I am thankful to have the opportunity to see many marching bands from the press box as an adjudicator and also as a consultant.  Sometimes there is a lack of meaning to the musical products and the way the performers are communicating the information. Why?  Should the marching band season be any different than any other time of year? Sure there is lots to do, really too much to do in the time allowed, but I am convinced many of us go at it all wrong.

When the word competition gets thrown into the mix our minds get crazy, our brains get muddled and we tend to do things that we think are helping but really are hurting. Its like playing high notes on a trumpet. Our brain tells us to tighten up, grip the instrument really hard and take a shallow breath. Those are all direct opposite to the things that we should do to be successful.  If we are not consciously grounded to the correct thoughts and information, we will not remember to do the things that are good for us, even though they don’t necessarily feel natural.

It is my belief that in order to be successful during the marching band season, the music has to mean something to our performers. The performers must understand the musical score and how their part works with other parts. What note of the chord are they playing and how does that note affect the overall sound, tuning and emotion of the total package? Who has the melody and what is the musical phrasing of that melody. What emotion are we trying to evoke out of our listeners through our beauty of phrase and tonal color?

Not only does the music need to mean something, but while we rehearse it we need to educate through it. It is so tempting to turn the metronome on with that loud irritating beat, and rep sections of the music over and over until both the director and performer become numb to what is being heard and played. The more hollow reps, the less the music starts to affect everyone involved. The sparkle gets lost and the beauty of the entire process is tainted.

The less time we spend repping marching band music, the better the marching band music will become.

Now that is a scary thought. Can you imagine? It is October, you have 3 competitions left and there is so much to do, and because of the competitive nature of the activity, or brains are driving us to do more reps and spend more time on the program. That is what feels natural, but I am suggesting to vary the time spent throughout the day to include other things that feed your students both musically, mentally and emotionally. Work on great repertoire with your students during the school day. Work on chamber music and listen to orchestral scores. Talk about chords and music theory and the way professionals play and articulate. Get your students thinking. Listen to originals of your marching arrangements and what professional players are doing to evoke emotion and work other musical pieces that help focus on these details. Work on chamber music and solo playing. Feed your starving students and through the education process you provide, everyone will get nourished.

Always think about the student musicians and what is best for them. It is easy for us to feel like doing more on the marching music will create better music, but for me, sometimes the more time I spend on something, the worse it gets. I can remember auditioning for the United States Marine Band and spending months on the same music. The audition did not go well for me, and from that experience I learned to spend less time on the actual music and more time learning and growing as a player and musician. When I auditioned for the United States “Pershing’s Own” Army Band, I made the finals and I am convinced it is because I spent less time focusing on the audition rep, and more time educating myself.

Does it scare you to spend less time on marching music during the competitive season? If so, why?

So, you just completed two weeks of band camp, learned drill and music, and performed for the parents. Congratulations on completing this ever so exhausting task. As you move into the weeks following, how do you take this product and fine tune it to have the most impeccable balance, volume and musicality in this competitive activity?

You must now redo the music to what the staging presents.

What? I have to go back and rearrange things after spending so much time learning it at band camp? Yes! This art form known as the marching arts is just like a 600 piece jigsaw puzzle that you work with your grandmother. It is fun, takes concentration, but involves weeks to get it just right. If you learn your music inside, and learn your drill outside, then put the music together with the drill and it doesn’t quite sound right, there is a very good reason. The positioning on the field has everything to do with how you sound. If you have a really knowledgable drill writer, which hopefully you do, he/she will work hard to place your students in what they hope will be the best place to sound great, but most of the time it comes with inherent issues they do not know about.

For instance, drill writers do not know you have 4 baritones and 5 trumpets that are All-State players and can bury a band. They also most likely do not think deep enough musically in the score to know which notes of the chords need to speak to make the music come alive. Our drill writers are excellent at what they do, and I definitely would not want their job, but in order for us to achieve an amazingly balanced sound with chords that mean something emotionally and a sound that touches our audience, we have to adjust according to our staging on a very consistent and purposeful basis. Not only do we need to sound great, but the notes of the chords have to sparkle with resonance and beauty in order to have an emotional connection with our audience and adjudicators.

How does this work?

1. Record your ensemble on a consistent basis, DAILY, and compare it to the original midi recording you received from the arranger. Does the outside recording sound like the midi? Do you get the same chord structure and homogeneous sound that you came to love in the initial recording of the music? Also, be critical when you are listening to the ensemble as if you are judging this product. How does it affect you?
2. Understand that it is not as simple as telling folks to “play louder”. If you need more sound and you tell students to “play louder,” you will most likely get an overblown sound because your really great students are going too far, and your young students cannot play that big yet. Instead, through the recordings, listen to exactly what note of the chord needs to be adjusted, and address those people.
3. Do not be afraid to change the dynamics. Maybe the dynamic suggests fff, but the form you are put in says fff for some of it, but then seems to make more sense as it moves to taper the dynamic. This wasn’t the initial plan for the music, but it can be adjusted depending on what we are given to work with, and the adjudicator most likely will never notice.
4. Know your players and what ranges of the instruments sound best for those players. Do not ask your 8th and 9th grade baritones to play an F above the staff. At the same time do not have them play below an F in the staff. Know what ranges are going to sound good for all players and give everyone the chance to sound great. Are you not getting the volume you need in a specific area? Move notes around in the score depending on age of player and staging to achieve that resonance you are listening for.
5. Give people new notes and musical lines depending where they are on the field. If the trumpets had the melody but somehow they get staged on the back hash, give it to the horns who are staged right up front. Also, if you are missing several notes of the chords because your mello section is split apart, give new notes to those who are in a better position. Keep working to rescore the music for the staging your are presented. If your baritones are in the back and the trumpets are in the front, and you wonder why you are getting a bright sound, do not settle for it, adjust accordingly. In some very severe cases, you may need a drill rewrite.
6. Understand it takes time to get it right. If you first try something and it doesn’t work, keep trying. Just like the jigsaw puzzle, it takes time to get it just right. Just make sure you get it by the deadline!

If things do not sound good when the music gets put to drill, there is a very specific reason. It could be the drill is too difficult or it just needs to evolve for a bit. However, many times, about 70% of the time, it needs some sort of adjustment from the way it was initially learned and placed outside before it begins to sparkle.

Have you experienced this with your own ensemble?

If we are in the business of music education, we are extremely passionate about our students and their success. If you are anything like me, ideas pop into your head consistently on new and exciting ways to help your students improve. It is exhilarating for us to see a student realize their potential through our training and their work ethic. The growth of a student and program is so important and exciting, but can this excitement cloud what we are really hearing?

As much as we like to think we hear what is actually there, most of the time we do not. Have you ever had a guest come in to work with your group and been awakened at that moment to reality? Probably at first you might have thought the guest was a bit harsh or picky, but then you say, “Oh my, he/she is right. I never heard that.” It is not that the guest knows more or is better, but he/she doesn’t know the growth of the ensemble. It is much easier for that person to hear reality because he/she never heard the beginning.

It is natural to have some bias toward our students. It is also natural to think what we are doing is great, especially if we are pouring our souls into our work everyday. The growth of a student and program is the most important thing and it is why we spend our lives educating. When a student/ensemble performs, the pride we feel as educators is off the charts. We see little Judy’s growth from 6th grade, and we see Johnny’s growth from moving from trumpet to tuba. We hear the program migrate from lack of musical skills to playing a beautiful phrase with better tones and intonation. We basically have a cloud of judgement no one else has that is listening to our ensemble. So, we take the group to an adjudicated event, and do not do as well as hoped. While the score is not the most important thing, and neither is the rated event, why did the group not do as well as hoped when we thought the group was great?

Here are some things you might consider doing to help see past the growth to reality.

• Record the Ensemble

This is best done with a high quality mic and a good recording software or app.  I would recommend Rode record for the iPhone with a Zoom IQ7 mic. Listen back with headphones and you will be surprised what you hear that you most likely have never heard before. Also, let your students hear the recording for the same reason.

• Invite professionals to listen to your ensemble

It is nice to get some feedback from folks who have never seen/heard your ensemble. You are not asking them to fix your ensemble, just let you know what they are hearing, and you decide what to adjust.

• Listen to successful ensembles at the same level

How does your ensemble compare to what really successful ensembles at the same level are doing around the country. Constantly expose your ears to the best to cleanse yourself from what you hear daily.

• Practice your instrument

Being excellent at your main instrument helps you give better advice. Being proficient at your instrument will help you expect more professional quality from your students. You can also demonstrate for your students what a professional sound, breath and articulation look and sound like.

• Do some adjudication

Being able to adjudicate an event that has many different ensembles will help you hear what other ensembles are doing and help expose you to a comparison of your group to the world. It also helps you realize see more clearly the detailed criteria.

• Be a constant learner

Never settle and always look for ways to improve. Talk with other great educators, read, watch and learn from professional musicians and be humble in the process.

Do you find yourself blinded by your students’ growth?

Each year music educators spend time reflecting and contemplating what went wrong in previous year’s competitive marching band shows and what can be done to make things better. This can be a very rewarding process but sometimes things get in the way. A professional trombonist friend of mine always used to say to me, “No excuses, just results.” This is so true in the reflection process. It’s not the ideas or reflection process that holds programs back, but rather the constant excuses.

Some of you might be asking, what do you mean?

Here are 5 common excuses that infiltrate the competitive marching season.

1. There is a problem with the judging panel!

Plain and simple, judges want to see programs succeed. While there may be a very small percentage of time where a specific judge may not be what you perceive as “the best”, or “qualified,” it isn’t the majority. A panel of 5-6 judges is put together for a specific reason and that is to give programs the best chance to have a fair and equal evaluation from many different angles. If one judge gives a program an ordinal of 2nd place and another gives the ordinal of 5th, does that mean the judge who gave 2nd is correct? Not necessarily. It means the program is somewhere in between. It could mean the judges were in different parts of the press box, and saw or heard things differently. It does not mean the judge who gave 5th is “out to get” a program. Really, there is no denying a program that is great, so if you do not want an ordinal of 2nd or 5th, just be better. Instead of looking at those placements as mean spirited, try to look at what your program can improve on as to not receive those placements in the future.

2. Our circuit doesn’t reward our type of shows

There are certain type of shows that fit certain circuits better because of the content of the adjudication sheets. Isn’t it the job of the directors and staff to pick a show that has music and effect according to the criteria in which the program is judged? Instead of using this excuse, reflect on why the show might not be doing as well as hoped, and make necessary changes that are guided by that circuits judging criteria. Study the sheets and present a program that guides the adjudicators through those sheets in a very organized manner.

3. We drew a bad spot at contests

This one does matter slightly, but again, being great is hard to deny. Trust that the adjudicator is competent in being able to recognize and reward greatness, and be amazing as the first band. It is when bands are in the “just ok” area that going first has a bigger impact. Make a statement with tone quality, musicianship, performance, confidence and appearance and programs will almost always get the credit they deserve.

4. Other schools’ shows are so much easier than ours

Placing blame on other programs and focusing on what someone else is or isn’t doing is a big mistake. If another program is doing better than yours, it is usually because that program is performing on a higher level. Whether it is perceived as easier or more difficult really doesn’t make that much difference. It is the performance quality of the material that the director has given their program. Sometimes, other programs might appear easier because they are performing it with such ease that it comes across effortlessly.

5. It’s political!

This is a very popular statement, and has some merit. However, being undeniable in what you are doing can trump any political stereotype. It just takes one or two unbelievable performances for any preconceived notions to be broken. It is hard to deny greatness. Is your program great?

Focusing on ourselves, being humble and working hard are the only things we can control. Wasting mental energy on anything else takes our focus off the main thing, which is high level music education. Try a whole season of no excuses and quite possibly you may see what is holding the program back.

Is there another excuse you have heard during the competitive marching season?