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MARCHING BAND LIFE a diary from the mellophone section · Amanda Oyelaran · fall 1999

what's a mellophone ~ band camp '99 ~ the shows ~ game day ~ the bus ~ section pride ~ advice for high schoolers

HEY!! I'm Amanda, I'm a sophomore, I play mellophone in the marching band at a big state university that I'm not going to name because the band office asked us not to put the band's stuff on our personal pages, which is fair. So this is just MY page about MY band life, not an official anything. If you're in a college band you'll recognize all of it. If you're in a high school band and wondering what college band is like: it's like that, but louder, and nobody makes you go to class. Quick facts: 300-ish members. Corps-style (we roll-step, we don't high-step, don't @ me, as my roommate says, which I don't think is a real expression). Pregame, halftime, and the stands for every home game, plus one or two away trips a season. Rehearsal every weekday afternoon. I love it more than anything I've ever done and it's also completely ridiculous, and both of those things are true at once, which is the whole point of this page.

What's a mellophone? Thank you for asking, because everyone does, including my own grandmother, every Christmas. The mellophone is the marching band's French horn. A real French horn has its bell pointing backward and sideways (great in a concert hall, useless on a field because all the sound goes into the tuba player behind you), and its valves are played with the left hand. So for marching, we use a mellophone: pitched in F, bell pointing FORWARD like a big trumpet, played with the RIGHT hand with three piston valves and trumpet fingerings. Most of us are French horn players from concert band who switch over for the fall. It's the middle voice of the brass, the part that plays the countermelody nobody notices until it's not there. There are 16 of us this year. We're the smallest brass section, and we are LOUD for our size. That's the section motto, unofficially. (Officially it's something about tone quality. Nobody says the official one.)

Band Camp, August 1999 Band camp is the week and a half before school starts when the whole band shows up early, moves into the dorms, and rehearses from 8 in the morning until 9 at night to learn pregame and the first show before the first game. This year it was August 16-25. It was 94 degrees on the first day. Here's my diary, more or less as I wrote it in my dot book (see below) at night. Monday, Aug. 16. Move-in, instrument checkout, section meetings. Got my horn back from the summer; it's the same dented one, I'd know that dent anywhere. Our section leader gave the new members the speech about hydrating. Then we did music till 9. Fingers hurt. Face hurts. Tuesday, Aug. 17. FUNDAMENTALS. Two hours in a block on the practice field doing nothing but marching in a straight line at 8 to 5 (that's 8 steps to every 5 yards, so each step is exactly 22.5 inches; you learn to feel it in your legs within a day and then you can never walk normally again). Roll step: heel down first, roll to the toe, knees soft, upper body dead still so the horn doesn't bounce. Backwards marching on the toes. Horns up, horns down, on the count. Ninety-four degrees and the fake grass smells like a tire fire. Two freshmen went down; they were fine, it's always the ones who skip breakfast. Water breaks every 20 minutes and they mean it. Wednesday, Aug. 18. Got our drill charts for pregame. A drill chart is a page for each "set" of the show with a picture of the field and a little dot for every person; you find your number and figure out where you stand. The first show has 41 sets. Pregame has 18. So that's 59 spots I need to know cold in nine days, plus how many counts it takes to get from each one to the next. This is where the dot book comes in: a little spiral notebook of index cards on a string around your neck, and for every set you write your dot ("set 12: 2 steps inside the 40, 6 steps behind the front hash") and the counts to get there. You look at it between reps until you don't need it. Freshmen are told their dot book is the most important thing they own, and it's true. Lose your dot book, lose your mind. Thursday, Aug. 19. Learned pregame sets 1-18. Pregame is the traditional stuff: the entrance, the fight song, the anthem, the alma mater, and the big formation everyone waits for. The upperclassmen have done it a hundred times and the freshmen are running into them. By the end of the day the entrance actually looked like an entrance. Sunburned through my shirt somehow. Friday, Aug. 20. First half of show 1. "Set, reset, from the top of the move, reset, AGAIN." Our director stands on a scaffolding tower with a megaphone and can see every wrong foot from a hundred yards. There is no hiding. Music rehearsal at night in the band room with the air conditioning and it felt like a spa. Saturday, Aug. 21. Section day. Mellos went to the park and ran our parts with a metronome under a tree, then the section leader took us all out for milkshakes. That's a section tradition: milkshakes on section day. Freshmen pay (also a tradition, sorry guys). Sunday, Aug. 22. Off. Slept 13 hours. Woke up and my legs would only walk at 8 to 5. Monday-Tuesday, Aug. 23-24. Second half of show 1, then full run-throughs with the music, marching AND playing, which is the thing that separates high school band from college band: the sets come faster and the music is harder and you have to do both at once at full volume without your sound wobbling every time your foot hits the ground. It clicked for me around Tuesday afternoon. It always takes till Tuesday. Wednesday, Aug. 25. Last day. Full run of pregame and show 1 for the parents and whoever wandered over from the dorms. It was ragged and it was still the best feeling of the whole summer. Then everyone cried, which happens every year, and then the freshmen moved into their real rooms and classes started Thursday and none of us went to them. Band camp by the numbers: 10 days, roughly 95 hours of rehearsal, 59 sets learned, 1 pair of shoes destroyed, 3 sunburns, 1 mellophone dented further (not mine, for once), gallons of water: uncountable.

The Fall 1999 Shows We do three halftime shows a season, each one for two or three home games, and I'm going to keep these general because the arrangements belong to the band and I don't want to get anyone in trouble. But in general: Show 1 (September): a Latin show. Three big tunes with a lot of percussion, a mambo, and a screaming trumpet feature that the trumpets have not stopped talking about since. The mellos have the melody for exactly 16 bars in the closer, and those 16 bars are the reason I'm in band. The drill has a spinning-wheel thing in the second tune where the brass rotate around the drumline that took us a week to get to look like a wheel and not like an accident. Show 2 (October): movie music. A big space movie theme everybody knows (you know the one; the new movie came out this summer and the whole stadium is going to lose it), a swashbuckling one, and a big romantic one for the ballad. Learning it right now. 38 sets. The ballad has a company front (the whole band in one line across the field walking forward playing as loud as we can) that is going to be the loudest thing anyone in that stadium hears all year. Show 3 (November): a big-band swing show, because it's 1999 and swing is everywhere again. We'll start it in mid-October. The drumline is thrilled. The color guard is already learning something with hats. Plus pregame every week, plus stands tunes (the twenty or so short songs we play in the stands during the game when something happens, plus the fight song about 400 times). We also play for the third-quarter cheer thing, which I won't explain except to say it involves the tubas.

Game Day Timeline (a 1:00 kickoff) Time What's happening 6:30 am Alarm. Regret. Eat something with protein. This is the meal that matters; you don't get another real one till 6 pm. 7:30 Call time at the band building, in rehearsal clothes. Attendance. Anyone late runs a lap with their horn. 7:45-9:45 Morning rehearsal on the practice field. Full pregame, full halftime, fix whatever fell apart on Friday. It is always freezing at 7:45 and boiling by 9:30. 9:45-10:45 Change into uniform. The uniform is wool. It is heavy. It does not breathe. The hat (the shako) has a plume you have to check out and check back in like a library book. Gloves. Gauntlets. Black socks or you're not marching. 10:45 Uniform inspection by section leaders. Hair up under the hat. No jewelry. No sunglasses. Horn polished. 11:15 Step-off for the march to the stadium, through the tailgate lots, playing the whole way. This is honestly the best part. People come out from behind their grills and cheer and little kids march next to you. A drunk guy in a jersey always wants to conduct. 12:00 Concert outside the stadium gates for the crowd coming in. Stands tunes, a show tune or two. 12:35 Line up in the tunnel. Total silence. You can hear the crowd through the concrete. Drum major says "band, ten-hut." This is the moment. Every single week, this is the moment. 12:40 PREGAME. Run onto the field playing. Fight song, anthem, alma mater, the big formation, tunnel for the team. Nine minutes. Feels like nine seconds. 1:00-halftime In the stands. Stands tunes on cue from the drum majors: first down, touchdown, defense, the cheer with the tubas. Water. Sunscreen reapplied under the hat brim. The football is happening somewhere down there. Halftime Down the stands, onto the field, THE SHOW. Eight minutes. Then off the field, up the stands, and everyone's hands are shaking and you can't remember any of it. 3rd & 4th quarter Stands. Third-quarter cheer thing. The fight song 200 more times, especially if we're winning. Postgame Alma mater with the team if we won (and if we lost). March back to the band building playing. Plumes in. Uniforms hung up properly or the uniform manager will find you. 6:00 pm Section dinner at the pizza place. Whoever messed up worst that day (by section vote) buys the first pitcher of pop. Sleep for 12 hours. Wake up Sunday with the fight song in your head. It never leaves.

The Bus Away games mean buses. Seven or eight charter buses, by section, leaving at hours that should be illegal. Bus culture is its own thing and every band has its own version. Ours: Seating is by seniority. Back of the bus: seniors. Front: freshmen and whoever's in trouble. Middle: negotiable. Sophomores (me) are one row up from last year and we act like we've been promoted to management. The Bus Song. Each bus has a song it sings when it crosses the state line, when it passes another band bus, and when the bus driver looks tired. Ours is not appropriate for this page. It's about the trombones. Bus movies. The bus has one tiny TV every four rows and a VCR at the front. Whoever brought the tape picks. On the last trip the tape was the same movie we've watched three years running and everybody says every line. The bus driver is very patient. The pillow rule. If you fall asleep, you're fair game for a photo. If you fall asleep with your mouth open, it goes on the section board. The film has to get developed first, so there's a two-week delay, which is worse, because you forget and then it appears. Road snacks are shared, road snacks are communal, road snacks are gone by the first rest stop. The rest stop shuffle. 300 people in wool uniforms descending on a gas station. Buy your stuff and get out. Don't be the reason the bus is late; the bus WILL leave and the section leader WILL have to explain to the director where you are. Horns on the bus. Small horns in the overhead racks, big ones in the equipment truck. A mellophone fits in the overhead. Barely. The case has been up there so many times it has a groove. Coming home. Quiet. Everybody's dead. Somebody's dot book is playing a Walkman too loud. The seniors sing the alma mater as the bus pulls into the lot at 2 a.m. and the freshmen finally understand why everyone cried at band camp.

Section Pride: the Mellos Every section has a personality and I'm going to be honest about all of them, including us. Mellophones: small, loud, weird. We're the section that knows everyone's part because we've been told to "listen to the trumpets" and "listen to the baritones" and "listen to the woodwinds" so much that we just listen to everybody. Milkshake tradition. Section shirts that say "MELLOW? NO." We invented the section handshake in 1994 and have added a step every year, so it's now 30 seconds long and the freshmen have to learn it by the first game. Trumpets: there are 60 of them and every single one thinks he's first chair. Great players, though. Loud. So loud. Trombones: the section that is always doing something in the back. Every band has a story that starts with "so the trombones..." Baritones: the nicest section in the band, and the best sound. Tubas: carry 30-pound instruments in August heat for fun. Legends. They have a cheer in the third quarter. Drumline: a separate country with its own laws. Woodwinds: the flutes and clarinets and saxes who somehow keep marching in a straight line while the brass are all over the place, and who have to memorize more notes than any of us. Color guard: spinning six-foot flags and rifles in the wind while smiling. Respect. Drum majors: our two conductors, in white. They see everything. They know if you're faking. They always know. The band as a whole is 300 people who will help you move apartments, drive you to the airport, and quiz you for organic chemistry at 1 a.m. on a bus. I didn't know anyone here in August of last year. Now I know 300 people. That's the actual thing about band.

Advice for High Schoolers Thinking About College Band Learn to march and play AT THE SAME TIME. I'm putting this first because it's the whole thing. In a lot of high school bands, you march, stop, play, march. In college you play every note while moving at 8 to 5, backwards, at full volume, with 40 sets in 8 minutes. If your high school does that already, great. If not, practice walking in place with a metronome and playing your scales. Then walk around the block doing it. Your neighbors will get used to it. You will not have to audition for most big state bands the way you would for a symphony. Usually it's a playing audition to place you and a marching check. Being able to play your instrument decently and follow instructions is most of it. Attitude is the rest. Get in shape over the summer. Not gym-rat shape. "Can walk briskly for two hours in the sun carrying something" shape. Start in June. Drink water in July. Band camp in August will still be hard, but you'll be the one helping the person who didn't. Buy good shoes. You'll be told what marching shoes to get. Also buy real running shoes for rehearsal, not the ones you had in 9th grade. You can be in band and be a science major. Or engineering. Or nursing. Most of the band is. It takes 15-20 hours a week in the fall. It's a lot. People do it. You learn to do homework on a bus. Horn players: try the mellophone before you decide you hate it. I did. I hated it for a week. Now I love the dumb thing. Go to a game and sit near the band at any college you're thinking about. Watch what they do in the stands. If they look like they're having the time of their lives, that's the band for you. If they look bored, it's not. Everyone is scared at band camp. The seniors were scared once. The section leaders were the kid who couldn't find their dot. It's a whole organization built to make you okay. Show up. It's the best decision I've made in college.

Other pages Life at State: Marcus's Freshman Year ~ a freshman's diary. Marcus, join the band. The Ramen Cookbook ~ Jess lives on my floor. Recipe #18 got me through midterms. The Study Skills Page ~ for the 15 hours a week that aren't band. The Amateur Cellist ~ a grown-up who plays for fun. This is the plan after graduation. Hometown Pickers Bluegrass Jam ~ what the trombones do in the summer, apparently. Back to the College Park neighborhood

Coming after the October away trip: a bus-trip diary, and the section handshake explained (with diagrams if I can figure out the scanner in the lab). Band people who have visited: Mellophone players of the world, other band people, high schoolers with questions: [email protected] Last updated: September 19, 1999 (the Sunday after the second home game; we won; the fight song is still in my head) © 1999 Amanda Oyelaran. My page, my opinions, not the band's. Go mellos.