From: zaidioa@cs.rose-hulman.edu (Omar A. Zaidi)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.marching.misc
Subject: Re: College/HS Marching Band Quickie Survey
Date: 16 Dec 1992 08:11:50 GMT
Organization: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
NNTP-Posting-Host: adrienne.cs.rose-hulman.edu

In article <1garjmINNlib@early-bird.think.com> fath@mbcrr.dfci.harvard.edu (Michael Fath) writes:
>In article <1992Dec11.184003.12136@beaver.cs.washington.edu> dci@cs.washington.edu (Donald Chinn) writes:
>>
>
>Donald,
>	My college band (Miami University), was about 280 strong.
>We performed a new show for every home game.  Usually, this meant 
>that we learned two challenging shows with real drill and conceptual
>design elements such as a drum feature etc.  One of the two was our
>away game show.  And we _always_ memorized our music  :-)
>
>>1. Marching style.  What style does the organization march?  The
>>main styles are traditional (high step, Big Ten-like), corps style
>>(glide step), and "other" (no particular style, scatter).  And, of
>>course, you could have a mix of these styles.
>>
>Our pregame was Big 10 style, march to formations high-step then play a
>song.
>
>Our half-time was corps style "real" music that varied from showtunes
>to jazz to even classical at times.
>
>
>;>2. Drill style.  This is to be distinguished from marching style.
>;>What kinds of forms and movements does the organization perform?
>;>Block forms are popular, but "state-of-art" tends to consist of
>;>freeform, rotating forms, curvilinear forms.  Traditional movement
>;>consists of straight-line movement.  Contemporary drills tend to
>;>have forms that require guiding.  Also, during the halftime show,
>;>does the band play to a concert side of the field, or does it try
>;>to play to everyone in the stadium (or, one part of the stadium
>;>for one song and another for another song)?
>;>
>Pregame, big geometric forms like a star-burst shape, an Ohio state
>outline, and long company fronts.
>
>half-time, lots of great curva-linear stuff.  Our band director was
>good at writing fun, cool looking drill (corps-style) for Big
>college bands.
>;
>;>3. Perceived motion.  How fast do the drill forms evolve?  This
>;>is not a question of how fast the performers are moving.  Rather,
>;>this asks how fast does the drill go viewed from a spectator's
>;>point of view.  This one is a hard one to describe, since there
>;>is no quantitative way of measuring perceived motion, but give it
>;>a go.;
>
>For our real show, the drill evolved pretty quickly -- we had probably
>16 sets in our openers, then concert number with about 8 sets and
>a closer with about 8 sets.
>
>;>
>;>4. Music.  What kinds of music does the organization tend to play?
>;>Broadway musicals?  Top-40?  Sousa?  Symphonic?  Jazz?  New Age?
>;>Fusion?  Is the atmosphere generated by the repertoire more of a pep
>;>rally or of a concert (or both)?;
>
>No Sousa, a lot of musicals, not much top-40 though we did do a Beach
>Boys show once.  A fair amount of jazz and classical mixed in.
>
>;>
>;>5. Instrumentation.  About how many brass, woodwind, and percussion
>;>players are there in the band?  What is the typical formation in the
>;>drill (are the brass in the front, percussion in center, and woodwinds
>;>in the back [which is typical]) ?  During the drill (i.e. in motion),
>;>what is the typical placement of these elements?;
>
>
>280 broke down to about:
>
>24 dance line
>16 flags
>30 percussion
>110 woodwinds
>100 brass
>
>usually, trumpet in center, woodwinds to the sides.
>
>
>>
>>6. Percussion.  What is the percussion arrangement?  (e.g. 5 snares,
>>2 multitenors, 4 bass drums [tuned], 2 cymbals)  What is the most
>>interesting lick/passage the percussion section has ever done?
>
>8 snares, 4 quads, 5 basses, 4 cymbals, 10 pit.
>The percussion fols were serious.  The grad instructor and several
>players marched Garfield.  They competed in the Percussive Arts Society
>stuff.  My favorite (though I'm a euphoniumist) was God Said, from
>Bernstein's Mass.  They did a nice job with that!
>
>>
>>7. Repertoire balance.  How much of what is played by the band (either
>>at halftime or in the stands) is "football music" (fight song, other
>>football-related songs designed to get the fans excited about the game)
>>and how much of it is purely musical in nature (theme songs, fun songs,
>>etc. would fall into this category)?
>
>In the stands = football, pep music
>Half-time = concert music
>
>>
>>8. Color guard.  Does a color guard exist in the band?  If so, what
>>kinds of things do they do?  Do they do anything interesting with
>>their flags?  Do they dance?  How many different pieces of equipment
>>does a typical show use?  We might as well throw in baton twirlers
>>and drill teams in this category (for the purposes of this question).
>
>24 Shakerettes = pom=pom and dance team - babes only need apply
>16 flags - no rifles or other
>oh yeah, there were 1-4 baton twirlers and 2 DM as well
>
>>
>>9. Organization.  Who writes the drills, selects the music, and
>>runs the rehearsals.  I know there are a lot of student-run organizations
>>(Stanford, Cal, etc.).  What is annual budget of the band?
>
>Marching band director is Jack Liles and he is full time - music professor
>he also teaches drill design to music majors and conducts the concert band.
>He's a great guy.  He writes the drill, very well I might add.  We have
>a former grad who is now a professional music arranger (Dave Shaffer) who
>did most music arrangements.  Also two Master's degree grad. students
>helped - one for brass and one for percussion.  They did some music
>arrangements too.  A lot of corps connections with our band.
>
>>
>>10. Rehearsal time.  How many hours a week does the band practice?
>
>Band camp 1 week before school started all day
>then 6 hours or more during the week with a two hour practice game days.
>
>>
>>
>>Thanks again!
>>-- Donald
>
>That's quite a list.  Hope my answers help.
>
>
>-- 
>MM   MM FFFFF 	Michael Fath		fath@mbcrr.harvard.edu
>M M M M F	Dept of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
>M  M  M FFF     Harvard Medical School         
>M     M F       Boston, MA 02115	Merry Christmas Everyone!


-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
Omar Zaidi                              |" Nothing we have ever done in the
zaidioa@cs.rose-hulman.edu              |  past will ever be good enough 
zaidioa@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu        |  again"