Question:
How does a girl who doesn't particularly care for football end up attending forty-one high school football games (every last regular season game + one very cold and sleety post-season game)?
Answer:
Marching band!
Yes, friends, I was a trombone player in the Stow-Munroe Falls High School Marching Band. If someone randomly shouted "BAND, PARADE REST" in a crowd, my left arm would fling behind my back and my chin would hit my chest and a deep "HUH!" would shoot forth from my lungs. It's nurture and nature; *D* was a band director, my parents met in the elevator on the way up to band practice, and both Marie and Elizabeth were in the fold as well (trumpet players- which is cooler than flute, but maybe not quite so cool as trombone... that's one other thing that I'll never get out of my system: the impulse to trashtalk smaller brass & woodwinds).
Now, marching band is a lot of things, but straightforwardly cool isn't necessarily one of them. Cool in the "uncool is the new cool" manner, yes. Cool in the hierarchy of high school social structures, no. Too much polyester is involved. And gloves. And spats.
But then the sound of snares caught my ear in the Portland Saturday Market when I was in town for General Assembly. Enter the March Fourth Marching Band, alternatively known as The Coolest Marching Band In Existence. They are a troup of punky former band kids who are as schooled in the Ramones as John Philip Sousa. The whole crowd was grooving to cadences, cheering on their burlesque majorettes, and marveling at the gracefulness of their resident stilt-walker. Clearly, the best way to experience the band is live, but you can get a taste of their hipster half-time show with a few free downloads here. We have the CD (they had me at BAND, aTEnHUT!), which is loads of fun - especially on Friday nights in the fall.
Marching band is in my blood - maybe even deeper, somewhere nestled next to my very soul. It's music and family and friends all wrapped up into one big party. M4MB takes me back to all that sweat and glory, and whether it's straightforwardly cool or about-faced-ly cool, I love it.
I was a band geek, too. Say hello to Central High School's only girl drummer!
ReplyDeleteHey, that is pretty cool! And everyone thinks U$C's marching band is so great... blegh... these guys blow 'em out of the water!
ReplyDeleteQ: What is the dynamic range of a bass trombone?
ReplyDeleteA: On or off.
More to come, dissing woodwinds, indeed!
Subject: Trombone problems
ReplyDeleteMight be old news to some of you, but...
Washington D.C.-Each year thousands are people are killed, maimed or annoyed by trombones. The statistics of head, neck and even shoulder injuries sustained by reed players, French horn and string sections seated within reach of the deadly seventh position are truly shocking...not to mention forced early retirement due to ever- increasing hearing problems reported by classical musicians of all types who are forced to play the music of Wagner, Mahler and Brahms, as well as the hundreds of alumni of the Herman, Ferguson and Kenton bands and OKOM devotees of Kid Ory, Jack Teagarden, Abe Lincoln, Jim Robinson and Lee Gifford.
There is current legislation pending in Congress to restrict the sale of trombones and equip them with child-safety devices. The influential trombone lobby is, of course, opposed to this. There have even been several proposals for requiring a so-called "trigger lock" 0n all bass trombones! Every year there are reports of hundreds of innocent children, attracted by the shiny brass and smooth, seductive curves of an unattended instrument on a stand in the corner of a room or in an unlocked case who are traumatized for life by the attempts of a playmate to get a sound out of it or who may suffer a collapsed lung or the effects of hyperventilation by trying the same effort themselves! The owner's feeble "I didn't know the slide was unlocked" is no excuse! Trombones should be stored out of reach of children.
Efforts to enact a mandatory 10-day waiting period to purchase a trombone -which would simply allow a reasonable period of time for law enforcement officials to cross-check the purchaser's name against an International list of registered trombone offenders and Slide-O-Mix addicts, have been repeatedly thwarted by the powerful Conn-Selmer- Yamaha (CSY) lobby. Law enforcement officials are particularly alarmed over the increase in crimes involving use of the "sawed-off" trombone or "sackbut." Legislation is also pending in several progressive states, including New York and California, to make carrying a concealed alto trombone a Class A felony!
Some Governors feel that there are sufficient laws already on the books that simply need stricter enforcement - such as the 1932 nation-wide ban of screw-on bells, the indiscriminate use of Pond's Cold Cream or KY Jelly and unsupervised emptying of spit valves on public property; a filthy unsanitary habit which will help spread the flu this year. One popular response to the spread of delinquent behavior is the imposition of longer sentences mandatory for those using a trombone while committing a crime ("Use a trombone - Go to Jail"). Surveillance video tapes have proven especially effective in identifying violators of this statute because career criminals have often tried to avoid convictions by having their lawyers insist that what eye-witnesses reported as a trombone was really only an AK-47 or other legal assault weapon. Strict enforcement has been especially effective when used in conjunction with the new "Three sharps, you're out" statutes that have already been approved by many state legislatures.
Of course the automatic and semi-automatic valved models, both piston and the middle-European rotary, are much more dangerous than the traditional single valve trombone. Interpol has also reported the sudden appearance of rear-blasting Cavalry models that were thought to have been completely eliminated during the Great Confiscation mandated by the 1918 Treaty of Versailles signed by representatives of every civilized country of the period. You may recall that those instruments were melted down and became an integral part of the Trans- Atlantic Telephone Cable that helped to unite America and Europe. It is believed that the new source of these WMD's are isolated factories in rural areas of China. The awesome destructive power of the double trigger bass trombone could never have been imagined by the founding fathers when they granted us the right to keep and bear arms. Remember: When trombones are outlawed, only outlaws will play "I'm Gettin Sentimental Over You."
Enough?
My true motives for this post have been revealed: all I really wanted was for *D* to start lobbying trombone jokes my way. ;-)
ReplyDeletememories. ( :
ReplyDeleteand yay for girl drummers!
SOMEDAY the three of us must all march in the alumni band
ReplyDeleteand i do believe that trumpet players were in fact much cooler than tromboners. humphf.
Marching Band wasn't my thing in high school -- I was a choir guy -- but I know Marching Bands now -- My son plays the tenor sax in the SBHS Marching Dons! It is something that takes over a life -- all for the good. Thanks too for the link to the March 4th Marching Band. I wish I'd have caught them at the GA! Fort Worth will be too hot to go looking for Marching Bands!
ReplyDeleteYou must all bow down to the mighty Sousaphone, dotter of the I in Script Ohio. In the pecking order of marching band instruments, there are none higher. I scoff at trumpets and trombones. They should all be melted down and made into Sousaphones. I send an ear-splitting BLAT! in your general direction.
ReplyDeleteSomething about hearing a snare drum kick off a cadence... yeah, once it's in your blood you never really get over that thrill ("5, 6, 7, 8, SLAM!"). Band geekitude had to be about the most fun of the geekdoms.
ReplyDeleteYou played me one of M4MB'S CDs in pgh last summer. I can only imagine how much fun it would be live.
Bec: I ♥ girl drummers. You know I was so envious of you for that ;)
It's pop cheese, but check out Beyonce's "Lose My Breath" for a dance-worthy drumline. Can you keep up?
**ZEUS**
I have to concede to Matt's well-stated point. Sousaphones are the King of the Field. They are big and brass, and smart trombones tremble in their presence.
ReplyDeleteAnd the only thing cooler than a Sousaphone is a male clarinetist. (But is a male clarinetist straightforwardly cool, or uncool-is-the-new-cool cool? We'll have to consult Richard Stoltzman.)
Oh, and Jess- I think we were listening to M4MB while we were lost in the 'burg. I think that's the only time I would actively NOT recommend listening to a marching band - it gave the whole situation an altogether too frenetic energy. And yet it turned into one of my favorite days EVER...
ReplyDeleteAs is often the case, your logic train has derailed. The male clarinetist is timeless and cool. The male clarinetist was never uncool or uncool is the new cool (ask Benny Goodman or Pete Fountain or Richard Stoltzman). The male clarinetist is never compensating for some personality flaw or shortcoming or trying to make an adolescent statement of nonconformity (as perhaps a female trombonist might be) and a male clarinetist chooses his instrument for the sheer joy of the music, and there is nothing uncool about that. I invite the barbaric trombonist with her primitive brass mouthpiece and caveman "positions" to attempt to master the intricacies of the reed and keys on ye olde licorice stick. Good luck sister! By the way, is there anything less cool than a band geek forum where we all argue the relative merits of our instruments? I wonder what the football player/cheerleader clique might think of us now!
ReplyDeleteI have evoked trombone jokes from *D* and insults to my logic from Matt - I must be doing something right!
ReplyDelete;-)
Oh, and I wasn't making a statement of nonconformity. I just wanted to hang out with the boys.