A
t rst I was mesmerized by the explosive drumsand the magic o 200 people working together,making moving pictures on a eld. As time wenton, I began to notice details: the glint o the instrumentsin the autumn sunlight, the whirlwind o notes playedby futes and clarinets, and the steady drive o the tubasand baritones. I saw how the band members carriedthemselves: backs straight, chins up, with pride.I’m not ashamed to admit it: I was just a little bit inlove with my high school marching band.
That was when I was a reshman in high school. I hadplayed fute or our years in concert band but hadn’tconsidered joining an extracurricular music group. A yearlater, with the encouragement o some riends, I showedup or my rst band practice.Our band director doesn’t believe in auditions. He wants everyone who loves band and can play aninstrument to have the opportunity to join. There wereex-cheerleaders and kids who gave up all sports to marchin the band. There were guys who brought Nintendosto band camp and traded Pokemon during breaks. We had uture valedictorians and people with GPAs just high enough to be eligible or band. There weretalented musicians who, we were sure, would tour witha proessional jazz group someday, and others who couldhardly pass playing tests but loved music anyway. Plenty o people joined the band because they, like me, hadn’tound their niche in high school and wanted somethingincredible to look orward to.
When I walk into the band room or the rst timein the summer ater my reshman year, I never want toleave. People are riendly, coming up and introducingthemselves and asking me what instrument I play. Thereare little cliques, o course, but almost everyone wants tomeet new people. It is the exact opposite o the rest o high school.The band practices rigorously all summer. At thebeginning o each rehearsal, we jog the length o theschool rom the band room to the parking lot whererehearsal is held. There, everyone stands with theirsections to stretch. Marching band may not seem very physically demanding, but our muscles tell us otherwisethe next day, so we take stretching seriously. Ater we stretch, the drum major announces a number,usually between 5 and 25. The entire band has to do thatnumber o jumping jacks, counting silently, perectly insync. I even a single person does too many or too ew, ormakes the smallest accidental movement at the end, the whole band has to do push-ups until the drum major tellsus to get back up. We try the jumping jacks again, thistime a greater number.Like most new band members, I don’t understand atrst why the jumping jacks are so important. But we allgradually learn that it’s an exercise in ocus. As our banddirector says, “I you can’t even do jumping jacks, how can you march a whole show?” Ater jumping jacks, we pick up our instruments and warm up. Then our band director, sitting on top o theband truck parked in the parking lot, tells us his plans orthat rehearsal and suggests things or us to ocus on. Therehearsal begins as soon as he announces a set number orus to go to.
Sets are the various “pictures” that make up amarching band’s routine. The show consists o movingrom one set to the next while playing music that goes with each set. Shows vary in how many sets they have,but both years that I marched in the band, our showseach had 43 sets.Each band member has a specic spot to be inor each set. These spots are denoted by numbersthat indicate the distance, in marching steps, rompredetermined ootball eld landmarks such as yardlines, sidelines, and hash marks. These are a bit like xand y coordinates.One o the hardest things about marching band ismemorizing all these numbers. We write them down inlittle notebooks that we take with us to each practice.For each set, each band member memorizes on whichside o the eld her spot is, the horizontal and vertical
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imagine
March/April 009
Music and Movement
The ArT of MArching BAnd
Miriam (bottom right) and the rest o the Beavercreek High School MarchingBand fute section.
by Miriam Mogilevsky
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