It Was A Weekend of Rest After the First Ferndale Peformance for the Golden Eagle Marching Band

We’ve finally gotten on our regular school rehearsal and performance schedule. Tag Day brought in some income for us, which was really needed. It seemed to go well and the community was very supportive, as usual. Soon we’ll do a car wash as well as another fundraiser.

The weekend before Labor Day, Jason and Joe decided that movement one and movement four needed some tweaking in the drill. This is pretty typical as we run into areas that could use improvement over the season. On that Sunday night we were printing and cutting new drill pages and coordinates for the kids. It does take time from the other tasks we have when we need to relearn or tweak material we had already done. This was the case this week, as it took twice as long to accomplish as we intended. 

Last Monday the kids were a bit lethargic, as if it were their last week of “freedom” before school started, and marching band rehearsal wasn’t at the top of their to-do list. We wanted to do all our fixes that night, but the mental state of the group did not allow that to happen. The marching band season has these ebbs and flows. It’s hard to have everybody giving their best at every rehearsal for an entire season. Usually when these types of rehearsals happen, it’s an experience that all the kids are having – like the last week before school. 

Wednesday’s rehearsal was much better, and actually a lot like our focused rehearsals at band camp. We got all the tweaks done and were able to run the entire show so far without the metronome. We will be using that metronome for the entire season, even though we perform without it. It is imperative to learning drill and keeping together. We also need it to help all the music aspects come together when the kids are still getting comfortable with putting the music and drill together. We are getting behind on the technology, though. We have to dedicate one person to running the metronome, isolated at the back of the field so the metronome can be connected to the speaker. We have tried using a wireless hook-up, but it causes so much static and white noise. Of course, there’s a great piece of equipment out that is a metronome and speaker all in one, but it’s over two thousand dollars!

We had our first football game performance on Friday. It went pretty well for our first public performance since Interlochen. We still have to work out getting the sound equipment out in time for the music that happens during our running start (the portion of our program that happens before the announcer announces us and the judges start judging). It starts with an oboe playing the tuning “A,” but if the sound system isn’t ready, you can’t hear it. That’s one of the chances you take when you add electronics, but sometimes it’s really worth it. Bands have a limited time to set up for their performance, so this has to be practiced carefully.

This week our waistbands came in. These are going to have our retractable belts attached to them so the kids can wear them over their uniforms. We sized them up during the football game, and I bet they’ll be ready to try soon. That will take a lot of work – getting the kids to be able to march their drill while being physically connected to each other. I’ll be excited to watch that!

Labor Day weekend is a blessing for marching band season. It’s the first and only weekend we have a Saturday and Monday off.