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Modern Marching Band: The Magical, the Mundane, and the Remarkable – Part 1

Last Friday, I worked a high school football game for the second week in a row. That’s no big deal, but for context, consider that, from 2004 to 2018, I did PA announcing for high school football, including 12 years from 2007-2018 where I was the exclusive voice of all games at a local stadium. Then I left that district and have only done substitute football PA work since. My last game prior to this year was in 2022. Being immersed in the high school football scene for so many years, followed by a respite, followed by back-to-back experiences, elicited some observations that I had not really expected. “Is this post about football?” Not really. High school football is high school football – a mixed bag, depending on the season, the teams, and the time of the season. I’ll post thoughts on high school football some other time, but today we really need to talk about marching bands.

I am, proudly, a band nerd. Started learning saxophone in the summer of 1980, and still play when I can. Also, I could specifically be considered a marching band nerd. Drum Major at my high school for 2 years, followed by 5 years at my university (I took 4.5 years to finish my Bachelor’s degree, so I marched that extra season.) I’ve followed Drum Corps International since 1984. I actually got into voiceover primarily through doing PA announcing for marching band contests, and I have been the PA voice of the U.T. Arlington Maverick Marching Band since 1998. (Yes, I’m also kind of old.) The point is, I’ve been in bands, I’ve led bands, I’ve showcased bands, and I’ve watched bands with an educated and experienced set of eyes and ears for 45 years.

“Oh, boy, here comes an old man rant about how silly modern marching band is because of how much it’s changed.” Actually, no. I will admit to having issued old-man-rants in the past about certain elements of marching band and drum corps, but I think my perspective is tempered now by a little more age and a lot more wisdom.

Straight-up honesty…Band is awesome. Marching Band is awesome. (Concert Band is awesome, too, but I’ll detail why in another post some other time.) Marching Band isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is simply incredible. Why? Let’s start from the ground up. (“From the top,” if you will.) Learning to play a musical instrument successfully is, on its face, a magical thing when you think about it. The required physical dexterity demands a level of concentration many people don’t realize. But that concentration eventually becomes second-nature and habitual, to the point that even an amateur player is accomplishing something amazing. The player also learns to read music, decoding all the symbols and terms and changing the sounds they’re making to bring what’s on the page to sonic life. Now put that player in an ensemble, where they have to listen to everyone else, follow the conductor, and match it all up to create a performance.

Sounds cool, right? Great! Now, stand up, move your feet to the beat, then learn a bunch of new step styles to glide across a football field while still playing your instrument. Forward and Backward. Establish control of your body so that your legs can take you one direction while your upper body faces another, maintaining proper posture to allow you to blow through your horn or play your drum(s) accurately. Now learn to change the direction and position of every part of your body. Oh yeah…you also have to move from Point A to Point B in X number of counts, maintaining awareness of everyone else around you so that, when everyone is positioned properly, it “looks like something” from the stands. (In band terms, it’s called “form.”) And while you’re engaging in all this movement, you’re still playing, AND you’ve memorized all the music. All of it.

Prefer to ditch the playing part and just do visual things on the field? Fantastic! You can join the colorguard. Here’s a flag – you’re going to learn how to hold it in various positions, how to spin it, how to toss it in the air and catch it. Here’s a rifle; same skills but with a different shape and weight. Here’s a bunch of other equipment – more flags, sabers, whatever your instructor can dream up – and you’ll learn to use this stuff, too. We’ll teach you a bunch of movements using this equipment, and you also get to memorize all of it and perform it to the music played.

Now, everyone, we’re also going to learn how to dance. Not dancing like at a club, but actual ballet principles – foot positions, leg positions, general body movement. Colorguard, you’re going to go even deeper with these skills so that you can jump, spin, and perform other choreography together. You might literally lift and carry each other around at times. You might also have props on the field that you could stand on, move, step around, change, or march across. You’re also going to do this wearing uniforms and/or costumes, and we might have moments where you change something on your uniform so that the colors on the field look different. Of course, you also have to carry all the stuff you take onto the field back off of it, before the clock expires.

Oh! Before we forget – some of you need to step forward as drum majors, leading and coordinating this on the field. You will help manage our rehearsals, try to inspire and motivate everybody, and conduct all the music at the correct tempo and with appropriate style. You’ll be the proverbial face of the group, acknowledging the judges and audience, and generally representing what your band stands for. You’ll have some authority, but everybody on the field is also the same age as you, and they are your peers, so walk that line carefully. And be sure to help us keep our energy high when everyone’s wondering if any of this is worth it or is otherwise not on their best behavior.

So, we’re going merge all of these skills to learn roughly 8-11 minutes of music, movement, and choreography, start learning and rehearsing it in the heat of August, then work to perfect it over the next 2 months so that we can perform it by October. It just might suck at first, but we’ll work on it all to make bad stuff good and the good stuff better. Did I mention we’re going to do all this work before or after school? Did I also mention that you still have to go to class and maintain your grades?

By the way, every Friday, we go to every football game, and you’ll have to carry all your stuff with you to the game. You might not even go home after school and instead make it a 16-hour (or longer) day. Some of you will help load all the percussion equipment and large instruments on a truck. We’ll go into the stands and cheer our heads off for the football team, except for midway through the 2nd quarter, when we’ll head to the end zone to prep for our halftime performance. Then back into the stands for the second half. We’ll repeat that process for at least 10 weeks. And in October, we’ll spend time rehearsing every Saturday before we pack up and head out to a contest, where we’ll hope to perform twice. We may also have some other performances on October weeknights.

But wait, that’s not all. We’ll also learn music to play in the stands at football games, plus a different song each week to play for the drill team’s performance. Don’t forget the fight song, alma mater, and national anthem. Plus there may be additional music to learn as the season goes on. If the football team advances to the playoffs, we might learn a different show just to keep things interesting. And some of you will also still work on longer, more difficult concert music for the stage in addition to everything else.

Sound cool? Trust me, it is. But the whole experience, laid out like this, also sounds incredibly daunting. And…it IS. But it’s worth it, and it really is magical. The sense of accomplishment an individual performer gets as they learn the fundamentals, then apply them, then have a chance to hone them, then perform on a higher and higher level, is astonishing. The sense of camaraderie the entire group can develop as they work through a given season is unbelievable. The sense of belonging students and alumni can establish over several years with a school band program is indescribable. People like to say, “they work as hard as the football team.” If we’re just talking about time commitment and perhaps physical effort, that may be true. But band is fundamentally different from any sport. Athletic success is, for better or worse, measured on the scoreboard for all to see, and student-athletes can become disheartened by a losing season or gratified by a winning one. Marching band has scores at contests, but those can be terribly misleading because there are many more intrinsic rewards. No one knows the exact sum of effort and determination it took a given ensemble just to get there except the performers themselves. A band could finish last at every contest and still come away feeling like it was a magical season. And it is magical.

Come back tomorrow to read about the mundane and the remarkable.

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On Leadership

I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership lately. No doubt some of the impetus is reflection on my own personal and professional experience, but I’ve also seen recent news items: one superintendent changing districts, another retiring, a campus principal and long-time friend receiving national recognition for a simple act. I’ve also heard personal stories from several other friends and acquaintances in leadership roles about their life changes. As someone who’s unabashedly and unapologetically philosophical, things like this get my brain going.

I happen to love leadership. Not from the standpoint of having the illusion of power or the ability to make decisions. I just love stepping up and helping a group get things done. Throughout my academic career, I gravitated toward leadership roles, from being on the old Safety Patrol in elementary school to serving as president of Kappa Kappa Psi, my honorary band fraternity, in college. When I was in high school, I became a drum major of the marching band, something I did through college. 7 years total as a drum major, plus 16 years teaching drum major/leadership camps to high school students. Those 16 years as an instructor are really why I became a teacher, because I enjoyed the learning process so much as I helped students discover their own abilities as leaders. It’s fair to say leadership as a pursuit has helped shape my life.

When I moved to central administration, I pursued a Master of Education degree in Educational Leadership (naturally). I actually had never previously anticipated getting a Master’s degree. I saw myself remaining a classroom teacher for roughly 30-40 years, then walking away. I didn’t want the disciplinary and other hassles that came with being an Assistant Principal, nor the politics that came with almost every position higher than that. But even as a classroom teacher, I was always willing to step up as a campus leader, so when the opportunity to split my work 50/50 as a teacher/“data specialist,” I took it. Campus Data Specialist meant I managed the state and local assessments for the campus. Not a lofty title, but it was leadership – getting things done, and helping teachers and students deal with a thankless but required task. Eventually, I moved up to District Testing Coordinator at central office – also a leadership role, now getting things done by helping campus administrators manage their own thankless but required tasks. And hence, the desire for an M.Ed. to help me fulfill the role better, and maybe move up the ranks if that was in the cards.

“Are you about to segue into a blathering list of all the things that are important qualities of a leader?”

No, you can find that kind of stuff with a simple web search and get all the leadership info your heart desires. What I can offer are a few simple guidelines about what good leadership is, based on my background and experience, along with some examples, good and bad, that I’ve encountered in my career.

So, the rules:

  1. Leadership boils down to two things: Inspiration and Influence. The leader inspires others toward the organization or group’s goals based on their conduct and character. The leader influences other sometimes by directing people to do specific things, but mostly by setting an example and doing those same things themselves.
  2. The central purpose of the leader is to get the appropriate things done for the group or organization and its members. That often means delegating to others who answer the proverbial call, but sometimes that may mean doing certain things yourself, and you’d better be willing to do it. There’s really only one question at center of the leader’s focus regarding decisions, actions, directives, or behavior: “Does this benefit the group or organization and its members?”
  3. If there’s an essential quality of leaders that should reign above all others, it is Humility. Once you’ve convinced yourself that you know all, or you’re above certain tasks or rules, or you should be the sole arbiter of everything, you’re lost. That’s not leadership; it’s power. Humble yourself and recognize the value of everyone in the group or organization.
  4. There are multiple “right” ways to do everything. Flexibility is essential for leaders. If you’re not willing to change things up, then you’re not learning. And if you’re not learning, you’re stagnant. Organizations are like rivers: the water’s going to flow as long as there’s a sufficient source. The leader’s role is really to elicit the flow from the source and guide it in the proper direction. But just like a river, the organization can meander over time as needed because of different approaches toward the goal. That’s not dysfunction, it’s progress.
  5. There’s really no such thing as a “servant leader” separate from “other” leaders. ALL leaders, if they’re doing it correctly, are serving the group or organization and its members. The term “servant leader” is just virtue-signaling lingo based on the notion that leadership is about power, so somehow the “servant leader” differentiates themselves. It’s a little disingenuous because it assumes the worst in people in leadership roles.

Having made those observations from my own experience, I am happy to say that the majority of the supervisors for whom I served were more good than bad as leaders. My first principal was a flawed individual, but his heart was in the right place, he meant well, and he was generally flexible about how to run the campus and made adjustments over time. My second principal was opening a new high school and was very much the picture of inspiration and influence. She thought more big-picture and allowed others to hammer out the details, and that collaborative approach and helped establish a strong culture for the campus. Principals 3 and 4 were similar to my first principal in that they were good-hearted and flexible, and both were remarkably free from serious flaws. So yeah, I experienced a relatively charmed professional life at my first two campus stops.

Normally, I don’t identify my specific campuses, districts, or any individuals in my posts because this blog is not about grinding axes; it’s about sharing insights and experiences. But I will occasionally break this rule to call out particularly positive individuals for their contributions to the education profession in general and to me, personally. Today I’ll break the rule three times. Here’s the first one: Dr. Teresa Stegall. She was my first boss in central administration as the Director of the department in which I served as Coordinator. In a word, Impeccable. She embodied every one of the five rules I listed above. The picture of grace and humility. I suspect she maintained such a great attitude because she had literally fulfilled every duty in the department by herself at one time or another in the past, and she had empathy not just for the department members, but for people across the entire district. She knew my own strengths and played to them, including making use of my interest in voiceover. She was also willing to do the work, as well, like the time she asked me to take an online course in Microsoft Access to enhance my skills, then took the course herself along with me because she knew she would also benefit. Her character was, and is, unimpeachable, and she remains both a friend and mentor to this day.

Dr. Stegall ultimately retired from her position as Director, and after some reorganization by the district (another long tale for another post), the department simply didn’t operate the same. So I left that district after 25 years for potentially greener proverbial pastures. And while the upper administrators in my new district were excited to bring my personality and skills to town, I soon found that the new leader of that department would be the absolute worst leader I encountered in three decades in public education. I won’t call out this individual by name (frankly, it may as well be Voldemort, because we do not speak that name), but I recently ran across my exit letter to district Human Resources upon leaving, and Holy. Cow.

The exit letter was very factual and intended to document as many problems with inconsistent and poor leadership of the department as possible. 9 pages, 5,300 words. (!!!) I won’t bore you with details, but here are a couple of highlights to give you a sense of the issues:

  • I was hired in part because I brought an innovative approach to training and communication, including better layouts for department documents. When I revised a state assessment annual overview to increase its visual appeal, I was told, “Well, the one we had seemed to work just fine for 7 years.” Uh-Huh. Lack of flexibility: check. Lack of humility: check. Lovely. Passive-aggressive, too? Bonus.
  • On another occasion, I requested a testing check-in document from a previous year and was told, “I’m not going to share last year’s because you’ll just change it, anyway.” Wow, throw in some more passive-aggressiveness as the cherry on top.

And where Dr. Stegall appreciated my voiceover aspirations and worked to involve them in my work, Lord Voldemort here seemed to resent them because it meant I wasn’t taking tasks home and working until 9:00pm like they were. What a disaster that year was.

Fortunately, the proverbial skies parted the following year as I returned to a high school campus and served under the next leader who I shall highlight, Laigha Boyle. She was easily the hardest-working principal for whom I ever worked and aLeo embodies the rules I listed earlier. In fact, if there’s a flaw in Mrs. Boyle’s approach to leadership, it’s probably that she was a little too willing to do some things herself at times. But I know as she progresses in her career, she’ll develop more willingness to delegate. I wish her luck, as she has departed Texas public education to continue her career in New Mexico.

But I will save the best for last: Jason Mutterer. You might have heard the name. He is a long-time friend and colleague of mine going back to the late 1990s when we were the only two male World Geography teachers at a dedicated ninth-grade campus for a larger high school. We actually entered the profession the same year, 1994. I tapped out after 31 years, but Jason is still going strong. He endured a fair amount of political nonsense on his journey in educational leadership, but he’s now the principal of the high school we both helped open in 2002, and he went viral on a national (and perhaps worldwide) scale this summer. Check it out if here you haven’t watched it. That action on his part – hand-writing a note to every senior for graduation – reveals his character, his commitment to his campus and its students, and his approach to leadership, in general. I’m certain his faculty and staff can tell stories that reflect his commitment specifically to them. I’ve known of his compassion and character for roughly three decades, and it’s been gratifying to see him persevere through hurdles in his own career, and now to see him receive well-deserved recognition for what is ultimately a simple but powerful gesture. It was a few months ago, but it still resonates, and it inspires others. But if you want to see the real reason Jason is such an effective leader, go to the 4:45 and 7:15 marks of the linked video and listen to him. Humility. “There’s a lot of people who could sit in this chair today.” He deflects the focus away from himself and talks about how his entire staff connects with students, how so many educators are doing similar things to serve their students, and we should celebrate them all. He managed to gain a free trip to New York and an appearance on the Today show, and he used the platform to showcase and uplift others. That, friends, is a leader.