...This One Time At Band-Camp

First of all I would like to apologise for this incredibly late post, it's a combination of having been really busy and being a little apathetic heh. Anyway, the main topic of this post is as the more intellectually inclined amongst you may have guessed; marching band.

Marching is probably the most demanding thing I've ever done. I have to put so much time into it, I have two three hour practices every week and then gridiron games every Friday night where we play before the match or at half time and then we sit in the stands and play when our team scores. Then we have practice on Saturdays from nine till five but I have to be up at about five-thirty to go and get breakfast with the drum-line, then after practice we have competitions with other marching bands, after the last competition I didn't get home till one on Sunday morning.

On top of this time commitment it's also physically tough. You may or may not have seen the pictures which are now up on facebook but I have to carry a gigantic bass drum strapped to my chest the whole time. Now under normal circumstances this wouldn't have been so bad, but on top of that I have to play it, and walk... in time!! Now this may not mean a lot to some of you but to give you an idea of the marching speed I have to march in time at up to 192 BPM, basically that's rawlz fast..

Now the bad has apparently been going since March and I didn't start till late August and as such I missed band camp *sigh*, but I'm pretty proud of what I've managed to pick up in the time I've been involved. Before I go any further I'll explain how the band is organised. It is divided into several sections; woodwinds which is composed of flutes, clarinets and saxophones; brass which is trumpets, sousaphones, mellophones and trombones; the colour guard who essentially run around waving flags and fake guns; and the drumline. The drumline is divided into two further parts: the pit, which is set up at the front of the field and contains xylophones, marimbas, vibraphones and various miscellaneous percussion instruments; and finally the battery, which is what I am part of. Four bass drums, two snares and one set of tenors. One important fact to note is that the pit doesn't move but the battery marches with the rest of the band.

At practice we arrive at around quarter to six and help the pit to set up and then we get our drums and head off to warm up. Until recently after warming up we would go out to the car park and learn drill. Drill is the actual marching, and comes in the form of sheets of gridded paper (in our bands case 109 sheets) which show a top down diagram of how the band is arranged on the field. We head out into the carpark and find our dot (which is wherever we're supposed to be on the field), mark it with chalk, march between that and the previous dot a few times, and then rinse repeat, rinse repeat. To begin with this was quite an issue as when I started they'd already learnt the drill for the first two and a half movements and so I had to learn it by following around the guy in front of me, not the most efficient way of doing things but I've got it now. After this we practice the drill we just learnt with our drums on and playing the corresponding music and then the whole band comes back together for ensemble practice. At the moment however we no longer do drill as we know the entire show.

Our show is entitled "Serengeti" and has this rather cool African theme. It's made up of four movements: sunrise, gazelles, cool shade, and brush fire and rain. As the show is built around this prominent African type thing percussion plays a rather important role. In the pit as well as the more traditional instruments there are djembes, congas, bongos, some freaky little plinky hand piano thing and some others which slip my mind... Meanwhile out in the field the battery (that's us) generally end up playing cool little groovy rhythms, especially in movement three, which is crazy fun to play.

As much fun as band is, it really does feel like some kind of crazy cult analogue; once your in your in and that's it. Skipping practice is a HUGE deal even if it's for legitimate reasons and quitters are more or less totally ostracised. On top of this each section of the band has it's own little rituals, which is kind of cool but also a little odd. I can't speak at length about any other sections little traditions but in the drumline there are several I can comment on. Every Saturday before practice (almost) the entire drumline goes out and gets a huge breakfast at this diner by school, and there's this one kid who never shows up and he gets a LOT of... flak for it. Most of the little rituals rear their heads a the competitions however. When we pay at competitions we have these little wrist flair things called gauntlets which are taped onto our uniforms and after every competition the tape is added to this ball of tape (which is allegedly twenty+ years old, but I could easily believe that) only a little smaller than my head and this HAS to be done. Also while we're waiting to go on we all huddle into a circle and say the lords prayer and then we shake hands with each other and say 'good morning',

I'm not sure how the one came about. Finally while we are waiting to go on and the band before us is playing we're not allowed to face the stadium.

To go with these there is also several rules that everyone is supposed to follow while in uniform: no swearing, no running, and sort of just no silly-business in general.

While I hope this has been interesting and informative for you all. If you have any questions or anything about it, ask away. Also if I could direct you to facebook where the are some pictures of band, I'll also try get some video or something.

Once again sorry for the radio-silence but I'll make it up by doing posts to sink a battleship today.

Lots and lots of love... FROM AMERICA!

Luke