In marching band, students learn to win or lose gracefully. Students, band fans, and directors encourage each other to do their best and recognize the effort it takes to put on a quality marching show. This component is one of the most important. In my role as band director, when leading performing groups across the country, I was amazed at the large percentage of students who had never traveled out of their home state or region.
There are students who, due to financial and other constraints, are not able to travel outside of their city or state, and are certainly never offered the opportunity of a vacation in the summer or fall months. Marching band gives all students the opportunity to experience places and events they might not otherwise have the opportunity to experience.
Marching band demands a student be financial and time aware. They must do all of this on a pre-assigned allotment of funds to get through the day. They must work to fundraise for equipment, uniforms, and trips.
All of these skills will allow them to be fiscally responsible adults. Marching band members can develop deep self respect, respect for others in their own sections, a thorough knowledge of their individual section role as well as what their function is in the ensemble as a whole.
Without this individual development, rehearsals would be chaotic and nothing would get done to improve. As important, students must also have an understanding and appreciation for the leadership hierarchy of a marching band — from the director, to the drum major, to the section leader, to the individual performer.
Band secretaries handle the marketing, publicity, and other outward factors of a band. They too handle some of the business aspects of band leadership. Directors, assistant directors, and band majors generally work close with band secretaries to ensure their band is being properly represented.
Band secretaries handle the marketing and business end of a band. They generally will not deal directly with the music or members. Section leaders are important because they are responsible for keeping their individual sections in line.
Sections such as percussion , wind brass or brass wind , strings , and woodwinds. Section leaders carry out the orders of the drum major and they manage their members. Equipment managers are responsible for maintaining the equipment and keeping it in good condition. They have to report any problems or issues with instruments. Their job is extremely important because the instruments form the background of the band. Practice conducting the scores.
Study the drill pages. Look for the challenging drill moves that may need extra effort to teach or clean—Bonus points if you can learn the drumline music. George N. Even the simplest move, which you fully understand, cannot be taught unless you prepare the proper wording first.
Imagine what emergency might happen during a parade, or pregame, or halftime, or a standstill concert. Just not during band time. A drum major is a role model, a friend, a mediator, a teacher, a protector. Part of it is to make sure the upperclass marchers help us to keep the band moving forward. Sure, DMs do those things too. Serving is much more important. There are textbooks that identify these Seven Things, these job requirements, these personal qualities.
Many former DMs would probably tell you that they emerged from their experience a very different person than when they began it. So big, in fact, that many of the most successful programs spend entire lessons or rehearsal blocks on demonstrating it and teaching how to compensate for it. But lucky for you, we wrote up an entire article on how a drum major can understand and deal with marching band sound delay.
We can learn about these things from other people. But to really get it, we need to dig around and find these abilities in ourselves—for ourselves. But, as the saying goes, if you act the part long enough, you become it.
And as our remarkable DMA colleague Dr. Got any other Things a drum major should do? The more good drum majors there are in the world—the better! Tim Lautzenheiser. Benjy was the terrified freshman who was ready to quit. Heidi is one of our Lead Clinicians for the George N. Parks Drum Major Academy.
For example, if it turns out that there's only time for one more song instead of two at your show, everyone in the band should automatically know who will choose the final song. Discussing it for several minutes on stage just looks unprofessional, and you lose valuable playing time in the process. It's okay to give guidance, but you also need to give people some control. Even if you don't fully agree with your bandmates' opinions, at least support them by acknowledging that their opinions matter so they don't feel like just a cog in the machine.
They'll be more invested in the long run. Really, it's a pretty good life rule. Recognize that your band members are carving out time in their busy lives to learn the songs — possibly for not a whole lot of money — when they could be doing other things. Make it an enjoyable and stimulating experience for everyone involved. Photo via Billboard A band is a unique and complex relationship, and with so many different personalities and goals among band members , things can sometimes get tricky.
Professionalism Musicians are sometimes stereotyped as partiers or just downright unprofessional people, but any band with aspirations of making it big knows just how important it is to prove that wrong. Patience It's going to take a lot of time to get to where you want your group to be, so enjoy the journey.
An Open Mind The creative process is a vulnerable experience. Big Picture View Even though many aspects of a band can change and develop over time, it's good to at least have a sense of what you're creating and the direction it's heading. Ability to Delegate Sometimes, it's just too much responsibility for one person to handle all the details. Strong Communication It's super helpful for the other band members if the leader s express their ideas, goals and vision. Decisiveness Good bandleaders have to be able to think quickly and be confident in their decisions.
Self-Awareness It's okay to give guidance, but you also need to give people some control.
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