The Marching Band Competition Halftime shows were getting way out of hand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKythlXAIY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKythlXAIY
Why I Left Teaching High School Band
- Thread starter jbtsax
- Start date
I taught high school 13 years in Utah before moving to middle school and practicing real music education without the ball games, parades, halftime shows and fundraising. It can get real cold in Utah in October as well. I remember marching band competitions where you couldn't see the yard lines for the snow on the football field.
Marching and pep bands give our repair shop most of our business. Brasses for dent work, and woodwinds with leaking pads that got wet while playing in the rain and snow. So I guess I shouldn't complain too much. : )
Marching and pep bands give our repair shop most of our business. Brasses for dent work, and woodwinds with leaking pads that got wet while playing in the rain and snow. So I guess I shouldn't complain too much. : )
I bet you still "8 to 5" it around the shop.
I do "9 to 5" myself. I'm on that soundtrack and single :-\/
The group that's performing this, "OK, Go" is basically an internet phenomenon. They had difficulty in getting a record contract and airplay on the radio, so they started posting to YouTube. They got a kazillion hits. It also helps that all of their videos are quite inventive and the music's catchy.
...but not as inventive as the first clarinet player to show up in this production. She seems to be playing a low G or F with the middle finger of her left hand lifted from the tone hole at all times.
Marching band is one of the greatest crimes inflicted on society by the high school system. Down here, they start practicing in July - the hottest time of the year - and stories of students dropping over from heat exhaustion are a regular story in the nightly news.
(As one of the public faces of OSHA in the Houston area, I once had to tell an irate mother that our agency had zero enforcement ability as far as high school employees (state and local governmental employees are not covered by the Federal OSHA program) or students (students are not "employees" within the meaning of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970). It's hard to keep your cool when you have a shrieking woman calling you a murderer (which, even in the broadest sense, I was not - murder is a legal concept only pronounced by a court of law.))
And, even after all of that practice, most of it stupid than anything I inflicted as a drill sergeant in the 1970's US Army, the bands still sound like a dog's lunch warmed over.
One of the best memories that I carry of high school music is the lack of any marching band experience. Our young district's musical director, a relatively young Bob Tobler at that point in his life, was unwavering in his opposition to marching bands, and he held enough pull with the school board to prevail every time the question came up.
(The reason for his aversion to marching band I learned when I was in college and we met at lunch at a deli. While in the US Army and stationed in Korea, he was an air defense artilleryman, assigned to a Skysweeper battery. This was an anti-aircraft weapons "system", consisting of a 75 mm gun married to an on-mount autoloader and radar direction system. Complicated as hell, with electronics based on vacuum tubes in the days before solid-state stuff, the guns were never quite got to work. As a result, his unit spent less time on the gun mounts, time that the battery commander filled by having his men do close order drill.)
Anyway, we still played at all of the football games - bitter cold, snow or rain notwithstanding. (I also played bass drum in the all-volunteer basketball pep band.) But, we never had to march step one.
And, musically we were a better organization at district and state contests as a result.
Marching band is one of the greatest crimes inflicted on society by the high school system. Down here, they start practicing in July - the hottest time of the year - and stories of students dropping over from heat exhaustion are a regular story in the nightly news.
(As one of the public faces of OSHA in the Houston area, I once had to tell an irate mother that our agency had zero enforcement ability as far as high school employees (state and local governmental employees are not covered by the Federal OSHA program) or students (students are not "employees" within the meaning of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970). It's hard to keep your cool when you have a shrieking woman calling you a murderer (which, even in the broadest sense, I was not - murder is a legal concept only pronounced by a court of law.))
And, even after all of that practice, most of it stupid than anything I inflicted as a drill sergeant in the 1970's US Army, the bands still sound like a dog's lunch warmed over.
One of the best memories that I carry of high school music is the lack of any marching band experience. Our young district's musical director, a relatively young Bob Tobler at that point in his life, was unwavering in his opposition to marching bands, and he held enough pull with the school board to prevail every time the question came up.
(The reason for his aversion to marching band I learned when I was in college and we met at lunch at a deli. While in the US Army and stationed in Korea, he was an air defense artilleryman, assigned to a Skysweeper battery. This was an anti-aircraft weapons "system", consisting of a 75 mm gun married to an on-mount autoloader and radar direction system. Complicated as hell, with electronics based on vacuum tubes in the days before solid-state stuff, the guns were never quite got to work. As a result, his unit spent less time on the gun mounts, time that the battery commander filled by having his men do close order drill.)
Anyway, we still played at all of the football games - bitter cold, snow or rain notwithstanding. (I also played bass drum in the all-volunteer basketball pep band.) But, we never had to march step one.
And, musically we were a better organization at district and state contests as a result.
Their "beats" are lame. Sorry.
Terry and I have had similar experiences with Texas and hating marching bands. I've often wondered why marching bands even have woodwinds: aside from some piccolo parts, you can't hear 'em.
Oddly, my intro to marching bands was in Peru, NY, which is about as far upstate as you can get and not be in Maine. Football season was insanely cold and it taught me to detest marching bands.
The flipside of Texas being so gung-ho on marching bands is that they do have a lot of music programs.
Oddly, my intro to marching bands was in Peru, NY, which is about as far upstate as you can get and not be in Maine. Football season was insanely cold and it taught me to detest marching bands.
The flipside of Texas being so gung-ho on marching bands is that they do have a lot of music programs.
As noted by my college march instructor, in that sort of weather (as well as in rain), the football team will go inside, but not the band....
Having grown up in Cheyenne, Wyoming - which devotes the last full week in July to one of the largest rodeos in the world - our high school marching band had to deal not only with the heat but with all the fresh horse - er, um - droppings left in the street during the parades. It was hell on white bucks...
You are giving away your age by mentioning "white bucks". There are at least two generations who don't know what those are. I took my high school band to the Cheyenne parade one year and what you are saying is true. The parade route was like a mine field---not good on white spats either. I remember a very hot and dusty rodeo, and a lot of drunken cowboys hitting on the high school girls I was chaperoning. It wasn't a pleasant experience to say the least.