The Summerglen Files

Welcome back to our “Watch the Marching Band Grow” series here on the Summerglen blog. This video was shot at Millbrook’s second competition of the 2009 season–the West Johnston Invitational this past Saturday, October 10th.

At their last competition, the band had some problems with tempo. The reason is simply because playing outdoors can turn the speed of sound a very big problem. The sound from the pit reaches the audience before the sound from the back of the field does; as a result, the students have to make some major adjustments to keep everything together. Sometimes, this can even mean ignoring what they hear and relying only on the drum major’s hands. And that, my friends, is HARD.

But this weekend, the students did a great job staying together. The field was pretty unforgiving, surrounded by wide open spaces that eat up sound. Even so, the band corrected many of their earlier tempo troubles, and were able to recover quickly if anything started to pull apart.

Musically, I heard individuals expressing their own musical interpretations throughout the show. The brass were really projecting their sound, and sometimes the results were excellent. Our 3-person trumpet section sounded like a group twice their size!

Some individuals’ sounds got a bit out of control, though, and our varied interpretations of the music sometimes clashed. So, this week, we’ll work on meshing our individual styles into a more unified approach. Because unity, both visual and musical, is one of those things that makes marching band so cool.

Enjoy the video, and we’ll see you next week at Fuquay-Varina!