Conan O’Brien had the USC marching band on last night, arguably one of the best marching bands in the country, and it made me realize that every time I hear a marching band, they always sound a bit out of tune. Especially the brass instruments.
Is there a reason for this? Does taking steps while you play create tuning issues?
Because they’re always marching toward or away from you, and the Doppler Effect is at work.
Kidding… but yes, I tend to agree… maybe most marching bands just aren’t very good?
ETA: Or it could be acoustics of the room. Lots of echoing and splashing of loud sounds going every-which-way.
My experience has been for these small gigs it’s usually not the whole band. So you wind up with people playing parts they don’t normally play, possibly with music they don’t normally play, in an environment they don’t normally play in, with the only criterion for selection to play in the gig is the ability to be there in uniform at a given time. It’s also lack of rehearsal & dress rehearsal. Last minute notice, etc.
But this is the USC band, they’re supposedly EXCELLENT. Not that I know much about marching bands, but this is the band everyone goes to for recording. Fleetwood Mac. I believe Queen used them also?
I don’t know enough about USC’s band to comment, but I suspect proximity to where the business is done is as much of a factor as talent.
Have you seen DCI performances? Do you think those are out of tune?
Personal experience disclosure: I played trombone in marching band in college & high school. I wasn’t particularly good (or particularly bad), but participated in a few smaller scale gigs like this. I wasn’t involved in marching bands at any other level (conducting, drill writing, organizing, etc.).
Obligatory youtube link for DCI performance highlights
Could it be because, unlike a stationary band, where you are all seated right next to each other, in a marching band you are spread out all over the place? Part of playing in tune is listening to the people next to you, and adjusting your own sound to match theirs. Unlike a piano, on which you really can’t adjust the tuning while you are playing, band instruments can be changed by how you blow, where you put the slide, etc. It’s got to be very hard to stay in tune with someone that is half way down the football field from you.
The speed of sound is fairly temperature dependant. So the tuning changes as the instrument warms up due to being played, or cools down due to the wind on the football field, or heats up due to the lights in the TV studio.
When you see a symphony orchestra getting ready for a concert, they do the final tuning on stage after warming the instruments up. Marching bands often don’t have such an opportunity.
Wooden instruments provide some insulation for the air column inside. Metal instruments almost none.
I’m not kidding. I believe a large amount of that “out of tune” is plain ol’ Doppler shift as the performers are almost constantly moving, and often in different directions.
Actually, I disagree with the premise of the OP. Having watched numerous live marching band/drum and bugle corps performances, I rarely hear more than one instrument at a time out of tune. But I rarely bother to listen critically to performances aired over TV, because I cannot vouch for the fidelity of what is broadcast.
DCI rocks, btw. My son almost made the Carolina Crown this year. 
Temperature changes, lack of proximity, Doppler Effect, that’s all part of it, but more important than any of those is that they’re moving. Do you know how unstable a horn is when you’re moving? In addition to that there is no balance when you’re spread out 50-60 yards. When you’re out on the fringes you’re much more noticeable and little errors that would get lost in an ensemble are more noticeable. Camera microphones pick those up as if it were the only sound on the field.
Put these guys in an auditorium and have them sit down and they’ll sound completely different, I assure you.
Um, re-read the OP. 
Presumably they were not marching all over the place when playing for Conan O’Brien.
That may be, so boil it down to the microphone in the studio. The remainder is still true.
They were marching on Conan’s show, just not very far. From one part of the stage to the next.
I’ll check out the DCI performances when I get home. Frowned upon at work. =)
The other reasons make sense. I don’t play any wind instruments, just guitar and piano, so the idea of detailed pitch depending on how you blow into a horn – not just what finger holes you activate – is just odd to me! I know it’s the way it is, but hard for me to really follow without having played one of those instruments. How on earth do you tune a flute or sax?
Well, as a flute player, I can tell you that the main ways to adjust pitch on a flute are to adjust how far the head is pushed into the body (you don’t push it all the way in) and at change the angle your lips are to the hole. An oboe’s pitch is dependent on the angle the reed touches your lips and how tightly your lips compress the reed.
So, in the case of woodwinds, moving around can affect the pitch of the instrument. A good marching band player, however, should be able to keep his or her upper body still and not wobble very much. Pitch, in brass and woodwinds, is also very much affected by changing temperature, as already mentioned.
Got it, thanks Pyper.
And as we discussed recently in another thread (probably in the Cafe Society), the issue of what is actually in tune can vary from instrument to instrument; a certain amount of not quite directly on the exact tone can be considered desirable.
Still, when the wall of sound from a DCI band hits you, it sounds in tune. 
Interesting aside: when I attended USC I would often see/hear the marching band practicing during the day. Their coach would always be shouting into a megaphone as if he were a drill sergeant (and in an incredibly hoarse voice, the raspiest damn thing I’ve ever heard). The man was… let’s just say “committed”. So much so that he has apparently quite worn out his vocal cords.
In my experience as a member of a marching band, band coaches frequently aspire to drill-sergeant-ness, right down to the “drop and give me twenty.”
Okay, I teach marching band.
First of all, I disagree with the OP. I have heard marching bands that sound quite well in tune. DCI is an excellent example, though they do not have any woodwinds.
Faithfully recording the sound of a moving marching band is very challenging. Your sound sources (the instruments) are moving in multiple directions and facing in multiple directions. The distances the sound travels from production to microphone varies immensely. Even a small ensemble like what was on Conan last night would suffer from this. Compare the USC group to the regular Tonight Show Band. With the regulars, you’ll notice that each instrument has its own microphone. The sound engineer can better control the overall ensemble sound this way. They didn’t bother with this set up for a fifteen second shot of the Trojans.
Tuning of a wind instrument is controlled by three things: horn length, embouchure, and air speed. Horn length is adjusted through a tuning slide or similar device. (Double reeds are an exception.) Embouchure can be used to fine-tune particular notes (as is using some movable slides). Air speed should always be fast. Slow air will generally flatten the pitch.
Marching band is a military tradition. Its history comes from the military. Many of the terms and techniques used come from this history. However, I am not a band “coach”. I am a band director, or even a conductor. Sometimes, I refer to myself as a coach when I am trying to make a particular point with my students. However, I never refer to myself as a coach professionally.
Hope that clears things up.