It’s marching band season for both high school and college, and that means lots of sunburn, sore legs, and pages upon pages of music and drill. You (or maybe your parents) have signed up for your high school’s marching band, and you don’t know what to expect; or maybe you are going to college five states away and don’t know what to expect for your next couple years in your new home. Your section leaders may have sent you a list of what you need to tote along, but a couple Creators at Furman are here to fill in the blanks! College or high school, we got you covered.
In the last nine years I’ve seen over 75 marching bands. High School, college, Drum Corps - it almost doesn’t matter which one. What does matter, is that I’ve seen really successful bands and I’ve seen not so good bands. So I asked myself, "what sets them apart?" Being a figurehead in my high school marching band over the past few years, I would constantly be asked this same question from students “How can I make my Marching Band experience better?” And this is what I tell them.
1. Practice
This is an obvious one. The more you practice, the better you get. The better you are as an instrumentalist, the more the people around you will want to practice and get better. The more people you get better, the better the band as a whole.
You are only as strong as your weakest member.
2. Concert Band/Orchestra
I could go on and on for days on how important Concert Band is, but I think it’s safe to say that if your concert band isn’t well organized and isn’t playing at a decent level, then your marching band isn’t going to be either. In concert band, wind players are expected to learn and build upon the fundamentals. Percussionists are expected to learn not just a snare drum or a bass drum, but keyboard instruments that involve a completely different mindset.
If you can’t play a C scale with good tone sitting down, how can you do it marching?
3. Jazz Band
Through the last 10 years of playing, I’ve been in multiple different ensembles that play multiple different genres. It wasn’t until I fully immersed myself into Jazz that my marching band-self got much better. The act of performing in front of an audience, in a group of 6 people, and improvising a solo is a tough gig. But it taught me all about performing while vulnerable, and ever since freshman year of high school, I have seldom become nervous while performing a solo.
Stage fright just means you haven’t performed enough yet.
4. Listening
Listening to different types of music is the biggest piece of advice I could ever give to any musician. I don’t care if you are 8th chair Viola in the church orchestra, you should be listening Symphonic Band music. Or better yet, check out Polka music. Japanese Pop? Celtic choir? Catholic Psychedelic Synth Folk? Yes these are all very real genres, the point is – as a musician, you should be listening to as much music as you can with a very wide variety of tastes. Not only will Marching Band music be easier to comprehend and play, but no matter the theme of your show, you’ll be able to pick up the music in no time.
A musician doesn’t just play music, he absorbs music in every way he can.
5. Make Mistakes
As a musician, we are always told to never make a mistake. Especially in Marching Band! When you’re at the state competition and you’ve played the same show 100+ times, it’d be foolish to make a mistake. That’s why, when I say “make mistakes,” I mean to make mistakes during rehearsals. Make mistakes at the beginning of band camp. Make mistakes in your practice. It’s inevitable that you will make a mistake somewhere, so the sooner you make the mistake, the quicker you’ll learn from it.
We’re humans. We make mistakes, we learn from them and we get better from them.
