Marching Band

"YOU'RE in marching band?" This is a question my friends and I generally ask each other when we are on our way to practice or coming out of the band room at my school, but it's a huge joke between us. 

Yes, I am in marching band, and I'm proud to say it. I love going out on the field everyday in the hot sun and marching back and forth for two hours straight! 

OK, not really, but it's still really fun. My friends and I are all in it and even though we are split up in  four different sections, we manage to see each other everyday and go out to lunch together and talk about how much we hate it and love it. 

So music at my school is really big and all of the cool kids do marching band. It's a fun thing to do with your friends, you get to hang on Friday nights at football games, there's tons of free food, marching band festivals are where all of the good drama comes from, there is a super fun camp we all go to and party our butts off at in August, we get better on our instruments, and we get on the directors' good sides just by being in marching band. It is a win-win situation for everyone involved. 

But the band can be kind of a weird place at the same time, too. For instance, we have different mottos every year to motivate us every season to be our best. Last year's was "delayed gratification", which means you can work really hard for something but get your reward not immediately, but when you have worked to your best. I personally think that should be our permanent statement. It's quick and to the point about our marching band, and that's how everyone feels about their work in the band. 

BUT NO. This year, it was the really accurate statement "We are equal." There are several reasons that this statement is completely and utterly wrong and does not explain us and our mission properly. 

1. There are two Corps in the marching band: Festival Corps and Spirit Corps. Festival Corps is the section of the band that performs the Pre-Game show and the halftime show and performs at band festivals and does SIGNIFICANTLY more work than Spirit does. All the Spirit Corps does is the pre-game show and the pom tune right after the halftime show is finished. 

2. The band is made up of students freshman through senior year. And even though all of the kids in their respective sections get really close, seniors will have more experience than a freshman will. Its just that simple.   

3. I will state again, the amount of work each Corps does is very unequal. Festival Corps has to have everything memorized by the first home football game. That's all of a ten minute Pre-Game show where we play three songs and all of a ten minute halftime show where we play three movements and a pom tune. And we have to remember our coordinates on the field so we all don't bump into each other and take each others' eyes out. And there are those fancy horn moves. Spirit memorizes Pre-Game and SOME of them will make the effort to memorize the pom tune. 

See what I mean? My friends and I feel that that statement is just so stupid, there is no other way to describe it. 

But that is a very insignificant part of our work. We only come back to this mission statement at the beginning and end of the season. So I won't be seeing this again until October, hopefully.  

But marching band is so much fun, though. I have met some of my best friends there and become closer with the people I am already friends with. It is such a great experience and we are such a good group of squeaky-clean youngins. I can't wait for this season to start!