 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Eb
Date: 2001-08-19 02:04
Hey everyone!
I just wanted to know if anyone knew of any good traditions or rituals of what ppl do before they have a marching band competition, or march at football games? My daughter is looking for some ideas, b/c her section has basically went dead with traditions! Any help would be appreciated..
~Eb~
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: jenna
Date: 2001-08-19 02:57
Oh traditions...
1. Sections do spirit days whenever there is a game or competition.. wear specific clothes and the whatnot. (ex. red and black, dress up, white shirts and ties or musicians bow ties, specially made shirts)
2. Bus cheers - Shouted as the bus pulls into the event area. Email me and I could send you a ton.
3. Flag captains (and clarinet, too) going up and down their lines prior to step-off, kissing each member on the cheek and wishing good luck.
4. Shouting "PAM LIKES BOOBS" prior to step-off. A long story involving teaching guard members to march with their bodies forward and the drum major.
5. Flags hold a big campout sleepover at a captain's house on the last day of band camp.
6. (last one i can think of) Upon returning to the school after a performance we begin to sing the school alma mater as we pull into the parking lot.. i think all the school sports teams do this. What makes us different is the additions. It ends with "amen" (and our colors red and black shall live for eternity... amen..). Then (depending who is on your bus) you end that by yelling "Kick it New Kids style.. oh oh oh ooohhh oh oh oh ohhh oh oh oh ohhhh.. the right stuff" or "Kick it Slayer style... AGHGHGHGGHHHHHHH.."
yeh.. we're strange. such is marching band.
jenna
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Sara
Date: 2001-08-19 03:22
We only had one tradition...It involved passing down undergarments at graduation. The males passed down a lady's garment to another male, and the females passed down a man's garment to another female.
Isn't band fun?!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Melanie
Date: 2001-08-19 03:46
Traditionally before competitions, our clarinet section would form a back and neck massage circle, and then the section leader would yell "Switch" and you'd turn around and massage the other person. It was a way to loosen us up before a performance.
We had some others, such as the Clarinet Power Chord, which involved everyone playing random high notes to the chagrin of the band directors and everyone else within earshot.
This should be an interesting post to watch, just to see how wacky and zany everyone's bands are/were!
Melanie
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ashley
Date: 2001-08-19 04:32
well none of our traditions would help you much..but theyre funny...
**the guys in our low brass section (some very funny yet immature guys, but also some of my best friends), the back of EVERY bus, and a CD player. CDs including Queen (Bohemian Rhapsody), The Monkees (I'm a Believer - that has a story behind it but I dont know it), the Austin Powers soundtrack (and the song known as "the i touch myself song"). and The Best of South Park. When we went to the boys state basketball tournament for pep band my sophomore and junior years, they had that song from the Austin Powers CD on almost the WHOLE time...all the way to Des Moines and back (an hour and a half each way), on 3 days that week soph year, 2 junior year. The whole bus knew all the words to that song by the end of state. Myself included. After the games that we won (the first round soph year, and the first 2 games junior year) they played "We are the champions" as we pulled out of the parking lot at the auditorium. We all sang. Loudly. Especially when the other team's fans were walking by...
lets see, what else...
**every year the junior class gives awards to the seniors at the end of the year. The only one that survives year to year is the infamous "Wilke award" - a very prized posession. It consists of an old, upside down broken snare drum, a branch from an artificial christmas tree, a green plume, and an old green satin bowtie (school colors are green and white), among many other things. Every year the old winner adds something to it, then it is awarded to the next winner of the wilke award.
**we have one parade a year. in 9th and 10th grade we marched, and in 11th I suggested to the new director that instead of marching, we get a trucking company to donate a truck and a driver, and we ride on the flatbed and play pep band tunes, that way we can have the electric bass w/a generator, and drumset. that idea flew, and we did it in 11th and 12th grade. Every year after the parade regardless of whether we marched or rode, we went back to school afterwards and had a picnic - the director in 9th and 10th grilled burgers, the director in 11th and 12th got big 6 foot subs and stuff from Hy-Vee. That was a great tradition..
**At basketball games, we played the school song SO fast when our director would let us...the cheerleaders couldnt even attempt to dance fast enough to it. It was hilarious. (On Iowa was the school song, same as the U of I, but a very cheesy version of it)
**(Background note - I went to a catholic private HS, called St. Edmond. Our mascot is the Gaels [no, I dont know what a Gael is. if you know, tell me. we think its the little Notre Dame fighting irish guy, but facing the other way]). Before a jazz band contest, like with all sports, we got in a huddle to say the Hail Mary. We don't whisper it, we say it so everyone around us can hear it (it gets the crowd worked up at games). we say the Hail Mary, and end it with "...now and at the hour of our death, Amen. Mary, queen of Victory, PRAY FOR US, Saint Edmond, PRAY FOR US, Praise the Lord, ONE TWO THREE LETS GO GAELS!!" we get louder throughout the end, at the end we're screaming. Its great. Its a whole bonding experince and we really feel like a group. We play better after it also, cuz we're more, I dont know, united. Its awesome. My HS had SOOO much school spirit.
Thats all I can think of..my school had some great traditions though. If I think of any more, I'll post them :o) Ya gotta love the Gaels.
~Ashley~
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Whitney C.
Date: 2001-08-19 04:52
The best tradition of my marching band was this: After each competition (not football games) we would form a huddle and sing the song that goes "And a friend's a friend forever..." It was amazing to see how many people, even the boys, cried. Towards the end of the season, almost everyone was crying when we sang it. And get this -- at the last competition of the season in my freshman year, a falling star fell as we sang the last line of the song ("a lifetime's not too long to live as friends")! That's the stuff movies are made of
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Francesca
Date: 2001-08-19 15:36
My clarinet section has movements to go with most of our pep songs. We do this thing call a suicide where we stand in a line and every other person ducks and the other half swing up and to the left. It's all fun and games until someone gets hit then it's just fun!
Each section has it's own cheer. The euphoniums are prone to yelling "bruce, bruce, bruce, ..." every time their section is mentioned. Nobody knows why, they keep that a secret, but it's fun.
I'm sure there are others. I'll have to think about it.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: David Pegel
Date: 2001-08-19 19:17
Our traditions:
1) Have the drums play a "traditional" cadence. Get someone in the low brass section to do a lapdance to it or something similar.
2) If you live in a somewhat religious area, some people get together and pray before a performance. (Hey, they can't do anything about it if it's a whole bunch of really small groups outside getting ready to warm up.)
3) Have stupid chants ready for marching practices. Not performances.
4) Have an "alternate" drum cadence. Catch the director by surprise.
5) Have a select group of people learn how to speed up together, and then let them play one pep song by themselves and throw the director off.
6) Play different instruments at basketball games than at football games.
7) Let each freshman march a sousaphone for a few minutes during band camp (It gives us all a laugh AND it keeps them from complaining.)
8) Have at least one designated "flasher" j/k that's a BAD tradition.
9) At the last quarter of every game, all of the brass people exchange instruments. (Is that the top chair trumpet playing the baritone?) Clarinets can exchange with the saxophones or low clarients too!!
10) Create a "Band parade rest" and "Band present arms" just for the heck of it. If you alread have those positions, make new ones.
11) During practice, if you have a scatter drill, everyone skip and frolic and mosey to their positions. If all of the guys do it, then it won't look wrong.
12) When you're marching on the feild, if there's a cadence playing, then have all of the instruments move their horns in unison (Like bass clarinets: carry, up, back, to the side, back, attention, back, down, back, etc.) Sousaphones just march with their horns on their shoulders.
13) Have all of one section wear the same color shirts on one day. Drumline sometimes goes topless at band rehearsals.
14) Spread myths about the tuba room.
15) Have the drummers paint their faces on homecoming night.
I went on a rant here, didn't I? I'm not expecting anybody to take our traditions seriously, but people do these things and it gives us all a laugh. And we're one of the top marching bands in our state!!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Jim
Date: 2001-08-20 05:05
I attended a Catholic High School some 35 years ago. Our "traditions" were imposed by "the powers that be." We did indeed pray (remember I said Catholic School!) before every game and concert. (No competitions in NJ in those days. Just as well, we would have come in last! There was no tradition of instrumental lessons in Catholic elem. schools. I came in from public school with 3 years of lessons, and I was at the top as a freshman.) We prayed to Saint Cecilia, the patron Saint of music, it didn't work!
After every winning football game, we formed a parade formation and with the cheerleaders we marched to the convent and played for the nuns while the cheerleaders mimed the score. We didn't do that often as winning was not a tradition (then, since the school has been very successful on the field.)
Win or lose, after every game the entire population of the stands was expected to stand and sing the alma mater. Students seen leaving before were punished on Monday in school. The Alma Mater... It was based on the Haydn tune that was the national hymn of Austria, printed in many modern hymnals as "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken," but best known as Hitler's anthem "Deutschland Uber Alles." Somehow it fit!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Robert
Date: 2001-08-21 22:16
Well I went to a public high school, but we still prayed before we performed, our elected band chaplan (a student) led us. Also one thing we used to do a thing where we linked pinky's (ala pinky swear) and while our pinky's were still linked touched thumbs... it kinda became our section good luck handshake thing.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
