Marching band, anyone?

[Razake]

Still being in high school, I'm in band class, and where there's high school band there's marching. I didn't care too much for it last year, but this year has proved to be monumentally different. Our show this year (titled "Belle Époque" meaning beautiful era) is all around french life and art styles in the early 1900's. It's really good, especially compared to our school's previous marching track record. If you wouldn't mind, please have a look-see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wj1ZzbLEQk

By the way, this isn't our full show. The show is 4 parts long, but this is only 1-3. Kind of sad since part 4 is a great finisher...it just wouldn't fit into this particular competition's time limit.

I'm curious if any of you out there are or have been in marching band at any time. If so, what did you play? For those currently in a marching band, any videos of your show out on the web? I'd love to see what other bands are up to!
By the way, I play the French horn and march mellophone.

_{I also play violin, harmonica, and piano but that is beyond irrelevant to this post haha}

[Luggz]

Some impressive choreography there, that must take helluva a lot of practice and discipline. How did you get on in this competiton?

I'm not in a band myself but I do enjoy going to pipe band competitions. My friend is a very good piper and the sound is amazing.

[Narei Mooncatt]

Our show this year (titled "Belle Époque" meaning beautiful era) is all around french life and art styles in the early 1900's. It's really good, especially compared to our school's previous marching track record. If you wouldn't mind, please have a look-see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wj1ZzbLEQk

Very nicely done. My highschool band was the only military style in our football district, so I've had mixed feelings on that vs corp style. On the one hand, we prided ourselves on precision. I remember we used to joke in school about how the other bands in the district used corp style to keep everyone spread out so you can't tell when they're out of step. On the other hand, we were limited in what we could do and our director was good at follow-the-leader type moves but not much else. I was percussion and loved the toms, which is probably my biggest envy of corp bands. Since you can't really do a military march style with them without taking out a line of people doing a counter march, I marched with cymbals. I did play quads in the stands and when doing our pop tune for the twirlers while the band stayed still before our march routine.

BTW, I noticed in your vid that you're from Flower Mound, Tx. Did you happen to see Ennis at the UIL competition? I graduated there in '99 and I'd be curious what people that may not be familiar with military style think of it. Here's about the best video I could find of the current season, but it doesn't have our "E" formation at the end that everyone goes nuts over. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXRd2H3JxxI

[Sheeta]

I was in marching band from sophomore to senior year and have been playing the clarinet since second grade.  Our band was super-small and even though we were pretty good, we only won one award--best spirit (lol).  Since we knew that there wasn't any chance of us winning anything, we just goofed around in our shows and made sure that the crowds were highly entertained.  One year (our Blues Brothers show) we didn't even march onto the field--we ran around the area Benny Hill style, and I did a few flips to get the crowd laughing.  

Ah, good times.