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!
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