Marching Band History - A Good Read

[boahistorybuff]

As I am sure you all know, I enjoy learning about the rich history of marching bands. I stumbled across this article that gives a nice overview of the history of marching band. I really encourage the students on this message board to read this. It also really details the deep military roots of the marching band.

www.betweenbands.org/historyofmarchingbands.html

[srv1084]

Dec 31, 2022 6:18:22 GMT -6 boahistorybuff said:

As I am sure you all know, I enjoy learning about the rich history of marching bands. I stumbled across this article that gives a nice overview of the history of marching band. I really encourage the students on this message board to read this. It also really details the deep military roots of the marching band.

www.betweenbands.org/historyofmarchingbands.html

This was such a good read - thank you for posting! As a Bostonian, the Thompson school history was super interesting, but this is by far my favorite part of this article:

"With a booming economy during the 1920s, more musical instruments became available. Immigration increased the population by millions of people. More Americans than before attended high school, and more of them represented the swelling middle class. High schools extended a year from graduating in the 10th grade to graduating in the 11th grade. With the new concept of offering elective classes, music classes were, by far, the most popular, which benefitted school bands."

[boahistorybuff]

Yes, the biggest surprises to me were the section on the Thompson school in Boston and the section on the 1920s. I had no idea that a national competition developed as early as the 1920s. Obviously there was a much bigger parade portion of the competition back then. No surprise that the Great Depression and World War II proved big stumbling blocks to sustaining the national competitions. I do however think that the popularity of drum and bugle corps really sky rocketed in the post World War II era, which no doubt had an enormous impact on marching bands during the last few decades of the 20th Century.

[philodemus]

Very interesting, thanks for the link!

I, too, was unaware that their had been a national championship movement 45 years prior to MBA/BOA. An interesting 'What If?' to consider would be how the activity today would differ had that movement continued onward. Perhaps more precision oriented... and I daresay, at least for me personally... more boring?

[boahistorybuff]

It is something to ponder, what if the national competitions started in the 1920s survived. Hard to say really. I really think that the only way these competitions would have survived is if there had been no Great Depression and no World War II.

I think a big what if is what if there had not been two world wars in the 20th century. Now drum and bugle corps (or drum and fife corps) go back hundreds of years. I think had there not been the two world wars, we would still have military style drum and bugle corps today. However, the number or drum and bugle corps increased after World War I and then their popularity skyrocketed after World War II. A lot of future music educators got inspired by drum corps, even before PBS started televising the world championships in the mid 1970s. That was a big catalist for influencing high school marching bands. When drum corps broke from the american legion and VFW and formed their own governing bodies (DCI and DCA), that is really when the seeds were planted that allowed drum corps and marching bands to evolve away from a strict military style and toward a performance art (which has had heavy influence from Broadway).

So I speculate that if the two world wars never happened, marching bands would look a lot different today. I actually think that what would have garnered more attention and influenced high school marching bands much more would have been the college half time style. That is actually the style that started emerging by the mid 20th century as high school football gained in popularity and there needed to be a band to emulate the type of atmosphere at college football games. Obviously that style is still performed by many high schools. If you postulate a scenario where there had been no world wars and much less of an influence from drum corps, I think our high school marching bands would have a notably greater traditional (or half time style) appearance to them. In other words, the dramatic trend to corps style seen by high school bands (and many college bands for that matter) from the late 1960s through the 1990s would not have happened. Yes that would probably mean high steppin, dance and pompom squads and easy to recognize drill formations at Grand Nationals.

This is all just speculation of course. It is however interesting in reading that article to realize how many different things had to happen for the activity to evolve to look and sound the way it does today.

[philodemus]

You know, another sort of 'spin off' thought that this article makes me ponder...

When I first marched corps, I was really surprised to find out that a faux pas in that world was talking about high school marching band... to do so was to earn the dreaded name, 'bando.' Bands, I was extremely surprised to learn, were looked down upon by many corps kids... which to me felt like the New York Yankees making fun of a Little League team.

I asked a staff guy who had grown up in the corps world before becoming a band director himself where this weird antagonism had come from, and his explanation was that it was a hold over from a time when many bands looked down on drum corps--apparently for their bad instruments and general lack of musicianship. The two activities existed side by side for much of the 20th century, but my way of seeing it [drum corps as the 'major leagues' of the same basic activity as marching band] was not the way it was seen for much of that time. Instead, at least in some places like the Midwest, they were seen as competitors for attention and recruitment.

I probably marched at the very last period of history where the old attitude was still clinging on, though. I'm pretty sure most of today's corps kids view it as an extension of the marching band world, must as I did then.

Random Sunday thoughts.

[boahistorybuff]

I have not heard of this tension between drum corps and marching bands back in the day but it does not surprise me, here is why.

Between the late 1940s (post World War II) and the late 1970s there were hundreds of drum corps throughout the US and Canada. These corps were sponsored by VFW, American Legion, scout groups, religious organizations (particularly Catholic) and other civic organizations. Most of these corps had a brief existence (less than 8 years). They included groups of all ages, with the junior corps reserved for very young adults and teenagers. So why were there so many drum and bugle corps? Well the US had just won World War II and was immediately drawn into the cold war against communism and it's two proxy wars of Korea and Vietnam which followed. So during this time period, Memorial Day and 4th of July parades (and their equivalent in Canada) were very popular in communities throughout the country. Organizations, particularly the VFW and American Legion, wanted to have some representation of their organization in these community events. Seeing that a drum and bugle corps was still very much seen as a military style regiment (one that carried a bit of an entertainment factor because they could play music) made them a perfect choice to represent their organizations at the community level. Well most of these corps did not have anyone with a formal music education to direct them. They mainly consisted of a group of people who could play and they would recruit members and in many instances teach them to play. Most of these groups had limited funds so often had cheap/used instruments and poor quality uniforms. I am sure that there was also a component of those organizations that sponsored these corps to ready young people for the military.

To help improve community performance, local competitions were developed. Most of these were parade style competitions. Many of the corps, particularly the larger ones, developed a field show. The field show has its roots in what the corps did back in the days when they were used for battle. The style of the early field show involved the corps entering the field from the endzone and stopping in the center of the field and performing music for an audience. Some of the earliest drill done by drum corps was made to represent how these regiments would move around in battle. The flags even had very tall flagpoles as they were when in battle (so the soldiers could see where their units were so that they did not get disoriented in battle). Now in order for a corps to perform this field show for an audience, they needed a lot of space with bleachers. Well what was being put in place in colleges and high schools all across the country in the early to mid 20th Century, football fields.

Given that so many drum and bugle corps sprang up all over the country, the VFW and American Legion began to sponsor local, regional and national competitions. Those junior corps that attended and did quite well at the national competitions were those that were larger, had more members in their late teens and early 20s (so a little older), were better funded and had directors and instructors that had much stronger musical backgrounds/education. The VFW and American Legion national championships were not televised so most people did not see these top level drum and bugle corps. Most people were probably only exposed to the smaller, less funded corps.

Now look at what was going on with marching bands at both the high school and college level in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The post World War II economy was booming. A huge middle class emerged. There were a lot more teenagers who would not be required to work to help support the family and a lot more kids could afford to go to college after high school. High schools also went through the 12th grade (that was not always the case in the early 20th Century) and there were more electives in school, like music. Now factor in the baby boom along with the strong economy; more money started going into local schools and colleges than ever had before. So high schools and colleges could purchase uniforms for the marching band and furnish instruments (or in many instances the parents would supplement the cost of the instruments) and had directors and instructors with formal music education. Parades were certainly a big part of the high school marching band experience. High school and college marching bands also had to put forth an elaborate field show during the football game half time. I suspect they probably had more elaborate drill routines than the drum corps did during that era.

Now during the 1970s and continuing into the 1980s, things changed. There seemed to be less desire among many organizations to sponsor drum corps. Maybe the fatigue of Vietnam had something to do with that and let's face it there was a bit of an anti military sentiment among the young people in that time period. A ton of drum corps folded during this era. Those that survived were the ones that had built sophisticated funding organizations to where they were essentially running as a non profit organization. These larger and better funded corps had directors and instructors that had quite strong musical backgrounds, especially by the 1970s. They were also attracting members with stronger musical backgrounds, which would not have been possible had school districts not increased music education in the post war boom. Feeling restricted by the strict rules of the VFW and American Legion they formed DCI so that the corps could determine their owm destiny. While the level of sophistication of the musical selections increased throughout the 1960s, it really accelerated with DCI. The visual aspects of a drum corps show also got notably more sophisticated throughout the 1970s. Then factor in the fact that PBS started broadcasting the DCI world championships in the mid 1970s. It increased the exposure of the top level drum corps to many more people. By the 1980s, drum corps had become the pinnacle of the marching arts. High school marching bands looked up to DCI and DCI looked at high school marching bands as recruitment potential.