riot
Senior Member
Posts: 63
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Post by riot on Nov 1, 2022 9:17:21 GMT -6
What are some things you wish you knew or understood better when you first began with competitive marching band? This is more from a parent's point of view, but I'd love to hear insights from other points of view, too.
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riot
Senior Member
Posts: 63
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Post by riot on Nov 7, 2022 8:05:13 GMT -6
What are some things you wish you knew or understood better when you first began with competitive marching band? This is more from a parent's point of view, but I'd love to hear insights from other points of view, too. Lots of views with no replies, so let me explain my question a bit. For most of my kids' activities, I could Google or search Youtube and easily find a vast array of information about the activity. After the first few band competitions last year, I did the same for marching band. Specifically how competitions are judged. There was surprisingly little that I could find about how to know if a marching band is performing well or not. Granted I have no musical talent to speak of, so even if I knew how music performance was judged, I likely wouldn't be able to hear it myself. I was mainly asking this question to get input on what should new marching band parents know or understand about competitive marching band because I'm thinking about making some videos explaining things. Ideas for these videos would be marching band practice (time involved), marching band circuits overview (individual states, BOA, USBands, etc.), local competitions, ISSMA competitions (because I live in Indiana), BOA competitions, competition etiquette, etc.
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Post by redpants on Nov 8, 2022 17:22:20 GMT -6
Competition etiquette is definitely important…I think most of the parents and kids pick up on that pretty well though. There can be some annoying outliers; alas, they seem often to be the type who don’t take guidance well from others.
My spouse and I come from performing arts backgrounds and both get that skipping rehearsal is to be avoided as much as possible. I’m not sure how I would explain to those not experienced in performing arts how essential that is, especially in a marching art where great sight-reading or improvisational skills are not particularly helpful to the iterative process of building muscle memory over a season.
I think it’s important that folks new to this understand that anyone experiencing a band competition will have their favorites, for many and diverse reasons (e.g. recognized the music, impressed by an effect, knew a particular performer or performers, thought the music was played impeccably, the guard was impressive, etc.) and those favorites might or might not align with the outstanding performances as judged. If that alignment fails to materialize that is almost certainly not a sign that the judges are bad/biased/paid off. While I rarely hear overt comments like that, I do notice some parents often making such implications with a wink and a nudge.
Some sort of “what to look for to know a band is doing great” instructional would certainly be interesting. I would watch it. I’ve only seen a few videos with judges’ comments but those are pretty neat. Even after marching in high school, a collegiate music degree and a few years as a band parent I’ve still got a lot to learn.
I also wish everyone knew how to deal with the traffic flow at rehearsal drop-off and pick-up, and how frustrating it can be when a very small number of drivers don’t know or don’t observe the rules. Every year at the initial parents’ meeting our director stresses the importance of these simple traffic rules and that invariably draws the most parent applause from the veterans.
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Post by dww256 on Nov 8, 2022 20:46:35 GMT -6
I wish I knew what makes a good drumline part. Basically all drumlines sound nearly identical to me, and I have no idea how judges hear one and say "dang they sound cleaaaaan," but then they listen to another one and say "meh" when they're both literally just playing the right notes at the right time. What am I missing?
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Post by trumpet300 on Nov 9, 2022 7:35:22 GMT -6
I wish I knew what makes a good drumline part. Basically all drumlines sound nearly identical to me, and I have no idea how judges hear one and say "dang they sound cleaaaaan," but then they listen to another one and say "meh" when they're both literally just playing the right notes at the right time. What am I missing? There's a lot that goes into it but approaching the instruments with the same technique will almost always yield a cleaner drum line as long as they play in time which hopefully they do...they play drums lol. Its all about using the same technique with a tremendous amount of ryhtmic accuracy that gives the impression 1 person is playing as opposed to 6 or or 10 or however many kids there are. You also have to pay attention to how the parts between the different drums lines up vertically with one another.
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