Old School: Banded

By Carol McEwen,

I recently read an eye-opening article in the 100th Anniversary edition of The New Yorker about high school bands these days. According to the article, the epicenter of band competitions is my home state, Indiana, specifically Indianapolis, where bands from all over the country compete in the Grand National Championships. First I had to learn the proper vocabulary. The activity is now called marching arts, rather than marching band. According to the piece, there are 20,000 band programs in the country, some with as many as 400 members. The top bands have dozens of staff, budgets of hundreds of thousands of dollars and fleets of trucks for their instruments, props, costumes and sound systems.

The nationally competitive bands no longer only play "Louie, Louie" at football game halftimes. Their programs are ambitious in marching patterns (think oblique angles, curves and clusters,) as well as musically, performing numbers like Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra.” That would be hard for high school musicians to perform sitting down, but they’re playing from memory while marching, dancing and crab-stepping sideways across the field. Two of the most competitive bands are only 25 miles apart in Indiana: the Avon High School Marching Black and Gold and the Carmel High School Marching Greyhounds. These two schools usually take turns winning the national competition, with 11 wins in the past 20 years. To keep their competitive edge, both schools now rely on music composers, drill designers and choreographers besides their Band Director. Some of the top schools have color guards of 50 girls. 

This article made me think of my high school band, the Vincennes, Indiana, Alices, with 160 members, who won the Indiana State Championship in 1962. The picture shows the flag girls, my childhood pal among them, celebrating their win with the drum major. I was never a member of the band, but as an outsider, the band kids always seemed like a family to me, with Mr. Meurer, the director, as patriarch. I suppose they bonded over practice in the summertime heat or maybe while marching at football game half-times wearing those scratchy green uniforms with the white stripes down the sides. However successful the band was, their budget was tiny. Note the picture of the old school bus which hauled the instruments and the band members.

Some members had never been out of our hometown until they traveled to Washington, D.C. to play on the Capitol steps, marched the Boardwalk in New Jersey or traveled to Canada to perform. Another childhood friend, a trombonist, reminisced electronically about their trip to Mason City, Iowa, vying for the chance to appear in the movie version of “The Music Man.”  She told me that the band director was convinced they deserved to win and when they didn’t, he marched the band off the field, claiming the competition was rigged. 

Their experiences taught them patience, discipline and collaboration. As one parent put it, “They are learning what excellence looks like.” Not such a bad lesson, Old School or not.   

Carol McEwen is a writer for Stroll By The Bay, Mirimar Beach, Florida, and authored the weekly Old School column for the Arlington Sun Gazette/Gazette Leader. She may be reached at: carolwrites4fun@gmail.com.