TIDBIT OF THE MONTH
May

MARCHING BANDS

 

May, as we prepare for the Memorial Day parade, is our month for marching band at Wayland Middle School. This site will present:

• a brief background into the history of marching bands (why they exist),
• Sousa & Gilmore
• the difference between street marching and a field show
• modern day drum corps - how they similar and different from a marching band
• page that explains all of the marching commands that we use at WMS

A Brief Marching Band History

Marching bands have existed in some form for as long as there have been organized armies with access to some kind of instruments. Bands grew out of the military where there were thousands of people who needed to move in the same direction, all together, and not trample each other. The troops moved best when everyone stayed in neat rows, the same distance apart. This task was most easily accomplished if there was some way of indicating to the troops which foot should come down when.

With no instruments, the troops often chanted, "Left --, left --, left right left --" (sometimes with humorous variations...). Drum beats made it easy to stay together and could be heard at a great distance. Add a few instruments playing melodies, and the music also helped keep up the soldiers' spirits. (Read some short excerpts about battles won because the bands helped keep up the soldiers' spirits & sense of pride.)

Marching bands can be made up of any instruments and any number of players. American soldiers marched to fifes & drums during our Revolutionary War period, drum and bugle corps during our Civil War period, and full brass, woodwind & percussion military bands during World War I & II. If you were a soldier in Scotland or some places in Canada, you might have marched to drums and bagpipes! (Click on the names to see some pictures of the groups and learn a bit about them.)

A picture of a Wayland Military Band from around the1890s!!

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SOUSA & GILMORE: Two bands that didn't march much, but grew out of the military tradition

Military units still have band attachments and the bands still march in official functions, but let's turn our attention to the civilian bands. In the 1800's the band movement spread across the country, culminating with Patrick Gilmore's band and the Sousa Band. (Oddly enough, even though the bands really had their beginnings in military functions, it was the civilian bands that signed on to go to war with the troops during the civil war! It wasn't until later that a bill was passed in Congress to create bands in each level of the military.) Click here to read more about the time of Gilmore's band & Sousa's band.

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What is this "Field Marching" and "Street Marching"????

It is really pretty simple: in street marching, you march in the street (a parade) and in field marching or field shows, you present a show on a football field! Click here to see some outstanding parade bands. Click here to see some college football bands in their half time shows.

The World Association of Marching Show Bands maintains a page of marching band links with links to marching bands all over the world! Check it out for some great pictures.

Then there are the Scramble Bands... Many college football bands don't bother with precision and marching together and all of that. When they need to move on the field, they just do it, in whatever haphazard manner it happens in!!! Princeton had the first college football band and its band is a master of the scramble method! Click the link above for one of the best descriptions of a scramble band that I have ever seen!! (Harvard also uses the scramble technique!)

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