Weekly Written Analysis 5

According to Wikipedia, [a] marching band is, in the broadest terms, a group of performers that consist of instrumental musicians and sometimes dance teams / color guard who generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching (and possibly onto other movements) with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments.

In central Ohio marching bands are very popular and become a cult for those associated with one. I was associated with marching bands for 7 years. Those 7 years were the best years of my life. Why? Because my children were members of a 200+ marching band at their high school. Another reason the years were so great was because the band has maintain a tradition of being an award winning group that celebrates notoriety year after year.

Watching teenagers from their first day of band camp where they barely know how to play their instruments AND having to learn over 200 charts (routines) that make up a competition show is incredible. The growth experience is much more than just playing and marching – it builds character. It creates team spirit and stresses discipline at its highest level. Each weekend during the fall the band competes against other bands while also performing for entertainment purposes for the half-time crowd of the varsity football game.

Marching band competitions are judged using criteria similar to the criteria used in drum corps competitions, with emphasis on individual aspects of the band (captions for music performance, visual performance, percussion, guard (auxiliary), and general effect are standard). Dublin Coffman has traditionally won the highest awards in their class because of the discipline and the talent teaching staff.
If you live in the Midwest, then of course, you have heard of the TBDBITL (the best damn band in the land). TBDBITL equates to The Ohio State Marching Band. Many graduating students from the Dublin Coffman Marching qualify for the OSMB mainly because of the rigorous program at the highest level prepares them for a very competitive spot in the OSMB program.

Many students move on to majoring in music as either future music educators or as performance majors, composers and conductors.

My son is a music major with a dream of becoming a composer and orchestral conductor. Coupled with his years in marching band and his love of orchestral music, he has a great start on the road that will lead him toward his goals. Without the strong music programs offered in the school district, he may have never found his love of music.

As a parent, I was fortunate to serve as the Vice President of the Music Boosters during those years and loved contributing my volunteer time to supporting the program that gave so much to my children. In my role I had to oversee the yearly fundraising program that contributed more than $35,000 a year from outside donations. These funds help support all the music programs of the Dublin City School district – elementary through high school.

My children have graduated and moved on to college. I have missed being involved in the high school program but attending the football games and the band competitions are still fun.

As a tribute to the Dublin Coffman Marching Band program, I have provided you a video of their highest scoring competition in 2007. My son is in this video as a Sousaphone player. Enjoy.

Dublin Coffman’s last football game of the season is tonight – if they win, they close out the season undefeated. That means the football and marching band season continues throughout the playoffs. What a great year they have had! Go Rocks!

Note: At the end of the video is a nice visual effect!

Reference

Wikipedia. (2009). Wikipedia:Marching Bands. Retrieved October 29, 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marching_Bands