Should I listen to my buddy?

This is such a niche issue and I don't have anybody in my life to talk about it with. Hopefully this is not too long of a "vent" post for those willing to read:

For the past 2 or so seasons, a couple of my friends have gone down to the Columbians camp and auditioned for snare. They've never gotten contracts, but have always said it's a super fun experience. I've really wanted to try out but never been confident enough in my skills to give it a shot. This year I caved and bought the audition packet, and am planning to show up in December.

Kit has been my main instrument my whole life. I love drum corps but outside of school I haven't marched. My friends, who attend a different school, are miles ahead in terms of chops. This makes me feel left out whenever they're learning licks and cool stuff without me, but playing and hanging out with them is still a lot of fun.

What my friends don't know is that I've honestly never felt this motivated for anything before. Even before getting the packet I was working close to an hour per day towards practice. Just a month or two ago I couldn't even hold traditional. I don't have money for private coaching like they do, but so far studying lot videos and figuring out technique changes has been enough to make progress. The whole process has already been such a blast and the bits of improvement showing up are genuinely exciting!!!

There's this constant fear that my friends don't see me as a good player. Worrying sucks, but I feel like they just see me as "along for the ride". A month ago I wrote a stupid meme lick to make a video with. (which you can see here!!!!) I embarrassingly spent multiple hours trying to get it to sound clean. When we last hung out and I mentioned how I was really happy with how the video turned out, they told me it was "pretty cool" and added that "I just got to keep practicing". They're right but it honestly made me feel like shit.

Now for the main reason I'm writing this. Just last night I brought up the topic of auditions to one of them in the group chat. I mentioned that snare is probably going to be the most competitive part for battery and that showing up super prepared seems important. I got hit with a "Honestly dude you'd probably have a much better chance with kit, maybe start looking at those other parts of the packet. I'll leave it at that." Are you kidding me????

I haven't responded and I have no clue what to say. That comment made me feel even worse and it's been the only thing going through my head since last night.

I seriously feel like I'm doubting myself now. Even just a single callback next month is my goal for right now. Columbians is an open class corps and actually feels within reach for me. Support from my friends is something that's really mattered to me too, and it seriously sucks finding out that they don't have any idea how much I want to do this in the first place.

What do I do? I honestly don't even feel like practicing as much anymore, front ensemble kit might just be the way to go.