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Music note
You Know You're a
Band Geek When...
by Catherine, freshman, 2nd clarinet, and PROUD of it

HI!! I'm Catherine and I'm 14 and I play clarinet in my high school marching band in Indiana. I just survived my first band camp (August 2 to 13, ninety-something degrees, two weeks, ZERO shade) and now we are in contest season and it is the best thing that has ever happened to me. My mom says I talk about band so much that I should "put it somewhere," so I put it here. If you are a band geek too, you will understand everything. If you're not, you can look stuff up in my band dictionary.

[ The 60 Signs | Band Dictionary | Our 1999 Show | Contest Schedule | Signs YOU Sent In ]

SET 1 (the opener). I'm the X with the star!
  OOOOO  
 T     T 
T   D   T
X       F
 X*     F 
  XXSFF  
P   P   P   P   (the pit)   P   P   P
O = brass   T = trombones   X = clarinets   F = flutes   S = saxes   D = drum major

Note The 60 Signs

You know you're a band geek when...

AT SCHOOL

  1. You take eight-to-five steps down the hallway and get annoyed when people in front of you walk at a normal size.
  2. Somebody says "and" and you step off with your left foot.
  3. You count to eight before you do anything. Five, six, seven, eight, open your locker.
  4. You have reeds in every pocket of every pair of jeans you own. Also in your backpack, your pencil case and your mom's car.
  5. You've practiced your fingerings on your pencil during a math test.
  6. You call your friends by their instruments. "Hey, Flute! Wait up!"
  7. You think "drill" is a noun and has nothing to do with a toolbox.
  8. You know exactly how far you are from the 50-yard line right now. You're in the cafeteria.
  9. You try to keep your feet in a straight line going up the stairs.
  10. The gym teacher says "march" and you snap to attention.
  11. You've done "horns up" with your pencil in class and the person next to you did it too.
  12. You know who the drum major is, but you have to think about who the quarterback is.
  13. You eat lunch in the band room. Every day. Even when there's no sectional.
  14. You say "set" instead of "stop."
  15. Your locker smells like cork grease and somebody else's valve oil, and you think that's a nice smell.
  16. You feel weird walking on grass that doesn't have yard lines on it.
  17. You think every song on the radio would sound better arranged for marching band.
  18. Your English teacher asks for a "personal narrative" and you write about band camp. Again.
  19. You know the football team's record (2 and 3) but the band is undefeated in your heart.
  20. Your little brother hums the field show at dinner because he's heard you hum it nine hundred times.

AT BAND CAMP AND PRACTICE

  1. You came home from band camp with a sock tan. White feet, brown legs, and a perfect line right at the ankle.
  2. You also have a farmer's tan from your band camp T-shirt that won't go away until Christmas.
  3. You've been sunburned on the part in your hair.
  4. You've been told to "drink water" more times this summer than in your whole entire life.
  5. You've stood at attention so long you watched a bug crawl over your shoe and didn't move.
  6. You've woken up in the middle of the night doing mark time under the covers.
  7. The sound of the director's whistle follows you into your dreams.
  8. You know the difference between a dot and a set, and now so does your dog.
  9. You have a favorite yard line. (Mine is the 35.)
  10. You've marched in the rain and liked it better than practicing in the sun.
  11. You think the trombones are crazy and you love them anyway.
  12. The trombone section has a secret handshake, a secret song and a secret rubber chicken, and none of them are actually secret.
  13. You know the drumline is always louder than they think and never as loud as they want.
  14. You've had to "reset" from the top of the move so many times you dream about it.
  15. You can tell what time it is at practice by where the shadow of the press box is.
  16. Your section leader is like a second mom, only she's eighteen and lets you borrow her reeds.
  17. You've gotten excited about uniform fitting day.
  18. Your uniform has a name written inside the collar from a kid who graduated in 1987.
  19. You've learned to say "yes, sir" to a whistle.
  20. You went to band camp in August, in Indiana, in the heat, and you'd still rather be there than at the beach.

ON THE BUS AND AT CONTESTS

  1. You know which seat on the bus is yours without even looking.
  2. You know the bus seat rules better than the school rules: seniors in the back, freshmen up front, and no switching after the first contest.
  3. You can sleep anywhere. On a bus, on a bleacher, on a sousaphone case.
  4. You've had shako hair (flat on top, sweaty everywhere else) and gone out for pizza after the contest anyway.
  5. You think the plume is the most beautiful thing ever made.
  6. You think of football as "the thing that happens between the pregame show and halftime."
  7. Your parents stopped asking what you're doing Saturday, because it's always a contest.
  8. You've eaten more dinners out of a paper sack on a bleacher this fall than at your own kitchen table.
  9. Your band shoes are the most expensive shoes you own and they've never been anywhere but a football field.
  10. You own more black socks than any human being needs.
  11. You can carry a clarinet, a lyre, a flip folder, a water jug and a sack lunch all at the same time.
  12. You can tell what quarter of the game it is by how cold your fingers are.
  13. You've stood in the parking lot while somebody's mom sewed your pants hem with the light from a bus window.
  14. You have candy bars from the band fundraiser under your bed. From last year.
  15. You know all the band boosters by name and what they make for the concession stand.
  16. You listen to the judges' tapes on the bus home and cheer when one says your section was "clean."
  17. You've hugged a tuba player.
  18. You cried at the end of the show (the good kind of crying) and so did the senior next to you.
  19. Your section is your family.
  20. You read this whole list and nodded at all sixty.

Note

Note Band Dictionary
(for parents, grandparents, and people in choir)

Eight-to-fiveTaking eight steps for every five yards on a football field. That makes every step exactly 22.5 inches. You practice it until your legs just know.
Mark timeMarching in place, keeping the beat with your feet. You do it when you're waiting for the next move, or when the director wants to see if you're paying attention.
ShakoThe tall, stiff uniform hat with a short brim and a strap under your chin. It comes from old-time army uniforms. It is very hot.
PlumeThe tall feathery thing that goes on top of the shako. Ours are white. You carry them in a special tube and you do NOT sit on them.
Drum majorThe student leader who conducts the band during the show, usually standing up on a podium so everyone can see. Ours is Stephen, a senior, and he can salute in a way that gives you chills.
Field showThe show we do at halftime and at contests: music, plus drill, plus the color guard, all at once. You learn it at band camp and you polish it all fall.
DrillThe marching part of the show, all the moves and shapes.
SetOne picture in the drill. Each set has its own page on the drill chart, and you march from one set to the next.
DotYour exact spot on the field in a set. "Find your dot!" is the most-yelled thing at band camp.
SectionalA rehearsal for just one section, like just the clarinets. Ours are run by our section leader, Tamara, who is a senior and the best clarinet player in the whole school.
Horns upSnapping your instrument up to playing position, everybody on the exact same count. When it's together it looks amazing. When it's not, you run it again.
Lyre and flip folderThe lyre is the little clip on your instrument that holds your music. The flip folder is the little folder with plastic windows that goes on it. Mine has a sticker of a cat on the back.
The pitThe percussion that doesn't march: marimbas, xylophones, timpani and stuff, lined up on the sideline at the front of the field.
Color guardThe people with the flags (and the rifles, which are wooden). They're part of the band and they work just as hard as we do. My friend Anne is in guard and she has bruises in places you would not believe.

Note

Note Our 1999 Field Show: "Around the Clock"

This year our show goes through one whole day, from sunrise to midnight, and all the music is classical. Mr. Goddard, our director, picked it, and when he told us the theme at the first night of band camp some of the seniors groaned, but now EVERYBODY loves it. Here are the movements:

Part of the dayThe music
I. Sunrise"Morning Mood" from Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg. The guard has orange and yellow flags and the band starts all bunched up in the corner and spreads out like the sun coming up.
II. Tick TockFrom Haydn's Symphony No. 101, which is called "The Clock." The clarinets get the melody here for sixteen counts and I am NOT nervous about it at all (I am very nervous about it).
III. Afternoon"Dance of the Hours" by Ponchielli. This is the ballad and then it gets fast. The guard switches to silver flags and the band makes a giant clock face. I am at about four o'clock.
IV. Midnight"In the Hall of the Mountain King," also from Peer Gynt. It starts super quiet and gets faster and LOUDER, and at the very end the drumline hits twelve times and we all freeze. People in the stands stand up. It is the best feeling in the world.

Note

Note Fall Contest Schedule
(plus every home football game on Friday nights)

SaturdayContest and how we did
Sept. 11Harmon Creek Invitational. 3rd in our class! Best Color Guard! (Go Anne!) My first contest EVER.
Sept. 18Tall Oaks Marching Classic. 2nd place in our class and Best Music. It rained during the band before us and stopped right when we went on.
Sept. 25Concord Ridge Invitational. 2nd place again, only 1.3 points out of first. One judge said on the tape that the clarinets were "clean in the second movement." THAT'S US!!! Tamara bought the whole section ice cream.
Oct. 2Prairie Hills Band Festival. Long bus ride. Bring a pillow.
Oct. 9OUR home invitational! We don't compete, we host. Freshmen work the concession stand. (That's me.)
Oct. 16District contest!!! The big one. A good rating there and we go on to the next round.
Oct. 23 and afterHopefully the next round. Keep your fingers crossed (but not while you're playing).

Note

Note My Band People

Sheila is my best friend since 3rd grade and she plays flute. We went to band camp together and we survived together. Megan is my stand partner, a sophomore, and she showed me how to soak my reeds the right way. Tamara is our section leader and I want to be her when I'm a senior. Zachary is a trombone and he is the loudest person I have ever met. Anne is in guard and I already told you about her bruises. Stephen is our drum major. And Mr. Goddard is our director, and he says "Again!" more than any person alive, but he also told me I had good posture on the second day of band camp and I will remember that forever.

My dream: someday I want to march in a huge college band. I found a page called Marching Band Life by a college mellophone player, and her band has like 300 people in it, and her band camp was 94 degrees on the first day, so now I don't feel so bad about mine. Go read it!


Are YOU a band geek? Send me your own signs and I'll put them up!
Read the Signs YOU Sent In >>

Band geeks who have marched through here:
000958

E-mail me your signs (and tell me what you play!):
[email protected]

Last updated Sunday, September 26, 1999
(the morning after Concord Ridge, still tired)