The date is Saturday, September 10, a busy day for the Boonville High School Band of Gold. This day was the band’s first competition, to be held at Central High School. Unlike usual days where the band has a competition, they practiced on the asphalt, which meant I could be very picky about their technique. It wasn’t very hard to be picky, however, especially towards the beginning of rehearsal. The band was very excited about their upcoming competition and they were really un-focused. After a nice long stretch, the band worked on their fundamental marching techniques with me. The first exercise we did is called “one step” in which the band gets an eight beat count off and then they take one step. This first step is extremely crucial because if the first step is not in time, then the band will never play together. The way I run this exercise is by repeating it over and over until the band can do it near perfectly three times in a row. If they get to two and then mess up, they get to start over. As mentioned, this part took a while, because they were very un-focused and it was the beginning of rehearsal. After finally getting the one- step forward exercise right three times in a row, I asked the students a rhetorical question, “Should that exercise have taken 15 minutes to get right?” I then presumed to tell them to get their focus level up and do the one step backward exercise. It then occurred to me that talking about their focus level was the right thing to say. We did the one step backward exercise 3 times perfect in a row, and it took only about three or four minutes. In my opinion, everything to do with marching band is 90% mental and 10% physical. If the band stays focused and believes they can accomplish a goal, and the goal is achievable, then the band will be able to do it. This rehearsal was very productive and once the focus level went up, the band’s marching technique became very polished and scary good. The following clip is a very good example of the kind of marching technique I intend for these students to achieve by the end of the season. Enjoy the Cadets Drum and Bugle Corp, and observe how straight there legs are and how, from the waist down, they all look exactly the same.
Hey Tyler! This comment is pretty much over the same as the last as in how to get their attention. Before fundamentals, Mr.Emerson at Madisonville would start each morning by telling a joke or something funny to get our attention, he would also give a demonstration of what he was wanting us to do so we had a visual model to think about while we attempt the procedure!
Hey Tyler! This comment is pretty much over the same as the last as in how to get their attention. Before fundamentals, Mr.Emerson at Madisonville would start each morning by telling a joke or something funny to get our attention, he would also give a demonstration of what he was wanting us to do so we had a visual model to think about while we attempt the procedure!
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