Klarinet Archive - Posting 000891.txt from 1997/04

From: Cathy Davis <cdavis@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: marching bands
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 13:24:47 -0400

At 11:45 PM 4/28/97 -0500, you wrote
>When my children were in high school band, they had marching band
>rehearsal the first period of each school day. So, the director had them
>come to school at 7:00 a.m., so that they could have two hours of marching
>each morning. Then, they had a 3 hour rehearsal every Thursday evening,
>went back to school at 5:00 on Friday evening and practiced for a couple
>of hours before their football game. Then there were one or two marching
>contests every Saturday from September through early November. All this
>time, they played only their 13 minutes of memorized music.
>
>Then, when marching season was over and concert band began, the rehearsals
>reverted to the regular schedule of 50 minutes rehearsal per day, with no
>extra, outside-of-school-hours rehearsals. That shows me where the
>priorities are.
>
I agree that sometimes marching band gets more attention that
concert band. Were there many competitions in your area for concert bands?
Perhaps if there were as many as there are for marching bands, the director
would have had more practices. I'm not saying that this is the way is
should be done, but it's often the way things are handled.

>All this was in a school in which the director tuned the band only just
>before a marching contest. On the other days, it didn't seem to matter.
>My children were in this band for four years each, and not once did either
>one of them hear the words tone quality, intonation, blend, balance,
>phrasing, musicality, interpretation or many others which are normally
>used in a _musical_ setting. The program finally got so bad that parents
>would go to concerts and videotape them, and then send the tapes to the
>school board members, because otherwise, no one could possibly believe how
>bad it was.
>
If a student didn't hear about intonation, tone quality, blend,
balance, phrashing, musicality, interpretation or others then it was the
teacher's fault. AT our high school we heard more about balance, blending,
intonation, phrasing, and tone quality than we did about our marching
techniques. The first month we spent only playing the music and then the
moves we did on the field were designed to enhance the music. It doesn't
matter what type of ensemble it is (orchestra, marching band, concert band,
etc..) the director should always emphasis the musical components first. In
this way a school will have an even better music program because students
can see how the components of music come together in all ensembles.
Again, just my 2 cents.

Cathy