High School Band Report

Amanda Ard, freshman, is involved in the Red White Brigade band at Fort Osage High School. She plays the clarinet, and has been in band for four years. During her eighth grade school year, she got to participate in two festivals, one held at Blue Springs South and one held at Worlds of Fun. “It’s kind of nerve wracking because there are a lot of people and schools, and you don't get to see the judges, but I can shut them out. Being with the team and knowing we’ll do good helps,” says Ard.

“In the Marching Band and Proud of It” by Debra Nussbaum followed the story of the marching band from Pennsbury High School in Philadelphia. In the second paragraph, Nussbaum claimed that band can be “cool”. Marching bands travel across the US, are becoming increasingly competitive, and perform more interesting shows. The Pennsbury marching band has a respected reputation in the school because they gain national recognition and have a certain prestige within the school. The prevalence of band is growing as the number of band directors and sales of sheet music grows. The author states that the prevalence of band is growing, too. Many students are involved in multiple activities while also participating in marching band. The music the band

This year, Harrisburg High School’s Marching Band put on a spectacular performance of “Rain.” They preformed at six different competitions and at

On April 11th, 2017 in the Louis Armstrong Theatre, I attended the GVSU “University Band”. This up-beat ensemble lasted about 90 minutes; the talented students of GVSU’s university band joined together to perform multiple different songs ranging from a Waltz to a Dixieland Jamboree. All of the songs that the band played for the audience were all well-known, popular songs that they all enjoyed. Having the opportunity to attend this concert has opened new musical paths for myself and has allowed me to enjoy and kindly critique something that I perhaps would have never had the chance to otherwise.

In 1995, DSU’s band traveled to England to perform for the Queen and the people of England for the New Years day parade. It was a wonderful performance to be remembered forever. Since then, the band has performed at many more major venues across the world. They performed in the inaugural parade for President Barack Obama, as well as the MLK parade. The band is conducted by band director Randolph J. Johnson. Mr. Johnson is 61 years old and has 13 years of experience as a college band director as well as 11 years as a high school band director. He has lead the band through many great performances.

Congratulations to the students in 7th and 8th grade who spent a whole weekend at UMKC for the UMKC Honor Band and Orchestra. These students were nominated by their peers and teachers and selected by the UMKC staff. The nominees had to perform a solo piece to audition for seating. There were more than 25 other local middle schools participating in this festival, and Prairie Star did quite well with a whopping 13 students accepted to the festival.

Purpose: The purpose of the following document is to highlight to the Board of Heritage Christian Academy the current state of, the challenges faced by, the vision for, and the future potential of the band program.

However, none of the others compared to the passion behind DCMB’s performance. “It was really cool seeing some of my friends up there,” described TJ senior Alejandro Botello, “and I was so proud of them. I tried to distract them up a little bit, but I was super proud when they didn’t even flinch. We couldn’t have better musicians here.” Similarly, U’Ren had only positive things to say about the performance. “DCMB students represented Denver Public Schools very well,” he explained, adding that with recent budget cuts to educational program, it is often necessary to prove the skill of the band. At the Parade, this was exceptionally easy. “The only thing I think could have gone better would have been if all of the students could have been there both nights,” U’Ren

The eighth grade band works on and does a ton of cool stuff. More so than you did in the seventh grade band. The band teacher at the middle school is Dr. Smith and just this year he got a student teacher. The eighth grade band is split into two bands, 1st hour and second hour. Each band does their own stuff for most of the year except for the beginning. At the beginning of the year you work on marching. You learn things such as how to walk properly and what to do when called to a tension. All though you do work on this type of stuff in the Washburn Rural High School band, it is different and tougher at the high school. You spend two to three weeks learning how to walk and getting called to a tension and other stuff like that. The rest of the time you work on playing your music, such as the fight song and Star Spangled Banner. The band only marches at one game a year and that is the first high school football game.

As with most kids, I was a bit nervous about my transition from middle school to high school. One advantage I had was that I participated in band in middle school and planned to be in the band in high school. The Round Rock High School band has a history of excellence and I was looking forward to being a part of that organization. This was an extraordinary time and I looked forward to being a part of the band with great anticipation. Being a part of an organization such as this makes the transition to high school seem much easier and it seemed I had a ready-made group of friends that I could rely on and ask questions of if necessary. After all, the Round Rock High School Band has over 300 members.

Marching band was one of the most difficult/challenging activity systems that I have ever done in my life. But at the same time it was an inspirational and motivating aspect of my life. The very first thing it taught me was the definition of hard work. This was because I spent hundreds of hours to my dedication and devotion to band marching around the field in the hot sun every day. Even though there were times when I wanted to quit; one such instance was when we were out performed by another school, other times it was becuase of the teacher being a little too hard on me when I first started. Despite setbacks such as these, I had an ardent attraction to marching band, mainly because in middle school I was a part of concert band, which made me love music. The biggest, reason why I chose to do marching band, aside from my enjoyment of music, was because towards the end of my eighth grade year my middle school band director told us about a huge opportunity that we had coming up to become a part of the high school across the street marching band. They were called the Titan Regiment. She told us the difference between concert and

“Drum major is your band ready?” if you haven’t heard this you must not be in marching band, and you most definitely haven’t lived in the color of music. Music has brought color in my life like you wouldn’t believe! I finally realized this at state. Crowds roaring for their home band, band moms screaming their lungs out for their kids, it’s where everyone gets to participate no matter how good you are, and you finally find meaning through music. Yeah it’s pretty great, and I’ll share my wonderful experience with you.

When I first joined marching band after seventh grade, I missed the first summer practice to see a concert. At that time, I had no idea how much band would come to mean to me nor the unexpected amount of dedication needed. Before marching band, music was merely a casual thing, but it has transformed this old hobby into a greater priority. After just one season, this shift was noticeable. I certainly did not consider missing two days of a Disney World vacation to march at nationals when first reading the schedule. But this beloved sport worked its ways in a few short months. Through two marching seasons and a winter concert, band became one of the most prominent activities in my life.

Freshman Band- Freshman is included in my curriculum because this allows the directors focus on the development of 9th grade students understanding of music and fundamentals. Skill ranges will vary but those that are “rising stars” will be placed in musical leadership positions that they may not obtain if they were in the upper level ensembles.

Sophomore year of marching came. This year was a surprise for everyone. With our show being named ‘Masterminder.’ The band members marching were under control by the color guard soloist; the puppeteer. This show was pretty exciting, too. The judges also thought that. We made it past regionals AND semi-state. What? Yeah, we all thought the same thing. We had made it. We had FINALLY made it after so many years of just trying to get past regionals for once. It was a bitter-sweet feeling waiting for placement awards at Lucas Oil Stadium. The instructors went around to each band student one by one. The congratulated us on an amazing season. I started tearing up, but that isn’t surprising. As we marched our way out of Lucas Oil Stadium that night, I knew that this was only the beginning of a new generation for the Marching Marksmen.