Marching Band competition season has begun! Today I will be shedding light on how marching band competitions work, how the Blackfoot team has been performing, and what goals and plans they have for the future.
Our school has participated in two marching band competitions so far this year, and they will continue to compete every Saturday throughout the rest of the month. But how do these competitions actually work?
Every Saturday, a number of marching bands from different schools all meet up at a high school and then take turns performing their routine on the field. The Blackfoot High School marching band has sixty people on the team, including the color guard. The team consists of a large group of marchers, who perform a song and a marching routine, and the color guard, who perform a flag-spinning routine at the same time.
There are several different judges that give points to the school, each specializing in a different field, such as music, marching and blending, as well as having a judge on the field who makes notes and judges them as they perform.
The BHS team hasn’t had the greatest start of the season, but the team has already improved between their first and second competitions. In the first competition, they scored 66.5 points, and in the second competition, they scored 69.5 points, which landed them in fifth place. It’s incredibly important that the team continues to improve, especially because there is a lot more competition this year.
I was able to interview two people, the assistant drum major, Max Mendenhall, 11th grade, and a tuba player, Christian Hammond, 12th grade, both of which agreed that even though the team didn’t have the strongest start, they are rapidly improving, and have a lot of confidence that the team could win competitions.
A lot has changed for the marching band since last year. Because of the retirement of Mrs. Amanda Empey last year, the team now has a new director, the band teacher from Mountain View Middle School, Ben Hutchinson.
Mendenhall described that some of the students that have been marching for a while have been tentative to the new changes, but he believes that all of the little changes have been for the better.
“We’ve definitely gotten a lot better at blending our sound, and this year compared to last year, our brass section is a lot stronger and a lot more confident than before. We definitely have to work on some of the fundamentals because we have younger kids so we need to make sure that they are walking on time, have good posture, just so we can look and sound our best,” Mendenhall said.
Hammond also explained that there used to be a color guard judge last year and that the team would get a lot more points if that didn’t change, “because we have the best color guard.”
To finish, I asked the two band members why someone should join the BHS Marching Band, where they both claimed that it will help improve your musical skills as well as your coordination and teamwork skills. They also explained that it’s simply a lot of fun, and anyone could join the team, but you should especially join if you already play an instrument. The Marching Band has big ambitions this year; they want to win state and have the confidence, but sadly, if you want to join, you have to wait until next year.
