Marching bands in the rain

Factual Questions
21

As Kyla just mentioned, the problem with woodwinds in the rain is the pads. They get wet, then soggy, and then the pads can rot, and will need to be replaced. Brass and percussion is usually fine. My wife, who is a band director, doesn’t let the woodwinds play in heavy rain due to the potential damage to the pads.

As a drummer, I’ve played in the rain many times. Modern marching percussion has plastic coated heads and shells, so you just need to wipe down the drum when you’re done, and it’ll be fine. The real issues with marching in the rain is a slick field, which can lead to some pretty bad falls if it’s bad enough.

22

Mummers String Bands (Jan. 1st, often cold and wet). These are people to ask…

23

Thanks for the feedback. Let’s just say that I’m shocked, shocked that there are so many people in the SMDB who were in the marching band in high school. Shocked I say. :wink:

24

The last game I played (trombone) at in high school, by the fourth quarter it was raining cats and dogs. There was almost no one left in the stands. The woodwinds had to put their instruments away, and anyone without a poncho had to go wait in the busses. The brass stuck around and played the fight song over and over again, though. There wasn’t any lightning, and, as others have mentioned, water doesn’t bother brass intruments. Other than the fact that the music sounded kinda gargly, because the rain was so thick that we couldn’t keep the water our of our intruments, we had no problems. It was really fun, actually.

If it was raining at halftime, we usually just stood in place and played our show. In college, we were much more likely to march (though I’m relatively certain I remember at least one time that we just stood in place… it’s possible I’m confabulating this memory).

25

This one time at band camp…

26

You marched bass clarinet?
Nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrddd!
Seriously, though, bass clarinet? Can you even hear a bass clarinet on the field? I can see a bass clarinet for a solo, but for general marching? Tenor and bari saxes are much better choices, IMHO.

27

Falling with a tuba can really hurt your horn. Falling with a sousaphone is probably the most dangerous thing you can do in band – which the non-bandies among us may scoff at, but nobody on my acquaintence ever made it through four marching seasons without sustaining some minor injury.* If you fall with a sousie around you, it’s going to hit the ground and then bounce up to crack you in the back of the head; at the same time, you can’t lift your head too much without slamming in the mouthpiece, which is a good way to loose a tooth.

In my experience, during practice the woods didn’t play when there was any serious rain, they just marched empty-handed. During games and performances, I seem to remember one or two times when the rain was so bad that they marched the show empthy-handed as well, but mostly they just took the horns out of the cases quickly, played, and dried and stored them as soon as the show ended.

–Cliffy Tuba

*In my college band, tuba players who sustained a bloody wound while “on duty” got to wear red shoelaces. After two years half the section was in red, one guy had yellow laces (cracked a tooth on his mouthpiece), and another wore blue (hypothermia – but he got to spend the night in a warm hospital while the rest of the band tried to sleep on the bus back home).

28

From my point of view, the absolute best thing about marching in teh rain was the capes.

We had these absurd vinylish rain cloaks which, when combined with the rest of the uniform, made us look like a caravan of Cowboy Batman impersonators who’d had a tragic waterproofing factory accident.

29

Except maybe falling on your face with a bassoon. Bocal to (or through) the back of the throat, ouch!

30

If you’re marching a bassoon, you’ve got bigger problems than clumsiness. :wink:

–Cliffy

31

Bus Kid was the color guard captain in a marching band that took marching SERIOUSLY. Daily practice from mid-May til the season ended in late October. Late nights, long weekends. Aside from football games, they made it to about 7 or so field competitions a year, and did really well for themselves.

They treated home football games as rehearsals for the shows they went to to compete and bring home trophies from. So - senior year, first football game - in their opening set, she lined up at the head of a line of girls lined up the length of the 50 yard line. The show that year started with her. Literally, she was the first person to move, taking 3 fast steps left holding a flag aloft, then stopping and pivoting left to go towards the back of the field.

Oh did I mention it was a wet field? And that those marching shoes are not built for traction on wet grass?

I was one of the officers of the boosters, and helped the band set up for each show. I saw all her shows from ground level, right in front.

So I had the perfect view of her as eyes glued to the drum major, waiting for him to bring down the baton so she could step off. Down comes the hand, ling-a-ling starts the keys in the percussion pit, step-step-step goes Bus Kid briskly…

Then at the point where she should turn smartly, she goes horizontal. Feet perfectly level with her head, flying through the air, landing flat - FLAT on her ass.

Worried dad watching to see if she’s hurt (she’s a bit of a princess), then the look on her face as she stands. She’s laughing harder than the rest of us. Got up, hardly missed a beat and finished the show.

Funniest godamn thing I ever saw her do.

32

The biggest problem we had with rain was our hats.

We wore those British-Royal-guard-style hats (which were actually good for carrying within them any extra items that we couldn’t carry otherwise). They were colored white.

Stuck in the hat was a dark red feather. If these got wet, the dye would run and ruin the bright white hats.

So our standing order in case of rain (which didn’t happen too often in desert-dry western Colorado) was to halt, take off hats, remove feather, put in hat, don hat, then continue.

As to playing, we played in misting rain at 40[sup]o[/sup]F, did field shows in snow, and marched the Calgary Stampede in near 100[sup]o[/sup]F heat (for about 7 miles yet). The latter we got 2nd place for high school marching bands, so we were tough. :D:D

33

Unfortunately for me, I played euphonium and could not march in the rain. Our band was too cheap to buy covers.

34

My brother plays euphonium and I don’t remember what he did on the times it rained. Was the problem that a heavy rain would get a lot of water into the horn through the bell? Also, I thought a lot of marching euphoniums (as compared to concert euphoniums) had a forward-facing bell for better sound projection towards the stands, which would make me think that water in the horn wouldn’t be as much of a problem.