Our feet go marching on

By Nina Sabak
For the Times West Virginian

August 04, 2008 11:47 pm

— For most people, the idea of “summer” conjures up images of melting popsicles, lazy afternoons at the pool and stacks of books waiting to be read.
For those in the Fairmont Senior marching band, the above sentence was confusing, incredible, and surely a total falsehood.
It takes a special breed to do band, and for good reason; it’s perhaps one of the more demanding high school activities, challenging its participants physically, mentally, and musically. (That last one is the only thing football really lacks, “Remember The Titans” or not.) One must be dedicated, patient, and maybe just a little odd to willingly devote three or four evenings a week to practices, games, and competitions — and band kids will be the first to tell you that.
Still, the average Fairmonter sees the area bands at football games and parades only, enough to appreciate some tuba antics and neat drumline tricks. What is it that so wholly consumes a band member’s life from July to November?
(Hint: Not the tuba antics and neat drumline tricks.)
The Fairmont Senior band begins music rehearsal in the very last week of June, continuing all the way through July. (Yes, it will be necessary to actually wake up before 10 to go practice with your section.) That’s all cake, if you can play the music, especially considering what follows: the legendary, slightly mythical week last week of July, more commonly known as band camp. And as any band member can tell you, there USED to be 86 of us ... and then someone got off-step on Tuesday night.
In actuality, the average day is divided into seven hours of marching and setting drill, one-and-a-half to two hours of sectional rehearsals, an extra hour of mass rehearsal, another couple for meals, and — yes! — two hours for break. (Disclaimer: Not in that order.) By Wednesday morning, your calves ache, your shoulders are sunburned, you are beginning to despise your instrument — and you can probably march the entire drill. “Why,” you wonder, “am I doing this? And why do I automatically start marking time when I hear a Sousa march?”
After the trip home, and a weekend spent in slumber, practices begin.
These generally run for three hours twice a week, from around the earliest acceptable dinnertime to the last sinking of the sun’s rays. Why the excess?
Tweaking, of course. And it’s not excess by any means. Fact is, being in a competition band takes a lot of work.
“I think the thing that most people not involved in marching band don’t realize is the tremendous amount of rehearsal time that goes into putting on a show,” says Fairmont Senior band director Shawn Dunn. If a field show lasts about 10 minutes, and it requires a week of 15-hour days plus six hours a week until November to be truly polished ... well, you get the idea. Those teenagers on the Astroturf will already have marched every step of the program countless times before you get a chance to order a pepperoni roll.
Given that performing at halftime takes a large effort, going to near-weekly competitions requires even more. Most are hours away by bus, requiring achievement on unfamiliar fields and with slightly groggy reflexes. Placing well in a Tournament of Bands competition has, naturally, quite a few rewards. “Trophies are nice, but are definitely secondary to the learning experience that takes place,” Dunn says. “Competitions help set a bar of excellence that the students and staff strive towards, and are a motivational reward for reaching those goals.”
After all, what’s better than beating your all-time highest score?
(Nintendo, I expect you to get on this immediately. MarioBand needs to be hitting stores soon.)
As huge a commitment as band may be, it’s not just a marching thing.
Without the band parents and boosters, clumps of kids in uniforms would probably still be straggling along Interstate 79 on the way back from that last championship. Pulling off a successful season requires a vast infrastructure of parents, resembling nothing so much as DNA or a map of Boston. Everything from obtaining medical histories to coordinating senior ads to chaperoning hyperactive saxophonists falls under their domain, making them the best weapon the band has. That’s even without considering that band is, in fact, a year-round organization, encompassing not just marching band, but concert, symphonic, and jazz bands, plus the ultra-cool percussion and steel drum ensemble.
“The band booster organization has been one of my favorite places to volunteer because I get to know my boys’ friends and their parents,” Lisa Leeper says. Maybe, in the end, that’s something band has always been about: people. Just consider the masses needed to prepare, perform, and — yes, you faithful spectator! — observe any successful show.
What about the people on the 50-yard line? The beginning of this article told you that a band kid has to be just a little bit nuts. But all jokes aside, as Lisa Leeper says, “It is very difficult to put all the teens in high school marching band into one single category. Music is universal.”
Now how’s that for a triumphant final chord?

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