With few exceptions, high school marching bands irritate me. And it’s not like I can avoid them, because a large part of my job is covering high school sports. The big problem is the song selection. There are apparently three officially approved college anthems that all high schools across the nation are allowed to rip off (How often does ANYONE need to hear “On, Wisconsin”?). And most band directors think that the height of hipness is yet another rendition of “Brick House.”
The best high school marching band performance I ever witnessed was at a girl’s basketball playoff game a couple of years ago. The band played Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” With the multiple drummers they had, it created this really cool rolling wave of percussion.
Since I’m lead trumpet in my school’s band, I think you just have poor musical taste, but then again I’m biased, I don’t know you, and you are right that there are many songs that are way overplayed (Our school plays Iron Man as well…very fun song, since it’s “We’re kicking your ass” type song).
You know, it sounds like we’re on the same page, more or less. I’d like to be hearing a more interesting variety, and you’d like to be playing a more interesting variety. I am certainly not attacking anybody’s musical abilities.
If you were your band’s musical head honcho, what would you pick? I think that Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” would work very nice with all those big drums.
I was in a marching band for eight years and I’ve never even heard of Iron Man. The only real typical marching band songs that we played were The Liberty Bell and Our Director.
Normally we played songs more along the lines of Low Rider, The Classic Cat, Cantina Band, or even Hot! Hot! Hot! at the Grey Cup of 94(?).
I was the bell girl/ queen of the pit in high school. I hated football games with a passion unbeknownst to most of mankind until quietgirl (who plays the flute and bells) and I started dating. We’d make googly eyes at each other during games. Before that, all I did was read and write poetry. <mutters something obscene about school spirit> Marching was great, though… got to march in London.
Stuff my band played: Secret Agent Man, Soul Man, YMCA, Black Magic Woman, Zoot Suit Riot… um… Cruella DeVil… Indian Jones.
Let’s just say that it was so memorable I forgot most of it.
Well, you’re right, but as you acknowledge, it ain’t the kids’ fault. I attended two different high schools, both of which used “On, Wisconsin” as their fight song. The worst part was that the second school, where I went for my senior year, used a much simpler arrangement. I was constantly playing the harder arrangement and getting weird looks from the other kids.
Once a school standardizes on a fight song, however, it’s usually not even within the band director’s powers to change it. The director at my first high school was fresh out of grad school and was still full of enthusiasm – he arranged a fair number of things for us to play (a pretty cool arrangement of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”, among others) and went off the beaten path for other stuff (an arrangement of the “March to the Scaffold” movement of Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, a suite of stuff from Dvorak’s New World Symphony, etc.). Despite all that, we still played “On, Wisconsin” as the fight song. And we did “King Cotton”, but only as our concert contest march, not during marching season.
We also changed our show every week, unlike any other high school band I’ve ever seen; most spend the whole football season working up to their contest show. We never did the same show twice, and I don’t think we used any individual piece of music more than three times during either of two years I was there. Cost us the first year at contest time, when everyone else was doing the same show all year, but we kicked ass the next.
My sister is a high school band director (be very glad she doesn’t post here, Snooooopy), and I’ve seen the evidence–she has a catalog of band show programs. It came with CDs of the programs, all of which she listened to before deciding on one. As far as I know, she gets to make the choice herself.
And I’m sure rackensack is right–after the fight song has been established, it would probably take armed revolution to change it. (And, yes, my high school used On, Wisconsin.)
Zinn is apparently close buddies with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. I see a big-budget Hollywood spectacular – Zinn stars as a guy who tries to write a decent history book but is beaten down by the forces of mediocrity.
But, before he is beaten down by the forces of mediocrity, he gets to score with Minnie Driver!
My dad retired in '87 from his thirty-five year career as a high school band director. Marching bands, well, march, so I assume you are also talking about pep bands here.
But anyway, my dad used to put on light shows at football game half-times. The stadium lights would be lowered, and each one of us members of the band would then turn on a battery powered light (put together by my dad with wire, electrical tape and tiny bulbs) on our hats and each shoe, and then we would play and do formations. At the last school where he taught, they made him stop doing those shows, because lots of people would leave after the show was over and not watch the rest of the game (really sucky football team). (At the school where he taught before that, it was too dangerous to turn down the lights, lots of crime and social unrest, so he did other interesting shows.)
I think it depends on the band director, how interesting the presentations are (can you tell that my dad is my hero?).
