Marching band is harder than football. (High School)

(Mental) First off things such as musical memorization and direction changes along with keeping tempo are not at all physical. And while it is true some of the things you mentioned turn into muscle memory in time, learning them is where the mental difficulty lies. Every person's sets are completely different, meaning the only generalized exercise we can do to improve the show as a whole is to run the show over and over again. This means that each person has to think about every single one of these things. and that is where the mentality of this lies. During the average practice/performance and during the average set a marcher must be aware and fixing every one of the things mentioned above. This requires a marcher to have to split his mind a dozen different ways. If one of these things gets more focus than it should, then all of the others start to falter, yet you need to focus on one of these things at a time in order to improve it. Each of these things must also be changed completely from set to set. This does not even compare to football's playbooks. first off, a playbook does not change drastically from year to year. Maybe minor changes at best. A marcher must learn a brand new show every year. Second, there is a chasm between the acceptable margins of error. A football team can run a play 7 times, and have it work only 3, and that is acceptable. If a marching band had that kind of accuracy it would fall apart completely halfway through the first set. You also say that if someone misses a note that no one can tell. The only time that would have any validity is if it was a clarinet player in a large band at a football game where the crowd was roaring during a show. Any other instrument, however, would most definitely be heard because each instrument section plays unique parts which are all important and heard in the piece, and if one person, which may be 10% of the section misses a note, then the entire part that section was playing is momentarily ruined. Also your example of a QB fumbling does not compare with any of my examples of noticeable error. That is a massive mistake and of course would never go unnoticed. It takes a large event for that mistake to occur. In marching band a mistake of that magnitude would cause the band to fall apart, which is why mistakes like that seldom do happen in a band. You also say that the mentality comes from losing a late game and still focusing on the task. Most football teams lose games all the time and are used to it. The pressure of performing well during a lost game is nothing compared to the pressure a marcher feels when he knows he just missed that step off, or he was half a beat behind on the horns up. Every single eye of the audience is now drawn to that player who is well aware of it, and has to get back in the form, and continue with all eyes staring. No matter how much you have your sets memorized you are never prepared to be able to find your way back into the form and blend back in. That requires very quick thinking because if you aren't back in by the start of the next set you could find yourself completely lost in the middle of the field. The audience also will have little knowledge of what actually may be going wrong on the field for a football team. A player may have taken a completely wrong path but that player wasn't important to the play therefore no one notices or cares. In fact the audience is only watching one thing, the ball. anyone who doesn't have their hands on the ball or is threatening the ball carrier is just background. a marching band performance is a form of art and the audience studies it as such. Their eyes are darting around the field as formations change and they view it as a whole instead of separate players. Each marcher knows this and adds further pressure to perform perfectly, because again if one gets out of form it is the same as putting a random streak on a beautiful painting. Also you have worry about more than just yourself. A high school marching band accepts anyone who pays. This means that that one tiny kid with no muscles is he center of attention during practices as everyone around him assists him in learning his sets. This makes marching band the ultimate team sport because everyone in the band must help the weakest link in order to improve. In football you just bench or reject anyone having a bad game or just isn't cut out for it. Also to answer your question yes I very much do know the feeling of saying good game to the team that beat you, but worse. After a marching competition, when all the leadership in each band go out onto the field in groups for the awards, and the rest of the band is waiting eagerly and exhausted in the stands, the awards are called out. Everyone knows they gave it their all and all they can do is hope it was enough. Then the announcer calls out the band next to you. The leadership on the field and everyone in the stands are expected to clap out of respect as their band erupts with roaring applause next to your band as they clap half-heatedly. I assume with you saying that football most all mental that the majority of your argument will take place in that area as mine has because a similar percentage is used to describe the marching band. (Physical) I would first like to say that the length of a football game, in the sense of actual activity, can be cut down to about 15 minutes of actual playing. the average player is on the bench more than half of that time. meaning that not only is a football player playing far less than a marcher during a show, but he also gets a massive amount of break time just standing there while the marching band is blasting in the stands and wearing themselves out even before the show. To answer your question yes that has happened. I play sousaphone in the band (marching tuba) and the pain after 5 days of 14 hour long practices with a 57 pound instrument on one shoulder causes a similar feeling at the end of each day. While the sousaphone is the most difficult, similar feelings in different parts of the body are felt all over the band. During practice for a warm up the band just marches up and down the field at increasing tempos. If you were to march the band at 140 beats per minute while playing a scale even the most muscular player would be passed out in 15 minutes. (Miscellaneous) You also say you have 11 guys on the field doing their jobs. An average marching band has around 100. Every single person is doing completely different things to make up the whole so this argument has no merit. And a marching band moist certainly does have another band staging us up. The other band of course. Most people don't realise but lot of what a band plays in the stands is either putting a bit more insult to a very successful play by your team or a one up of whatever the other marching band just played. At the end of halftime the two drum lines even face off to show off. And during the show it may be all about entertainment for the audience but both bands are carefully watching the show being put on and very well know when they have been one-upped by the other band. Now, let me tell you my weekly hours spent. besides school there are 5 hours total spent practicing marching music along with any other music I happen to be playing. Homework of course which varies. 6 hours of non-stop show rehearsal with sparse and short breaks. 2 hours of fundamental training, 2 hours of musicality rehearsal, 1 hour of sectionals, an entire Friday worth of practicing before the football game and playing at it. and a twelve hour rehearsal and/or competition every other week or so. Also during the summer there are scattered fundamental and rookie training sessions along with the 14 hours a day band camp. This combined with school leaves around the same amount of free time as you. None. I appreciate that you read through this long argument and I eagerly await your detailed rebuttal and a great debate.