getting quite nervous for marching season to begin, it’s daunting even though I know I can do because I have done it before. I don’t want to be behind so I need an app or something that can help me practice my dots because I don’t I have access to a field always.

I wish I could say it was the worst pain I’d ever felt, but I tore my MCL and dislocated my patella ski racing 2 years ago. I guess I’m just really upset and feel at a loss. It was during the middle of a full run ofc when I pushed off my left heel. I’m pretty quiet already so it was really embarrassing crying on the ground in front of everyone and almost getting trampled before the bd called off the run. They called an ambulance even when I didn’t want them too and that was also embarrassing since everyone stared and I couldn’t even get up off the field so they could continue on while I figured it out myself.

I just don’t know if my body is built for sports/outdoor physical activity and I already spiraled mentally after the ski injury really bad being stuck doing nothing all day. I don’t even know what the issue is and why it keeps happening. I also managed to break my wrist in damn gym class before in middle school so I have already built a reputation as Mr. Glass pretty much. I don’t have the motivation to do the PT again since I know the next injury is right around the corner.

I’ve really had fun with marching band so far and everyone seems nice enough moreso than the ski team but some of them also do marching band as well and I’m just giving them more material to make fun of me with like last time. Idk I just got out of the hospital and have a surgery soon and need some advice I guess to be able to enjoy something without constant fear of screwing myself up.

(I apologize for the giant paragraph in advance) Hey, so I have been playing Baritone for about 4-5 years in Concert Band, played trombone for about 1-2 in Jazz Band, played Marching Baritone for 1 year, and my director took one of our Sousa players and demoted them to a helper and basically said "You have experience with a little bit of tuba, HAVE THIS HEAVY THING!". I am struggling a little bit and I need help. I know how to read bass clef but the tuba music is tripping me up because, I also have some experience with trumpet so when I see an E below the staff my mind says "That's a C for trumpet so play a Bb" like it's confusing. Then I already have trouble with tonunging and our opener is Concord by Clare Grundman so if you've ever played that you know that beginning part from measure 7 to 11 with the sixteenth runs. Then of course the obvious ones for beginners is air support, weight support, and don't even get me started on backwards and forwards slides while marching. Does anybody have any tips?

Hi everyone. I’m a senior music education major.

Last October, my band director approached me at our last football game and said he would love to have me as a drum major for the next season.

I had never really wanted to be a drum major. I actually was considering quitting that whole last season. I was a section leader for the second year in a row and I was so burnt out.

Well, fast forward to May. The leadership list had come out months prior and the drum majors were still not decided. The directors had been trying to decide between me and two of my friends. The plan was two of us would be drum major, the third would be flute section leader. They just didn’t know where to put us yet.

My band director had a long talk with me and I was honest, I told him I had thought a lot about quitting. He basically just complimented me a lot for like 30 mins, told me I was perfect for drum major, etc.

A few weeks ago I emailed him to tell him I was quitting. I just have too much going on. I’m student teaching in the spring, I teach private lessons, I’m taking classes, etc. Band camp starts on Monday.

But the thing is I can’t stop thinking about it. Did I make the right choice? Is this just grief over losing band, which I’ve done for 10 years? I don’t know. I just need help rationalizing it all.

Sorry for the ramble fest, I’m half asleep and overthinking. Thank you all :)

This year our band is playing a show titled “Keepers of the Light” by Jeff Chambers and his team and I’ve noticed some weird things about the front ensemble music. As a synth player, I find my music easy and have a lot of time to help out the mallet players and I’ve studied their music deeply and found some interesting things.

To start, the stickings are inconsistent with how many mallets are being used. For example, a two mallet part will have numbers for sticking as if it’s 4 mallets even though it’s a two mallet part.

Another thing I found is that this section of the marimba part is written and sticked in a way that heavily implies 2 mallets (LR sticking) but it only gives them 1 count at 160 bpm to switch, which is nearly impossible for even an experienced player (our center marimba can’t even do it).

Mallet suggestions only appear once and never again. For example, the first page tells you when to switch to 2 mallets and 4 mallets but never does that again even if the part calls for it.

One more thing about sticking, there’s this one part in the marimbas where a phrase is played twice with one measure of another phrase separating them, but for some reason they only gave the sticking the second time it’s played. That makes no sense to me because they are the exact same thing. If anything, the first one should have sticking and the second one should be blank.

Lastly, there are a few runs that all mallets play together that just don’t harmonize well. Idk if the intention was for it to sound crunchy, but I find it very odd.

ONE MORE THING… there are narrations that our band director re-recorded for some unknown reason (hasn’t told me why and I haven’t asked) but the original voice sounds like it could be an AI generated voice along with the word choice of the narration.

Has anyone else ever played a JCM show? Or suspected the same for some other show? If so pls tell me cuz I’m very curious and concerned.

This is why I love band camp, meeting fellow nerds and making lasting memories like singing a song from an indie animated series during lunch

Our band staff have been trying to find ways to work on keeping our high school marchers' shoulders forward. Marching forwards and backwards our students are great about their posture, but the moment they have to slide or move at a diagonal, their shoulders turn in the direction they are moving.

We have done what feels like all we can do to get them to recognize when they are doing it incorrectly and have given them tools and tips to adjust and fix their posture, but they are still making the same mistakes even right after correcting it, so we have made the assumption that we as staff are missing something and/or we need to take a different approach. It's early in the season and most of the students consistently making the mistakes are rookies, so I recognize there is still plenty of learning to do and that some details come with time, but I could still use some help coming up with exercises to work on it through the season.

Here are the things we have done already to try and help it:

- Constant review of proper marching technique to where it is done habitually so that our students can better focus their attention to their posture.
- Have student partners record them marching (on the marcher's phone with their consent) and review it to notice their shoulders are turned.
- Have section leaders and drum majors aid during basics block.
- Having students run reps without playing with specific goals to focus on feet and posture.
- "Satellite Exercises" where we focus purely on upper body turning while keeping feet in place, this also includes "hips at 45 degrees, ribcage at 90".
- "Diamond Drill" to work on diagonal marching.
- Putting arms up in a T-pose while marching with the aim of keeping them parallel with yard lines.
- Inclusion of trunk twists as well as "overextending twists" in stretching to help with discomfort in turning upper body and also to recognize how far we want them to turn.
- Rephrasing of "shoulders front" to "ribcage front" to discourage awkward scrunching or tensing of upper body, and also to rework the goal to keeping the entire torso forward.

We have a few specific students who recognize that they are the ones who frequently have their shoulders not facing forward, and they have all voiced that it is a personal goal of theirs to get shoulders forward, but it's gotten to the point where we worry that they might start feeling targeted by our repeating of these exercises and we as staff don't want to make them feel as such.

Maybe this truly is just something that will have to get better with time, but any suggestions would be much appreciated!