Marching Band

        Marching band is a bizarre exercise that cannot be replicated in any other fashion. The main goal of marching band is to play music, at varying tempos, in time as well as to move your feet in time. With these two combined, you get a physical workout of your muscles and lungs. 

To make a show effective, a band has to choose music that will appeal to a wide variety of audiences as well as music that can be executed well. If a band chooses music that is too difficult, the show will fall apart and it will make that band look terrible. It is important to sound good but if the show is too easy, then without visual appeal, the show would become boring and uninteresting. It can be difficult for band directors to choose music that will fit the band as well as make them look and sound good. This year, for Kennedy, the theme is Doctor Who. The music is the perfect fit for our band as it is slightly challenging and it also could make us sound good if we execute it well. The musicality is important in a show but that is only half of the story.

The challenging part of marching band comes when you have to move in time. Depending on the show, you could be moving at 160 beats per minute (bpm) and then change on the next song to 80 bpm. Obviously, the faster a song goes, the more difficult it becomes to march without bobbing up and down as well as keeping your feet in time. To make it even more difficult, there are moves called halftime moves. In a halftime move a person would take one step for every two beats. This can make the show a little bit more difficult to execute but if it is done well, halftime moves can add points as well as visual effect in a show. In our show this year, the first big hit is a halftime move. By making this a halftime move followed by a hold, the audience is wrapped into every second of the show. The opposite of a halftime move would be a double time move. This is where people take two steps for every beat. In the second song of our show, the whole band starts out with a double time move which makes the simple move more interesting. Without different tempos and visual effects, marching band shows would be boring and nobody would pay attention to them. 

To make a show effective a band has to do several different minor aspects that change the whole show. The music choice is important because music that doesn’t fit the band’s talent would make them look bad. The visual appeals and different tempo choices also affect how the audience sees the show and whether or not they like it.