Hey guys, I was just wondering if anyone else out there is in marching band? If so, how is your season starting up? Any good band camp stories?
I'm unfortunately not in band anymore as I graduated, but I was very into marching band when I was still in school. Apparently, our band director moved schools on the first day of band camp and royally screwed her students. However, one memory I have of band camp was during a leadership camp that was required for all section leaders and the like. We put the trumpet section leader in a tuba locker (this is a common practice in our band.). However, we forgot about him for about half an hour.
On the first day of rehearsals our band director told us that he wanted us to be able to run four to five miles by the end of the season. He then followed that up by telling us that we have to teach the football players how to sing the alma mater.. We have a 14 hour day camp type thing at the school to make it cheaper for new members so.. Last year at band camp we made a parody of "Do You Hear the People Sing" called Do You Hear the People Die. We also have a week long Twister tournament every year since we aren't allowed to play rugby or football during lunch break.
I used to be in marching band. I did it for all four years of high school and then one year in college. It was fun, but I needed the time in college for my major. (My major is sports production, so I now film the band I used to be in.)
My band was very relaxed. While other bands were running miles and marching for hours, we were relaxing in the band room. Trust me, that relaxation showed in our performance. Simply put, we sucked. But it was still a lot of fun. My fondest memory is my freshman year, we had this day trip to Anaheim and we spent the entire day at a super mall there. We ran around, shopping, sat around talking crap to each other. I made a lot of friends and it was an awesome experience. Another great memory that will always stick with me is I remember when a drum player and the bass player were hooking up in the hotel, and they were kind of..."loud" that everyone nearby heard and knew what was happening, and it happened all night. Next day nobody let them live it down
This is my first year of marching band and I am sooooo excited! It hasn't been a month yet and I've already made some amazing friends and memories! Our highlights are while we wait for rehearsal outside our band room just goofing off. Just the other day I ran around in circles giving a friend a piggyback ride while wearing a unicorn hoodie.
I'm not in band anymore, but one time in band camp, the 25 colorguard members decided to play a prank on us. They took their rifles and invaded the band room to pretend they were gonna start a mass shooting (this was before the Sandy hook thing so it wasn't so insensitive). They scared about a quarter of the band but it wasn't much of a scare haha.
Im in marching band baritone bc/euphonium/trombone. One of my close friends messed up freshman year and turned opposite what everyone else did (it was recorded).
In my marching band there is a tradition call booty shorts Mondays started my freshman year (3 years ago), and this one girl brought booty shorts and made a junior boy named Isaac go to the storage room and change into them. He went through most of the day wearing them. The next year, a boy had his mom help him cut booty shorts, and he rocked them on booty shorts Moday last year and this year.
I marched one year as flute. I was not so good at the marching side, often not looking up like my director told us to. I remember one time me and a few other bad marchers had to where these weird glasses that acted as blinders to prevent us from looking at the ground. Sadly, we never went to any competition finals, likely because the music was too hard for most of the students. On the concert band side, we were always good and it was extremely rare to not get superiors in competitions, at least for the upper tier wind ensemble. I did like how we got to go to different football games around the state and some competitions. I felt we got to experience more of the rest of the state than the vast majority of students who stayed in the immediate area. More than that, I think I really loved the camaraderie of the fellow band members, many of whom are FB friends with me. Sadly, I decided to stop marching and only do concert band (later orchestra) because it was taking way too much time from my classes. My director was not happy (she was very strict and pushed the students to work hard), but eventually she mellowed out when I switched to oboe and then became a valuable member for concert band. Incidentally, the only other male flute (and in colorguard) was a semi-closeted gay, so I think people may have had suspicions of me, though I seem pretty asexual (never talking about sex, let alone romantic relationships). One time he started showing off his abs to me and a few other friends (he was lithe and is now a professional dancer), and it was hard to not stare.
Not currently, but in a past year my band teachers had this bizarre idea to create a megaband with all the high schools in the district. Only one refused, one that's super into it & got an award that year. A band teacher from one of the high schools took it upon himself to write all the sheet music (he's kinda arrogant & thinks he is more competent bcuz he's more serious). Well we all crammed into our gym since it was raining, and he climbed up to the top of the bleachers to direct us, and the suzaphones (sp?) started playing the dictator song.
Sosuaphone power, it's great, we had a band csp to practice the field charts for visuals, we're doing a theme from cirwue de soleil, KA ---------- Post added 10th Aug 2013 at 01:30 PM ---------- 7th year playing an instrument 5th year as concert baritone, and 4th year as sousaphone for marching band
I was in marching band for 3 years back in High School. I played the Sousaphone. I do not like the Sousaphone. It just does not have the range of a tuba and just does not sound as good. I much preferred playing the tuba in concert band.
