The Point of Throwing Babies

            Every marching band director all over the states at one point or another has uttered the words: “They’ll love it so much they’ll throw babies!” This is another way to say, the crowd is going to get so excited over the show that's how they will react. Marching band is a mystery to those who have never been through the experience of putting together a show. It is not as simple as it looks, moving and playing plus all the visuals you see that peaks your interest more into the show. There is more behind a show than is expected, and you wouldn’t notice what had to take place at the beginning of the season just by looking at a finished product.

            Marching band is a group in which instrumental musicians perform for the purpose of entertainment, exercise and sometimes for competition, including brass, woodwind and percussion instruments. In this case the Maroon and Gold band also have a visual aspect of color guard and twirlers. Not only can marching band be for these purposes but also "giving back to the community, learning different styles of music and getting to know new people."

             The field that is used is a long stretch of flat land covered in green matted artificial grass that is accompanied by black turds underneath the layers. As people slowly walk onto the field, it no longer looks meaningless or empty. The instruments vary from tubas to flutes, the sizes in the people are vastly different from short to tall, large to thin, no two people look the same. The space between them may be far in actuality but mentally it is close in the aspect of arriving at the same goal.

            Every movement you see on the field is broken down to small sections and is put together piece by piece. They are known as drill sheets/charts and on each sheet is a “dot” that represents a person where they should be on the field relating to shape/form compared to everyone else (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Drill Chart

Of course you start at the beginning of the drill and go through a small chunk of it slowly to understand where to go and how it looks, then you start over and see how many times you can do it from memory. Once you have a small chunk of drill memorized, congratulations, you have part of the show learned.

            Something that goes hand in hand with learning drill is the technique of marching. Starting off with how to march, at the first step you cannot bend your knee and you try to lift the platform of your foot at about a 45 degree angle to create the flex (Figure 2). From this you roll your foot slowly down and repeat between feet. As well as how you move your feet, your feet are a unit of measurement; which is depicted as a standard 8-5. That means 8 steps between each yard line; the steps can vary depending on where you are going, such as 16-5 and 6-5. Moving upward on the body, the shoulders are one of the most important things to think about because it gives the person good posture. They remain flat to the front or back of the field at all times. (What helps is keeping the hips at a 45 degree angle to not strain the upper body). Lastly, no matter the instrument, the arms must be out and away from the body to create fullness in stature.
     

Figure 2: Display of Technique

    It is not expected for the musicians to memorize the music as soon as they see it. However, the music will eventually be memorized. In the process of memorization, the movements on the field will coincide with the music. So all the music has smaller pieces as does the movements on the field. While learning the music it is usually done in the process of sub-sections, meaning that each instrument will stay within that instrumentation to learn what to listen for around them in that section. Then they move onto putting the music together with all the winds, listening for what the music will sound like together. Lastly, percussion is added into the mix creating a similar feeling to what to listen for musically as a whole. Slowly, music is added to the movements previously learned to understand where to go musically and psychically.

         Putting the music and the drill together requires the use of  the Dr. Beat which is connected to a long rang speaker. This helps keep the musical beat constant throughout the movement that is being performed. This process tends to take longer. Usually the director has the band play up to let's say three pages of drill and however many measures of music that corresponds to in place. He'll have the band play the music until he thinks it sounds good enough to move and play. Not always on the first try does it sound or look very put together. So everyone will go back to where they started and perhaps sing their part instead of playing so they are reminded of where they go and how

Figure 3: Moving and Playing

that movement lines up musically. Once that it straightened out, music can be attempted to be added in. When that is constructed, bigger sections can be taken and repeated (Figure 3).
           The visual aspect of marching band is usually what draws people into it, the movements can depict what is going to happen in the show before it physically does. Body movement such as lunges, acting, or flanks can be done by the wind players. The color guard are the color to the band, they do flag work such as tosses and spins. On occasions color guard is known to use rifles which resemble the look of a firearm rifle but is made out of wood; they are also known to use sabers which are metal swords with a dull tip. All three are a task of their own and the color guard use them in any way to support the theme of the show with any toss they can manage as well as keeping a smile on their face or any emotion that fit with the show. The twirlers have their own routines to work on with a baton, getting technically challenging by twirling the baton in between their legs and finishing it off by throwing it high in the air to end up catching it.

          The finished product of a show will look something like the video. The finished product is more than what it seems. "Why do you do it? For the reasons you already said, friends, music, the experience..." The director of the Maroon and Gold Band, Dr. Howarth Gifford talked about the reasons of marching band differed among everyone, but there is also someone else who shares the same reasons as another person. "Spending time doing this must mean something to you all, or you wouldn't do it. Isn't it great to see what you can accomplish by the end?" Dr. Gifford seems to have the same amount of passion about marching band that the students share. 

      "Marching band is a cult!" remarked a senior band member, "I tried to get out, but they urged me to come back, so I did." A better way to describe this as a cult is family, you can't choose your family, you're stuck with them for life. With marching band, that is your band family, and you're stuck with them until they leave or you leave. Instead of sharing the blood that family does, members tend to share the memories and the music.