Watch Out Nation's Capital, Here Comes the JFK Marching Band

Let's go back in time, shall we? All the way back to May 2011, when the John F. Kennedy Marching Band marched in the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, D.C. This was a picture perfect trip, that is, if you leave out the details of the 20 hour bus ride, the 108 degree heat index, and the sick roommate. Good times!

Oh, I'm kidding of course, it really was a fun trip. We got to visit pretty much every famous place you can think of in D.C., and then some. My personal favorite was the tour of the U.S. Capitol building, mainly because it was air-conditioned and an over-enthusiastic tour guide dressed in a red suit led us through the building and showed us statues of people whom we never cared to know about in the first place. We also went on a dinner-dance cruise along the Potomac River. That would have been nice, had it not been so humid. Either way, the cruise directors were very energetic and they let us dance and sing and it was a blast, plus the food was outstanding.

Oh yeah, I'm sure you're wondering about the parade. It just so happens that Memorial Day fell on the hottest day of the year, and we got the privilege to march in our brand new uniforms. On the plus side, I think there were only two members of our band who fainted, and only a few that got sick. Unfortunately, one was my roomate. Delicious.

But hey, we did get to be on national television. That's got to stand for something, right?

Marching Band is Turning into Show Choir.

What comes to mind when you hear the word marching band? Most people think of band nerds marching around a football field at halftime with their strange uniforms and loud music. They think of the catchy tunes the band plays during pep band. What they don't think of is what is commonly associated with show choir: bright costumes, tons of props, and flashy choreography. In the past few years, these concepts have been slowly integrated into marching band shows throughout the country.

One band in particular that applies show choir concepts to their marching band is the Irondale Marching Knights* from Irondale High School in New Brighton, Minnesota. I've been to their hosted competition, Music of the Knight, for the past two years and our band has competed against them at Valley in West Des Moines. Last year their show's theme was the Seven Deadly Sins and this year their theme is How to Survive a Zombie Attack!  Both shows included costume changes, choreography that extended traditional marching band choreography, and tons and tons of props.

So here's my question: what caused the change from traditional marching band to this new show choir marching band combination? Over the years, marching band has slowly but surely left its traditional military style. The purpose of the marching band has changed from leading a military to entertaining a crowd. And yet many traditions have been kept, such as uniform styles, commands, and formations. Another change that has influenced the modern style of marching band is the addition of a color guard during the time of the American Revolution. A color guard adds visual appeal to a marching band show by wearing colorful costumes (as opposed to military style marching uniforms) and incorporating choreography using flags, rifles, and other props. Because audiences love the color guard choreography so much, it has become a general practice to have the marching band members do choreography as well. Another factor in this change is the audience itself, as it has become more of the general public. Because the audience is becoming less and less marching-band associated, they are also becoming less interested in traditional marching band shows. To most marching bands it makes sense to add visual choreography and flashy costumes if they want the audience to enjoy their show.

Whether its flashy costumes, using props to create a story, or sychronized choreography, marching band is becoming less like marching band and more like show choir. This can be viewed as good or bad, but perhaps we should slow it down a little and save show choir for the winter season.

*To learn more about the Irondale High School Marching Knights visit their website.

Homecoming Music: What Makes a Good Homecoming?

So homecoming is here and it's all everyone's talking about. The spirit days, the assembly, the parade, the game, and lastly, the dance. Everyone's into who's going with who and what they're wearing and who's in your picture group and where you're all going to dinner. Quite frankly, I don't think it's that big of a deal, all it does is add stress to our already busy lives.

So what's the most important element in the homecoming dance, anyway? If you ask a girl, she would probably say the dress that she spent $250+ on at Dillards. If you ask a guy, he might say borrowing his dad's Lexus to drive so he looks cool. If you ask me, I would say that the music is the most important part of the dance.

Think about it: if the DJ plays crappy music, then no one is going to want to dance. If the DJ plays all techno, or rap, or country, then only people that like those types of music are going to want to dance. The DJ has to play the perfect blend of upbeat and slow paced music to make the dance just right. They also need to throw in some classics like Thriller and YMCA. The most important thing is to play something that people can actually dance to. We all know that nothing is more awkward than just standing there, looking around the room because you don't know what to do and the music is impossible to dance to.

Then again, the DJ has to be careful about what music he or she plays. We all know that teenagers can get a little out of hand when it comes to dancing--yeah, you all know what I'm talking about. What I find really unpleasant is the heat and sweat that fills the room when things really get out of control, so keep it chill, okay?

So now we can conclude that the DJ plays a crucial role in the success of a homecoming dance. Ladies, it's not about how you look and Gents, please, forget the car. The real solution is in the music played. That being said, don't put too much pressure on your DJ, either. Stop complaining about the music if they play one country song, and don't go up to the table and request them to play seven of your favorite songs, right now. Everyone just needs to calm down, stay cool, and relax. It's really just about having a good time.

Who doesn't love a good parade?

Everyone knows there's a parade for just about every holiday. St. Patricks Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, etc. Parades are a fun way to feature organizations and to get tons of candy. Often times, marching bands are included in parades, playing upbeat, well-known music.

This afternoon was the Kennedy High School homecoming parade. It featured just about every school organization or club that you could think of, including the marching band. We were the first organization featured in the parade, and we played the fight song as well as our show music. It seemed odd to me...why were we playing our show music, anyway? Don't get me wrong, it's great music, but in my opinion it's just too dark for a parade. People want to hear peppy music with relaxing tempos, not classical music written by Mozart and Verdi.

The Cougar Marching Band has been featured in several other parades. We are featured annually in the Hog Wild Days parade in Hiawatha, Iowa. Typically we march and play the fight song, but this past summer we created a float instead. The marching band members rode on the float while playing the fight song and the drum majors walked alongside the float. That raised another question in me: if we're a MARCHING band, then why aren't we marching?

This past May, the band was also featured in the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, D.C. I don't want to say too much about this experience because I'll be writing a seperate post about it at a later date, but it was an extreme honor to be the representative band from Iowa in this televised parade. It was also the first time our brand new uniforms were featured.

In conclusion, marching bands are a big part of parades. There are tons of options too: they can go the traditional route and play peppy music, or they can go the modern route and ride on floats, playing dark classical music. It's really all a matter of opinion.

Happy Homecoming!

SYSTEM + SPIRIT = SUCCESS!

When most people think of summer, they think of late nights and beaches and suntan lotion. When drum majors think of summer, they think of drum major camp, in my case, Smith Walbridge Clinics.

Pictured at left: 2011 Smith Walbridge Clinics. Image courtesy of Facebook.

Smith Walbridge is a week long camp held at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois. There are a lot of branches of this camp (director's camp, colorguard camp, etc.) but it is known specifically for it's drum major camp. The camp was established in 1949 and is the oldest drum major camp in the country. There were six campers in its first year, and since then it has grown to nearly two hundred each week. Campers travel from all over the country to attend this camp, and Smith Walbridge has seen campers representing all fifty states. Pretty impressive, right?

Not only has Smith Walbridge built up a great reputation, but the camp will change a camper for the better, guaranteed. Not only does this camp teach a student how to lead, march, and conduct, it also gives a student confidence. And no, I'm honestly not endorsing this camp, I just know because I've experienced it myself.

On the first day of camp, the staff makes each camper go in front of the entire band and give their commands. When I was first told I had to do this, I thought to myself, "Wait, what? I'm supposed to go up in front of two hundred people I don't know and give my commands? Out loud?!". Then I turned to the girl next to me, who was calm as ever. I asked her if they were serious. She looked at me a little strange, and just slowly nodded. It turns out she was an alumni of the camp, and had done it all before.

Each day of the camp is filled with rigorous activities including giving and executing commands, conducting classes, putting together drill for the final performance, leadership classes, and squad competitions between bands. The week is filled with lots of hard work, sweat, and minimal sleep. Each camper burns approximately 4000 calories a day.

An average person would think this was a prison, a place where they make you do hard work and don't give you long breaks and feed you crappy food. But to a drum major this is paradise, a place where you can work hard and learn a lot, a place where you can meet people who are as dedicated to marching band as you, a place where they force you to do things you don't want to do, thus bettering yourself in so many ways.

Many things can be taken from this camp: knowledge of marching band that will be useless for the rest of your life, perfect eight to fives, and a really great tan. And yet there's so much more, qualities you never knew you could gain in just a weeks time: lifelong friendships, leadership skills, and most importantly, confidence.

For me, Smith Walbridge Clinics drum major camp was the best and worse week of my life. It was hard to say goodbye to the self-concious, passive girl I was before. It was rigorous exercise that made me sore and tired. But it also allowed a new me to emerge, one that was confident and knowledgeable. One that was inspired and inspiring at the same time. Looking back, the time I spent at drum major camp was worth every second, and I've gained nearly a lifetime of experience in just a weeks time.

For more information about Smith Walbridge Clinics visit www.swclinics.com.

When you try your best, but you don't succeed...

There are times when you feel as if everything that's going on in your life is completely out of your control. You have no way of stopping or changing what's happening. You feel weak as you are forced to follow the path of others instead of creating a path of your own.

Yesterday, the Cougar Marching Band traveled to Johnston, IA, and Mount Pleasant, IA, to perform in their first competitions of the season. The morning performance was in Johnston, and there were no actual band placements, just a critique. The Cougar Marching Band had about half an hour to fix some little things before they took the field, and then they were on their own. As they marched onto the field, fearful last minute thoughts rushed through each members' head. "Will I fall? Will the drum line stay with the drum majors? Will our band be able to hold it together and look good at the same time?"

After the performance, and successfully not falling apart and having minimal phasing issues, the band was critiqued by a peppy white-haired man who couldn't get the DVD player to work. The band was ecstatic when they saw their performance and realized that they had actually done quite well. The drum majors were thrilled too--their salute looked awesome. The band director praised them, and told them to perform that well in the evening.

Later, after a long bus ride, a chilly rehearsal, and an unhealthy meal at McDonald's, the band was ready and knew, with false hope, that they would be the best at Mount Pleasant's competition. They lined up to take the field, and this time they weren't worried. They knew they had done an excellent job that morning, and that this performance would be the same if not better. Little did they know, they had a lot to worry about.

The first initial "hit" in the show was powerful, but it only went downhill from there. People couldn't march as well due to wet turf, and the drum line-drum major connection wasn't as solid as it was before. This show suddenly needed a lot of work and a lot of practice.

It was obvious that the band wasn't as good as they thought they were when they got their butt's kicked by the school across town. Disappointment was in everyone's eyes as they clapped their hands and pretended to be happy with where the placed. Tears were one blink away from the drum majors' eyes as they accepted their Third Place trophy.

This is the point when you feel out of control. You can't make the band march better or play better, it just has to happen. If eleven hours of practice a week isn't enough, then the entire band's doomed. Every person has to try that much harder to make it work. One person can't do all the work, can't fix everything, and it drives that person crazy. In this case, that person would be me.

I've had the song "Fix You" by Coldplay stuck in my head for nearly twenty four hours now. It reminds me of everything that could have been but wasn't. It reminds me that I've lost all control of the band and that I'm now dependent on them to better themselves. It reminds me that no matter how hard you try, you can't win if not everyone is completely dedicated.

Wolfgang is Quite the Genius...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a well-known name in the classical music world, is easily one of the top composers to ever have lived. In modern music, light is particularly shed on his Requiem Mass in D Minor, composed in 1791. I'm here to discuss one movement from this requiem: the Lacrimosa.

Okay, so I promise not to bore you with all the musical details of this piece, I'll just give you the general information for now. The word "Lacrimosa" (can be spelled Lacrymosa) is Latin for "with tears of" or "having wept". Mozart's requiem is an arrangement of music having to do with death. In order for you to understand the true eeriness and powerfulness of this song, I'm going to post a video of it.



Hopefully you enjoyed that morbid piece of classical music. What I find most interesting about this piece is that it's about death, and ironically this was the last piece that Mozart ever wrote before he died. Perhaps he saw it coming?

A modified version of this piece was sung by "Evanescence" from the album The Open Door.  I find this version even more haunting than the original because it's blended with a new melody that adds a modern twist to the madness. Here's a video of that version:



Alas, we've gotten to the part where I become acquainted with this song. It all began in January 2011, at Virterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I was at a show choir competition and I took my seat to watch Linn Mar's varsity show choir, "10th Street Edition". They opened their show with this piece, and I was completely mesmerized by it. Here's a video of that performance:



Fortunately, our band director was also at this show choir competition, and she too saw this song performed so well.  She was so fascinated by it that she decided to have it arranged this year for our marching band to perform.

Okay, so I know what you're thinking, this is crazy. This song went from classical to hard rock to show choir and now to MARCHING BAND? What?!

The only way to describe it is that there's nothing better than standing up on my podium, listening to the band play this piece, and thinking to myself, "Laaaaaaacrymooooosaaa" as the music corresponds. When I listen to it, I think back to January at the show choir competition, where I first heard it sung by outstanding performers. Sometimes I even wish that I, too, could play this music, instead of just conducting it. The song has such a cold, mysterious feel that's very fitting to chilly marching band nights. It always leaves me walking off the field feeling as if I've done my duty by exposing the rest of the world (or the audience, at least) to this timeless epic.

The Lacrimosa has survived for more than two centuries now, and there's no doubt that it will survive for many more. The fact that it's still being performed and modified today allows us to conlude that Mozart was a pure genius. What could be more legitimate?

Why is it so Hard to Keep a Beat?

You know when you're walking down the hallway, not in a hurry, just at a steady pace? And then you think to yourself, "left, right, left, right, left, right..."? Okay, so maybe you don't know. But for most of us band geeks, this is a common occurrence. We count as we walk, we pick up rhythms of speakers, and we add tempos to random acts. We have internal tempos that are just dying to be a part of our everyday life, and once we get out on the field we are able to perform them without people looking at us like we're totally insane. That being said, why on earth is it so hard for a marching band to keep a steady tempo?

Last Friday night, the Cougar Marching Band took the field to perform the half time show at the Cougars vs. Warriors football game. The crowd was wild, the lights were on full blast, and that autumn chill was in the air. As they announced the name of the marching band's fall show, every member experienced a jolt of electricity that burned them to the core. The adrenaline levels were as high as they'd ever been. The drum majors climbed onto their podiums. Silence fell over the crowd. This was the real deal, the run-through of the show that actually mattered, the one that would make the band the laughing stock of the city if it wasn't up to par.

 The practice run-through earlier that evening had went well, which was why everyone was shocked when the band completely fell apart. It happened like this: the winds slowed down, the drum line sped up, and the drum majors kept a steady tempo from the beginning. So at that point there were three different tempos going, but the real question was who to follow. Does the band use their ears and follow the drum line, or use their eyes and follow the drum majors? Who should adjust to whom? Eventually drum line is destined to take the lead, get the band back in step, win a great recovery, and finish strong. But my question is, why exactly does this happen in the first place?

Internalizing a tempo isn't a challenging thing to do. Most people could do it in their sleep. Sure, it takes focus and discipline for everyone to follow the same tempo, but it's really not hard to follow a beat pattern. Perhaps people are just lazy, and are only in marching band because their parents made them, or because they don't want to take gym. Maybe people just have a strong lack of focus, and their mind is wandering while the show is going on. Whatever the case, it gets rather annoying to those who are trying to keep the tempo and who want the marching band to perform well. Because of that performance, the opposing school's band now thinks that we can't march in time. Our student body has lost respect for us. Our marching band director has added extra rehearsal time. And why, you ask?

Because it's just so darn hard to keep a beat.