2009-2010 Marching Band Season is here!!

[tinkerbell615]

DD is going into 8th grade and goes to the away camp this weekend. She's a silk in the color guard.

DD is also in guard. She is a senior this year and is SOOOO excited. She has always been on silks also, but this color guard season will be doing weapons for the first time. She will be doing rifle and silks. But... as soon as winter guard starts she will jump right back to silks only. Her passion is silks and she says nothing makes her feel better than performing in front of a crowd with that "silk" in her hand. Although, I have to say... she looks great with a rifle also. I don't know what her dad and I are going to do when she is finished with guard this year. We are going to miss the marching band so much. We have already decided to volunteer even after she is done.

Good luck to you on your DD's upcoming years. I hope all goes well.

I can't wait to hear how everyone's season goes!

 

[golfgal]

DD is also in guard. She is a senior this year and is SOOOO excited. She has always been on silks also, but this color guard season will be doing weapons for the first time. She will be doing rifle and silks. But... as soon as winter guard starts she will jump right back to silks only. Her passion is silks and she says nothing makes her feel better than performing in front of a crowd with that "silk" in her hand. Although, I have to say... she looks great with a rifle also. I don't know what her dad and I are going to do when she is finished with guard this year. We are going to miss the marching band so much. We have already decided to volunteer even after she is done.

Good luck to you on your DD's upcoming years. I hope all goes well.

I can't wait to hear how everyone's season goes!

Our band is unique where they require all of the color guard to do rifles/weapons. It is pretty impressive to see 35 rifles in the air at the same time. I love watching that. 2 years ago they used HUGE flags-one in each hand so they looked like butterflies. During the slow movement of their show they had this build up to all 35 kids in the colorguard opening up these huge flags. It was an AMAZING part of the show. It still gives me goosebumps to see it on video.

I have a feeling our twins are napping right now. They have a mid-day break from 3-5 and after 4 days of 6:30am to midnight I bet they are tired!! They have so much fun that none of the kids seem to care. I would love to chaperone band camp but I need more sleep than that .

 

[babytrees]

"MYSTery" is the name of our senior's show...she has a love/hate relationship with the band...mainly the band director (who is her bf's dad). I also have a love/hate relationship with the band....it's like going to HS all over again...but this time I have made some great friends!

 

[Breezy_Carol]

hoping this is something he could continue in college.

I am in my last year as a band parent. DD started as a freshman in high school iin the fall of 2000 and DS followed in 2002. Then they both went on the play in college so this will be DS's senior year. I will miss it after 10 years. And to think I never watched football before.

DD and DS both played in The Mighty Sound of Maryland Marching Band at the University of Maryland. Their band has ~270 members and have gone to several bowl games during their time there. This has been great experience for both of them (and their parents).

 

[tinkerbell615]

Our band is unique where they require all of the color guard to do rifles/weapons. It is pretty impressive to see 35 rifles in the air at the same time. I love watching that. 2 years ago they used HUGE flags-one in each hand so they looked like butterflies. During the slow movement of their show they had this build up to all 35 kids in the colorguard opening up these huge flags. It was an AMAZING part of the show. It still gives me goosebumps to see it on video.

I absolutely LOVE the large flags also. They really do add something special to a show. DD's band has tryouts for the guard and once you make the guard you are then required to try out for the weapons line if you want to spin rifle or sabre. DD has never really had an interest in weapons before (although she has always owned and spun a rifle and sabre for fun), but decided to do it this year because it is her senior year.

I also have to say.... I absolutely love our band director. He and his staff are just amazing! They teach our band students not only how to march/play/perform, but help them to become great adults as well. Our kids have great respect for each and every one of them. We are very blessed to have them.

 

[DISFANSTHREE]

The fun starts today for us, My daughter is a sophomore clairnet player. We rode our bikes over to the high school to watch the rookie camp, we lost about 30 seniors last year looks like we have about 25 freshmen starting up.. Last years show was fantastic, ended the year with a trip to Hawaii playing at Pearl Harbor and with the US Navy band was Awesome show.. I am also a band booster, takes up a lot of time ,but is worth it... NIXA MO ,EAGLES

 

[The LK 4]

Our band camp begins on August 13th. My DS is a junior, and my DD is a freshman, so it's her first year. She was so excited to pick up her uniform on Monday!

I'll have to check out IUP's programs for DS. He'd love to continue marching band in college. We are at the beginning stages of the college search.

 

[golfgal]

I absolutely LOVE the large flags also. They really do add something special to a show. DD's band has tryouts for the guard and once you make the guard you are then required to try out for the weapons line if you want to spin rifle or sabre. DD has never really had an interest in weapons before (although she has always owned and spun a rifle and sabre for fun), but decided to do it this year because it is her senior year.

I also have to say.... I absolutely love our band director. He and his staff are just amazing! They teach our band students not only how to march/play/perform, but help them to become great adults as well. Our kids have great respect for each and every one of them. We are very blessed to have them.

We have auditions for the color guard too-actually you have to audition to be in the band period. We have a handful of boys in the color guard and they are finally seniors and have some muscles-which is what our color guard instructor was waiting for. It sounds like they are going to be doing some pretty amazing rifle tosses this year. A couple years ago at Bands of America on band had a guy in the color guard and boy could he toss the rifle-I swear it was 30 feet in the air. It was pretty amazing.

We are amazingly lucky with our music program. We have 3 full-time band directors at our high school (school has about 1800 kids and about 1/2 of them are in the band program). Like you, I think the best thing about marching band is the discipline and respect that they learn while in band.

 

[mickeymo]

Another freshman band mom checking in. My son plays the trombone. They started field show practice yesterday. The first week of summer vacation was a week of music camp, learning the first movement of the piece, as well as the school song, etc. They did three 5 hour practices of parade marching preparing for the 4th of July parade. My son is excited starting the season yesterday, and hasn't complained about the 5 hour practices in the Texas heat, push-ups, running, and all of the other conditioning work.

The directors are former DCI muscians, so the show "Pete, Repeat" is very Corp style. The directors are big supporters of BOA, so in addition to the Texas BOA competitions, the band travels to Indianapolis for BOA Grand Nationals every other year. This is the year!

 

[golfgal]

Another freshman band mom checking in. My son plays the trombone. They started field show practice yesterday. The first week of summer vacation was a week of music camp, learning the first movement of the piece, as well as the school song, etc. They did three 5 hour practices of parade marching preparing for the 4th of July parade. My son is excited starting the season yesterday, and hasn't complained about the 5 hour practices in the Texas heat, push-ups, running, and all of the other conditioning work.

The directors are former DCI muscians, so the show "Pete, Repeat" is very Corp style. The directors are big supporters of BOA, so in addition to the Texas BOA competitions, the band travels to Indianapolis for BOA Grand Nationals every other year. This is the year!

The BOA competitions are amazing. I wish our band would go to Nationals but it would extend our season 3 more weeks, into November, in Minnesota-it just doesn't work. We usually get to see several of the top bands from National's at the St. Louis competition--Broken Arrow, Paul Lawrence, Carmel and a few others. We generally place in the top 4 at St. Louis so we would probably do well at National's if we would go but that dang winter weather.

 

[golfgal]

One of our camp chaperons is a profession photographer so he takes pictures at camp and uploads them. I just looked at the pictures from yesterday-the kids looked really tired during the day pictures for practice but they had a dance and pizza party last night and it is amazing how much they perked up. The kids looked like they were having a BLAST. There is a pub on campus (college campus where they have the camp) where they had the dance. They crammed 185 kids and 20 instructors/staff into this tiny dance floor.

 

[mickeymo]

I've been following the HS marching band for the past two years, just to get an idea of the level of commitment required. I learned about BOA while ds was in middle school. I was blown away by the sound and visual quality attending a BOA regional competition and paid attention to Grand Nationals when they attended. Far different from my marching band days, we could barely march in step let alone play at the same time ...

At parent orientation in June, When the director introduced himself as a graduate of Broken Arrow, I understood the BOA connection. I also recognized the the drum corp names from all of the directors and assistants. Some pretty impressive corp history is behind the passion and style of our directors.

 

[stego]

and like a PP, I sent off my fish son who plays trombone into the sun today. Last night was a mandatory parent/student meeting and for 2 hours I sat...almost fell asleep. It all kinded of blended together: the common symptom of TMR's (figure it out). The band director noted several times the school had been vandalized over the weekend and I guess the local kids are just bored.

I got the usual spiel of how band comes first; education is second...blah, blah and blah. If you can't read between the lines...that is OK. I could. They had very hard and fast rigid rules on unexcused/excused absences and once again, the director noted at a recent competition some kids were missing and that is why they FAILED (and what a lovely message to send).

I GET that band parents have to participate. I DO. But living and dying by the sword and having to slay the dragon is NOT my mandate each day. What I see is the possibility that because of TMR's they'll miss the opportunity to include someone that can bring a LOT to the table. I know tonight (and 10 years from now) I won't lose any sleep from it.

This is my son's experience. As a dad my first instinct now is to suit up, show up, and shut up. I will be there for him...regardless of TMR's.

Now continue on with your usual marching band program...

Looking out the office window now: something not seen around these parts with the dried out corn fields: RAIN!!!!!!

 

[Amy]

The fun starts today for us, My daughter is a sophomore clairnet player. We rode our bikes over to the high school to watch the rookie camp, we lost about 30 seniors last year looks like we have about 25 freshmen starting up.. Last years show was fantastic, ended the year with a trip to Hawaii playing at Pearl Harbor and with the US Navy band was Awesome show.. I am also a band booster, takes up a lot of time ,but is worth it... NIXA MO ,EAGLES

HAWAII?! How awesome for the kids!

but I just have to ask: how high were your band fees last year? We try to keep our fees around $250 per band member, any trips would be extra. And even then we'd have trouble getting all the parents to pay/fundraise to cover the base fees. (I was our booster financial secretary for 2.5 years, so I know how bad it was.) How long did you have to fundraise for a trip to Hawaii?

 

[golfgal]

and like a PP, I sent off my fish son who plays trombone into the sun today. Last night was a mandatory parent/student meeting and for 2 hours I sat...almost fell asleep. It all kinded of blended together: the common symptom of TMR's (figure it out). The band director noted several times the school had been vandalized over the weekend and I guess the local kids are just bored.

I got the usual spiel of how band comes first; education is second...blah, blah and blah. If you can't read between the lines...that is OK. I could. They had very hard and fast rigid rules on unexcused/excused absences and once again, the director noted at a recent competition some kids were missing and that is why they FAILED (and what a lovely message to send).

I GET that band parents have to participate. I DO. But living and dying by the sword and having to slay the dragon is NOT my mandate each day. What I see is the possibility that because of TMR's they'll miss the opportunity to include someone that can bring a LOT to the table. I know tonight (and 10 years from now) I won't lose any sleep from it.

This is my son's experience. As a dad my first instinct now is to suit up, show up, and shut up. I will be there for him...regardless of TMR's.

Now continue on with your usual marching band program...

Looking out the office window now: something not seen around these parts with the dried out corn fields: RAIN!!!!!!

That is really too bad. Our band is pretty strict on attendance but that doesn't mean they don't allow absences and the certainly don't want the kids to fail school. They are proud of the fact the for the most part the top 20 students in each grade at least are all marching band kids. The last 4 valedictorian (that I know of) have all been marching band kids.

HAWAII?! How awesome for the kids!

but I just have to ask: how high were your band fees last year? We try to keep our fees around $250 per band member, any trips would be extra. And even then we'd have trouble getting all the parents to pay/fundraise to cover the base fees. (I was our booster financial secretary for 2.5 years, so I know how bad it was.) How long did you have to fundraise for a trip to Hawaii?

Our band fee this year was $900 (times 2 for us with the twins ). That includes a week at a college for band camp-all inclusive--food, dorms, etc., 2 overnight trips for competitions(staying in school gyms) and their trip to BOA-hotels in St. Louis for 3 nights. It includes all the busing too. Our band is going to Hawaii this year. They take a trip every 3rd year so the kids have time to raise money if they choose. The last trip was to China. They have several fundraisers throughout the year that kids can participate in or not. Our biggest fundraiser though is selling ads for the program at our home show. Next summer we are having a golf tournament fundraiser so that should be fun!

 

[MushyMushy]

Well, we're off to band camp! DD will be there for 3 days -- fun in the sun.... er maybe not, it's been raining here! (can't complain, because we've needed it too)

 

[rcraw45425]

Well, we're off to band camp! DD will be there for 3 days -- fun in the sun.... er maybe not, it's been raining here! (can't complain, because we've needed it too)

Enjoy! We start back on Monday,practice all afternoon, school starts Thursday with 2 hours of practice afterschool!

 

[golfgal]

Well, the kids are a few weeks into the season. Their show is starting to come together. It will be fun to see them in uniform in a couple weeks at the first football game. The kids have been working hard. They are about 1/2 way done with the first movement. How is everyone else doing?

 

[mickeymo]

Ds earned his dot in the show last week, it's not guaranteed that it will be earned. He's thrilled! He's putting together his dot book for the show. Friday is Freshman fish camp orientation to HS all day and then practice from 4-9pm. I guess the band playing ultimate Frisbee under the lights after that. He's going to be one tired guy by Saturday morning!

 

[rcraw45425]

We'll start our second week of school tomorrow, have had practice each day after school except Friday, our first game is in two weeks!;eek: Oh yeah, now that I booked BC for the week of T'giving they have an offer on the table to perform during the Old Spice Classic at WWof S on T'giving day through Sunday! ARGH! It's Coronado Springs and $800 a kid, I don't wanna give up BC CL!