To grunt and sweat under a weary line,
But that the dread of something far further,
The nigh-mythical success, from whose bourn
No soloist returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear harmonies we have
Than fly to soli that we know not of?
Thus fear does make ensembles of us all,
And thereby the native glow of betterment
Is then made dark with dim timidity,
And thus endeavour of great pitch and movement
With this find that their currents turn awry
And lose the name of music.

I really hope you all like it; I had way too much fun doing this, aside from a few troublesome spots. But, all in all, I got a huge kick out of this.