We are playing at the Homecoming parade on Saturday at 12 noon. First thing, this parade starts right on time or even a little earlier so be ready and downtown before the parade blocks you in. Second, we will not have the winds do alot of playing at this parade since 90% of the parade route has nobody listening. If you stand on an empty block all you are going to hear is the drum cadence. To be able to perform at all on this day we literally have about 3 times which we can have the winds play in the parade. Any more and the brass players will not be able to get through the show at the Homecoming Game in the afternoon or at the Whitman Competition that night.
At the Homecoming game and the Whitman Show we play at full peak performance which we call “Full Outs.” This means that the brass players give it their all and hold nothing back. The best high school bands in the country only have about 2 full outs a day. In addition, doing a “Full Out” performance takes alot of endurance for 7 minutes straight. This is why many bands cannot sustain and are very weak at the end of the show. When we rehearse we do two full outs at the end of the night to build endurance. On a show day we have to be very conservative since we have to sound the best we can for audiences and judges. With the hours of break time between the afternoon game and the competition we can rebuild some embouchure muscles (the wind players mouth) but if we play more than 3 times in the noon parade we are really chancing it. Many of my bands have bombed on Homecoming day due to these performances within 24 hours. In addition, we are playing two “Full Outs” on Friday, one being the Pep Rally and the other the Soccer “Friday Night Lights.”
Please don’t stand on a block, by yourself, yelling “Play!.” Stand where there is a big crowd, usually by the Clock Tower, in front of the Post Office and about a block after the turn towards the Library. These are the traditional spots where there are the biggest crowds and where we have the musicians all play. We will be playing the second half of the closer, mainly due to the fact that we do not have time at this point in the season to learn a parade tune.
The Parade route is from the High School, down Roslyn Rd to the clock tower, make a right downtown and go around the pond, ending at the Library. The band also stops at the Library while the rest of the parade walks the rest of the way up the hill. Carrying the big instruments up the hill is incredibly difficult so we stop at the library, eat, wait for the parade to finish, then we go right to the field to prepare for the half time show.
