Yesterday, I posted Part 1 on this topic and attempted to scratch the surface of what goes into a given marching band season and why it’s awesome, why it’s magical. Read that post here. TLDR: When you consider everything that goes into learning to play an instrument, spin a flag, march, dance, execute drill design, perfect it, and do it all together…you will find few things that are more satisfying and personally fulfilling.

But guess what? Marching band can also be rather mundane. Consider the following:

  • There’s a football game every week, and at least half of those (more for some schools) involve travel. Riding a bus back to school at 11:00pm on a Friday night when you’re exhausted is not exactly anyone’s definition of fun.
  • There’s a drill team song to learn and perform every week. Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with drill team, per se; they work hard just like bands and accomplish impressive things. But that stop-down every Thursday to rehearse with them plus the Friday performance also gets tedious over 10 weeks.
  • Stand tunes can be cool, but they can also wear mighty thin. Seriously, how many times can anyone play “The ‘Hey’ Song” and “Seven Nation Army” without going a little bit crazy? (Although to be fair, “Land of 1,000 Dances” never gets old, IMO.)
  • There are times during the marching season that become an enormous grind. Look at the calendar – we are literally in one of those times today, 9/17/25. When I taught drum major camps, I used to teach everyone this: The DM’s leadership isn’t that essential on the first day of band camp, or at the first performance, or at any contest. Everybody’s pumped for those times. It’s easy. No, the DM is most critical in mid-September, when the temperature is still in the 90s, the band hasn’t performed at any contests yet, the show is mostly learned by now but you’re working on all the parts where the ensemble is struggling, tempers are on-edge, and enthusiasm is low. THAT is when the drum major needs to be at their best, helping the group power through those grinding times.
  • If you have a good football team, marching season can seem to last forever because the season then goes more than 10 weeks.
  • Contests are cool, but they can also be a grind. It’s an entire Saturday gone, and you might have important assignments to complete for classes. Imagine working on homework in the stands while other bands perform because otherwise, it won’t get done. Plus, it might still be warm outside, so you’re sweating almost the entire day. Now imagine doing that every weekend for an entire month.
  • October often features weather that is windy and possibly rainy. This poses many challenges as you’re trying to perfect your show and losing rehearsal time to rain and possibly lightning, or simply struggling in high winds.
  • In all honesty, sometimes the shows themselves are really mundane. Marching band often relies heavily on imitation; everybody wants to do stuff that’s popular in DCI or among the top-tier bands at UIL and BOA competitions. The activity is beholden to trends, sometimes to its detriment. There was a period several years ago, for instance, where it seemed like every show was “Title: Subtitle, in four movements – I. Noun II. Noun III. Noun IV. Noun and Noun.” I would joke that I could simply announce everyone with “Please welcome the Average Suburban High School Marching Band,” and no one would even notice. Thankfully, we’ve moved beyond that phase, and the shows are a bit more imaginative these days.

I could delve into a bit of an old-man rant from this point forward because there are certainly other things that are frustrating about the activity: People often question whether marching band is valuable as music education because so much time is spent working on a limited amount of music rather than expanding students’ repertoire. (There’s an old adage that marching band could be called “Learning to Hate Music, Three Songs at a Time.”) Sometimes what judges reward is more style and less substance, which incentivizes schools to spend more resources on props and other extraneous aspects of the show. There are definitely socioeconomic disparities in marching band. By and large, you will find a strong correlation between the wealthiest schools and the bands that score highest at UIL and non-UIL contests alike. Marching band is awesome, but the activity is far from perfect.

But here’s the thing: In this activity, perfection, in the end, is a goal but not actually an objective. Every band will strive to perfect what they’re performing. None of them will achieve it at a 100% level for 100% of the time. And that’s OK. The act of striving for perfection in a safe and healthy environment, with people you grow to love, in service to music and a product that requires everyone’s involvement, IS the point. Each ensemble begins its season at a certain beginning place and works toward “the perfect place” for 3-4 months, and then it’s over. The journey and the work involved matters more than any result. Some groups will need a new trophy case to hold all their hardware. Good for them. Some groups will just be happy to advance to finals at an invitational, or to UIL Area, or to UIL State. Good for them. Some groups will expect trophies but be unable to capture them, or expect to advance to State and finish as alternates, or not make Area Finals. All for reasons they may not grasp because the judging system is inherently subjective, and their show didn’t receive sufficient points in the right places. It is not the same as losing an athletic contest, because you cannot necessarily watch the film or examine the stats and say “we would’ve won if only…” It’s the nature of competition in competitive marching band, and sometimes it leaves ensembles wondering what-if. There is no shame in that as long as they can look back at how their performance progressed through the season and how the members connected with one another – if you can look back at those things with satisfaction, then the scores do not matter. Sure, it’s disappointing; everyone likes to achieve high scores and win. But years from now you’ll think about the joy of the experience, not tab sheets or trophies.

And the experience should be joyful, because it is remarkable. Regardless of what anyone in their 40s or older may think about the music, the choreography, the props, the amplification, the costumes, or any other aspect of a modern marching band production, what the students accomplish is astounding. I’m in my 50s and marched in the 1980s and 90s. In high school, we primarily marching symmetrical drill on a fairly rudimentary level. In college, the drill was more advanced, and we added basic choreography in places, but none of it was like what you see today. The music, drill, and choreography an audience member will witness at a typical marching band contest these days should boggle their minds. I knew guys 40 years ago who would’ve gotten physically injured trying to do what bands do today. Who couldn’t produce a sound on their instrument marching modern drill. Who would cramp up, seize up, or fold up trying to play the music of the caliber that students perform today.

Music education has advanced, to its credit. The “marching arts,” as many like to call the activity, have also advanced. These are good things. Students get an opportunity to do amazing things and perform on an elite level. “But it’s not like it used to be.” Okay. Whatever. People used to teach band members to “pound the ground” when marking time. “Kill the grass!” They used to teach techniques that are now suspect. They used to haze new members and make them feel terrible and unwanted. Does anyone really think it would be productive or educational to return to those days? And while there are people who live for old-school military bands marching 6-to-5 from end zone to end zone and despise props and microphones and speakers and dance movements, a person’s preference for the kind of show should not detract from the remarkable work the students are accomplishing. Modern military bands are also great. Bands that perform HBCU-style shows are also amazing. Those styles have advanced, as well. Honestly, no matter the particular style of show, the challenge of any marching show from the 20th century pales in comparison to the demands of a modern show, where students might be flying across 40 different spots on the field while doing choreography and maintaining sufficient body control to play with incredible musicality. Complain about the shows, if you want. Respect the performers. Celebrate them. Band students are awesome. Band is still awesome. It’s remarkable.

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