Middletown High's Marching Band preps for fall competition slate
Passion for music yields countless hours of practice for 58-member squad
The click-clack rhythm of the drum line drifts over Middletown High School's campus, swirling their staccato sounds in the late afternoon air. Six drummers in the shade of a shed run through a particularly difficult transition in their field show this year.
Matthew Shearer, band leader and a music teacher at the school, helps them navigate the sticking point, snapping his fingers, singing the notes and pantomiming the correct drum rhythm. Later, the drums will be joined by the rest of the band and the color guard, forming the 58-member squad in its entirety.
"Whenever I bring up anything Disney, they're up for it," he said, laughing.
In its original format, the show is about 27 minutes long, Shearer said, so one of the challenges of adapting it to use for a field show was whittling that run time down to about eight or nine minutes of music while keeping the story intact.
"We only have 15 minutes for the show," he said, adding that the time includes the entrance and clearing of the field, in addition to the performance. "A typical band uses half, we usually aim for eight minutes. We're a little over nine minutes right now."
The show uses a combination of many different Disney songs, from films such as "Pocahontas" and "Aladdin," so the show may be more recognizable to audiences, but Shearer says the quick pace of the show will still keep people guessing.
"They should recognize it when they start to lock onto the melodies," he said. "But once you lock onto something, we're playing something else."
He said this show is a little different from last year, when the band did a performance called "Malagueña," a piece he called "one of those cliché marching band shows." Shearer said the show is performed frequently by marching bands of all different skill levels. But because last year's show was a little more typical, he decided to go in a different direction this year.
"That's what we do," he said. "You don't do the same thing twice. I like to give the audience something different."
The band performs for audiences all over Maryland, as well as at Virginia's James Madison University, with seven competitions this year from Sept. 11 through Nov. 7. Shearer said the annual budget for the band ranges from about $40,000 to $50,000, the bulk of which goes toward the transportation of students.
To get to and from competitions, the students pile into two school buses, but the transportation of all the instruments and set-up equipment requires the use of a trailer and flatbed. To raise the necessary money, the band's booster club of parents holds more than a dozen fundraisers, including car washes, a golf tournament, and basket bingo, according to the band's website.
The fundraising pays off for the students who participate in the band and as color guard dancers. In addition to their competitive performances, the band also plays music to fire up the crowd at home football games, a practice some of the members love.
Madison Herrmann, a 17-year-old senior who plays the flute, said she loves going to competitions, but that the football games are also a fun element of being a part of the marching band. At the games, the band plays little pieces of popular music to pump up the crowd and the team, known as "stand jams."
"Everybody likes the football games," she said.
Brittany Titus, a 17-year-old senior who plays the piccolo, agreed with Herrmann "Everyone likes playing at football games and cheering for the Knights," she said.
Noah Denier, a 17-year-old senior who plays the trumpet, also said he enjoys playing at the games, and that the stand jams are a fun part of participating. "They've got a lot of good solos," he said of the pieces, adding that his favorite was called "burrito."
tlaino@gazette.net
Copyright © Post-Newsweek Media, Inc./Gazette.Net