Next Year's Marching Band Show
The First Thing that Happened
Ok, so I was pretty much set on the Elton John Show, Beatles or Les Mis. As I listened over and over none of them were really doing it for me, they seemed cheesy and I couldn't get excited about it. After finding multiple bands at all levels who did each of these shows on youtube I was further unimpressed. I started looking for other shows, round the clock in my free time.
The Second Thing that Happened
We were looking at the old shows on youtube after band on the smartboard. After talking to the Seniors in the Wind Ensemble who did marching band, a group of them said that their favorite show was the Wedding show, when we did Emperata Overture, Song Without Words, and Chorale and Shaker Dance and not because of the theming as much as the music. I took a quick vote (broadway, rock show, or classical music as the choices) and the last choice won. I was surprised. This coupled with my lack of excitement for the other shows continued me on my quest.
The List
Before looking further I put together a list of what I feel we need to take care of to move our entire marching band forward to the next level. These are my goals as director of the band for next year.
- A show that is musical, with catchy melodies
- A show that either Stephanie or I can write the drill and teach it in case Stephanie is teaching in some other part of the country and I have to write and teach the drill
- Feature the entire guard (they were awesome, see the youtube videos of met life, they reached an incredibly high level this year)
- Feature the dancers (classical style is better)
- Continue to feature the drumlin as we have done for some time now
- Feature the Woodwinds
- Feature our amazing three freshmen soon to be sophomore floutists, Alyssa, Kat, and Kellie.
- Feature the pit. After watching/listening to the metlife video, the pit was amazing.
- Feature and add body moves for the band proper, during winter rehearsals, awarding points to the band member who come so that at least half of them know all the body moves before camp, in the featured playing/body move spots in the show.
- I feel that we have a very advanced band program here at RHS and we need to work on a more difficult show, more challenging and one that has educational merit. The Broadway show thing isn’t meeting that criteria.
- A show that is 7 minutes long. With the short amount of time that we rehearse, we really do not need to add a minute. This past year we were over 8 minutes. The top bands in the country do the least amount of minutes required, which is 7.
The Show
So here it is, I am so excited about this show. Each time I listen to it I get more and more ideas. The theme came to me after I compiled the three works. I call it “Butterflies.” It will illustrate to music, the life of a butterfly.
The beginning would be the dancers, or entire guard in a cocoon. The cocoon opens up, the butterflies come out with the music, either the entire guard will be the butterflies, or just the dancers, with the guard being the elements that come in contact with them, then everyone dances, and go through the various things that butterflies come in contact with during their life cycle (wind, sun, calm, etc.). The first pit feature, about a minute in, would be with the three flute soloists with wireless mics which we already have, featured within the drumline playing the unisons along with the pit. Those three flute would be featured throughout the show with the wireless microphones.We would put the entire guard into uniforms and flags depicting butterflies or something embellishing that. We could do anything, just in the planning stages right now, but all around that basic concept. The band proper will do dance type moves (those things that all the bands are now really starting to do) during the percussion and pit features.
In Conclusion
I am very excited about this show and concept. Listen to the show a few times, it will totally grow on you and these melodies will stay with you throughout the day. Also watch our show "The Wedding" from 2010 on our youtube site. It was a successful show for us, where we put classical wind music to the field with a simple theme. And thanks to the seniors for pointing me in this direction. I am truly and totally into doing this incredible show, I hope you all are as well.
