What is your marching band like?

JPSaxMan · What is your marching band like?

Honestly....I'm the only base player in the band playing bari

We have one or two altos

Hopefully around 10 or 12 clarinets

5 or 6 trumpets

2 or 3 drummers

Small band, not bad sound, but we're doing four parades plus a fair perfomance this year.

Keep in mind too that we don't have a football team Rolling Eyes

CMelodyMan

Wait-a-minute, why do you have a marching band if you don't have a football team? Confused

JPSaxMan

Local parades Sad

CMelodyMan

Ohhhhhhh.

JPSaxMan

Yea, fun fun fun Rolling Eyes

altosaxgeek5

Umm, not sure about our exact section counts.. .but we have 2 tenors, and 6 altos... no baris(sadly) 2 sousas, and the total band count is about 120 total. (including guard) Our wind count limit is.. 48, I believe.

JPSaxMan

Must be nice...wind count was like 15 or 20 or less.

Guard count is around 15 or 20 and majorettes around 10. So overall on a good day we have 50 in the whole marching band!

joboe

I belong to the Victor J. Andrew Marching band in Tinley Park, IL.In our marching band (these numbers might not be exactly right but close b/c I am in the color guard) we have : 10-15 flutes,15 or so clarinets, 3 or 4 sousas, 2 or 3 baris, 3-4 tenors, 10ish trombones, 2 euphoniums, 10-15 trumpets, 5-6 mellos, 15-20 saxes (altos), 23 in color guard, 3 drum majors, (am I missing any one?) so our band count is about 150-175 or so. We perfom 1 parade, 5-7 performences and this year we are going to the super regional (BOA) in St. Louis. Next year we are going to go to disney and march there. We are a pretty good band if I say so my self. Last year at state we got 2nd in prelims and 5th in finals and the color guard got 2nd in the state. Any way enough braging...
EYES WITH PRIDE!!!
joboe :D

joboe

Sorry I forgot the drum line and the pit. We have 5-6 people in the pit and 3quad players, 4-5 snares, and 5 bass drum players.
Joboe

JPSaxMan

Let's hope you guys sound as good as you are in size! Wink

JazZz

4 alto's
1 tenor sax (mabye 2)
1 bari sax
1 sousaphone
1 baritone
4 trombone's
5 trumpets
1 mel-o-fone
4 clarinets
2 flutes (1 piccolo)
2 pit
4 drumline
11 dance line

very small class A

JPSaxMan

Well now the numbers have dwindled

One sax (me)
Two clarinets
Two flutes
One trumpet
One drummer

Sad, very sad Crying or Very sad

altosaxgeek5

Our numbers, too, have dwindled, since the director change.
1 alto
1 tenor
1 bari
3 clarinets
4 flutes
3 mellos
2 baritones
1 trombone
1 valve trombone
1 sousa
9 trumpets
2 snares
1 quad
3 bass drums
4 pit
1 drum major

joboe

jpsaxman, and altosaxgeek5 Do you guys have a color guard or danceline? Question

Joboe

altosaxgeek5

Oi...we have a colorguard.. there's... a lot of them. I don't really pay them much attention.

joboe

r they good? where do you go? and they are the most important part of the marching band!!! if they mess up or if they don't know the worke you can c it, if you don't know your music you can move your fingers and pretend. lol (I am in the guard if you couldn't tell!)
joboe

BuffaloBariSax

I don't know for sure, b/c school hasn't started, and we don't have full number count yet, but this is preliminary

20-25 flutes
30 clarinets
21 saxes- 10 altos, 8 tenors, 3 baris
20 trumpets
20 trombones(?)
1 Horn
5 Baritones
4 Sousaphones
15-20 'Rummers
6 Color Guard

Like I said, I'm not sure. But pre-enrollment had us sitting at 165, so we should sound good.

JazZz

My numbers dwindled a lot

2 alto's
1 tenor
1 bari
2 mello's
5 trumpets
1 sousaphone
4 trombones
4 clarinets
2 piccolo's
2 snares
1 bass drum
2 pit

15 colour/dance (but they have no coordination)

our band is pretty bad as of yet
Crying or Very sad

alto-girl

What's the difference between concert bands, wind bands, marching bands, jazz bands etc? What other musical groups do you have at your school?

In Australia we don't have big 'marching bands' - at my school we have a Wind Symphony (I suppose a Concert Band), a Stage Band (jazz band maybe?), Orchestra, many different instrument ensembles (flute, saxophone, cello etc), string groups, and choirs.

So what do marching bands do? (I know they march... Laughing

) But what happens with all the other bands? Your 'Band Directors' seem like pretty important people - are they just the conductor or something else?

And don't you get to miss class for your rehearsals (or something like that)? Gah! Now that I've got that all out...sorry for so many questions ...

BuffaloBariSax

At our school, marching band is part of the band program. If you sign up for band, you march during the (American) football season, play pep band music during basketball games, and play concert (wind symphony) music at other times. Our class is our rehearsals. We have band Mondays and Wednesdays for 2 hours in the morning and an hour and 15 minutes on Fridays.

Prophetic_Sax

Guys, all I can tell you is to cherish and remember those days....

Bond as much as you can with each other, because those will be memories that you will cherish forever....

As you can tell, I've been out of High School for some time...LOL...(will be 20 years in 2008!)

But I remember my freshman year, our marching band was HUGE....Honestly, I can't even remember how many were in each section...I would have to really sit down and think...I know we had at least 65-80, and that's not including the Color Guard....so all total, I think we had between 130-180 marching, including the pit and 3 drum majors....

I want to give a shout out to the 1984-1988 Bishop Noll Marching Warriors!!!!! Cool

For those in the Midwest, I don't know if they still hold the Music Bowl....we almost won it in 1984...I think we did, but they cheated us! Crying or Very sad

....that year we won EVERYTHING in EVERY category for all of the marching competitions that we participated in!!!!

Sorry....just strolling back down memory lane!!!!....LOL

Tully

Our marching band situation is like BuffaloBariSax described above. We don't have a color guard, but there are about 150-160-people. HUGE band.

Frankly, I dislike marching band, but we are definitely one of the best in the state. I can't really say why, but mostly, I think it's because the director will, as he is fond of saying, "rip you a new one" if you don't do everything correctly!

JazZz

Haha..even for a small band We are starting to kick butt!

Alto Girl:
Here's an american guide to band programs (at least for my school)

Your Wind Symphony would be like our Concert and Wind Ensembles...they are bands that contain no stringed instruments. They play "concert" music (No jazz). Concert music is like marches and overtures and themes.

Marching band: A band that marches on an american football field while playing music, consisting of a woodwind line, a brass line, drumline, and a color guard (most of the time). Check out www.DCI.Org to see some cool american marching bands. Those don't have woodwinds though because their drum corps, but you get the idea of it.

Jazz Band: A band that plays jazz. Very laid back. They play jazz if you couldn't tell by the name, if you don't know what that is, than look up artists such as Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker (all jazz saxophonists), Miles davis, Glen Miller, etc.

Pep Band: A band that goes and plays music at other sporting events at schools. They play in the stands. A marching band will generally play in the stands when not marching at half time.

Pit band: The band that plays music for the musical drama production

homeslice60148

Ok, we have a pretty big band, but nothing like our neighbors down the street (435 member band...high school band). I think our numbers (during concert season) come out something like this:

2 oboes
2 bassoons
2 Piccolos
12 flutes
11 clarinets
6 Bass clarinets
1 Contrabass Clari
16 alto saxes
7 tenor saxes
5 bari saxes
22? trumpets
3 flugals
8 french horns
6 tenor trombones
3 bass bones
7 baritones
5 Tubas
1 string bass
20-ish Percussion

and only 2 directors

Now, before anybody passes out, these are all divided into three bands, and during marching season, we only march a 95 person hornline. Feel free to visit our website: http://www.taftraiderband.org

alto-girl

Thanks, JazZz! I understand more now... but what is a colour guard?

JazZz

A color guard is the dancing ensemble of marching band. During the program they will dance around/inside the formations with generally flags and sometimes rifles and sabers. There is a lot of variation on this, but that's a color guard in it's most traditional sense. A danceline is the same thing, but more focused on dance with a little dabbling in flags.

http://www.regiment.org/videos.cfm
Watch the bottom video, I like it the best. The color guard is the people off to the side holding the flags. If you go through the various pictures on this site you'll see various items they use (parasols, flags, rifles, sabers, etc.)
This is a Drum Corp (brass + drums only) so they are professional marchers with a professional color guard.

p.s. my schools color guard is awesome, we suddenly got amazing and have started ranking in groups of 20+ bands!

alto-girl

Ahh. So you can be in the marching band but not play an instrument.

SaxoAK

JPSaxman - I feel for you that's 7 instrumentalists - MADNESS - IF I WERE KING OF THE WORLD - THERE WOULD BE ENOUGH MARCHING BAND TO GO AROUND FOR EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!

here's my small - but bigger than your's - band:
4 Flutes
6 Clarinets
7 Altos
2 Tenors
1 Bari
3 Mellos
2 Baritones
5 T-bones
3 Contras
5 Bass
2 Cymbals
2 Snares
1 Quad
2 DMs

JPSaxMan

Thanx for your sympathy Jon Crying or Very sad

SaxoAK

Anytime - why is your band so small anyway? Small school? Private school?

BariSax37

well my marching band held the record for warren and detroit having 11 years straight of getting ones at compitition. there are four bari's 3 tenors 13 altos 48 clarinets 24 trumpets 5 tubas 16 percussion 5 trombones 3 baritones 18 flutes 2 piccolos and other members I cant remember lol all together theres about 264 and our pep band is around 100. lol it was funny every school we go to our pep band is bigger than their marching band lol