The Beginning of the Marching Band Season

Now that school has started many activities have gotten into full swing. One of these activities is marching band! I am in marching band and I am very excited for the season. We started our season about 2 weeks before school started with the infamous band camp. For most people in marching band this is basically a death sentence. Band camp is an entire week of 8 o’clock in the morning to 5 o’clock at night of pure marching. Oh yea, and don’t forget that half hour lunch break we are so generously given. I on the other hand, find it very enjoyable. I love to march and play music even though it is a lot of work. My close friends and I look forward to a week of learning new drill and get our most anticipated music. This year we will be performing Hook, from Peter Pan.
This year is a bit different than other years because we are not marching freshman. Kennedy was one of the last schools in Iowa to march freshman and I was lucky enough to get to my freshman year. With the competition only getting better and the hope of keeping more freshmen in band, our director decided to not march them this year. Our band is a lot better because almost everyone in it has already marched for a year. To fill the holes in our drill and bring some more sound to our band, our director added a few freshmen to the band, but luckily they have been able to pick up the drill quickly. We also got rid of our 0 hour marching band practice, so now we only have it for first hour. This didn’t change much for me because I always had a different 0 hour, but I guess it is beneficial for the lazy people that want to sleep in 0 hour. Unfortunately for some, we still have our 6-9 marching band rehearsals on Thursday nights.
So far we have only had one football game to perform our show, but it went very well. Our director said we got many compliments from the band directors from other schools that attended. We have 3 movements that we have to put onto the field. So far we have 2 of the 3 movements done. Hopefully we can get the third movement put on the football field for our competition on Saturday at Johnson. This is coincidently the same day as homecoming, but our director continues to ensure us we will have “plenty” of time to get ready once the competition is over. Unfortunately this is because the competition starts early and we have to be on the buses at 6:30 AM on our Saturday morning. For homecoming week on Wednesday night we have the Homecoming Parade we march in and on Thursday night we have our 6-9 marching band practice. This is usually the highlight of me and my friends week because we are madly in love with the drum line instructors (did I just say that out loud? Oops!) Friday night we perform in the Xaiver Versus Kennedy game and then Saturday is our competition in Johnston. We have many more competitions and football games after this and I am looking forward to beating Washington’s marching band at every competition (hopefully!). Oh yea, and I cannot forget to say thanks to the soccer team for so graciously letting us tear up “their” field for a third year in a row.