Marching Band Benefits

Marching bands are an integral part of communities and are the bases in which many musicians get their start. The athletic art provides an outlet for kids to express their creativity while being part of a

Marching band; copious amounts of people scoff at the sound of those words. I often hear students commenting on how easy marching band is, how we don’t train like the football players do. At Anderson High School, that’s not the case, the marching band trains for just as long. As a band of over 125 individuals, it takes determination, pride, and confidence to achieve the goals we have set forth to accomplish. As a leader of the saxophone section, I know what it’s like to face failure, to overcome and turn it into success and to march on with confidence.

Hard Work earns success in marching band. Continuous playing , short weekends, and exhausting practices gain your band praise and pride.

To the average person, the high school marching band is nothing more than a bunch of geeks that play during half time at the football games or monopolize the benches by the band hall, but to me, it is so much more. To me it is a family, a safe haven, a creative outlet, a home. I have been involved in marching band for three years, going on four, and I wouldn 't trade the experience for anything. When I entered high school as a scared and awkward freshman, I immediately had three hundred people that I could rely on. The program quickly became like a second home to me and opened up a whole new path in my life.

As a nervous freshman about to embark on my high school journey, I had the choice to end my band career. Despite not knowing at all what to expect, I decided to pursue the fine arts into

The band program taught me how to push through the difficulties and struggles that would allow me to become a better performer in the end, and taught me the importance of respect and courtesy, whether it be for volunteers with the band, my bandmates, other bands, and so on, and how far simple manners can go. Most importantly, though, this band taught me what it was like to be dedicated and passionate about something. In the past two years, I have developed a love for playing music that has given me more joy in life than anything else in the last four years, and due to that caused me to learn a new instrument, get more involved with our music program, created friendships and relationships that will last, allowed me to become a more rounded person, that is better equipped to handle my future. I have grown greatly in the last few years, and this is all due to the band program, which I will never be able to repay for all it has done for

This applies to all aspects of band, from marching to classical to jazz. Directors hand out a piece of music and for the next three months, it is all that the students look at. In marching band it is made worse by the fact that you spend an hour during school working on the music itself, and three more after school working on both the music and marching. Classical band has its own share of problems though, as most of the time you are left doing nothing while the director works with another section. Jazz band may be the least offensive of the three, as aspects like improvisation helps, but it still is practically the same thing: staring at a sheet of paper until you’ve memorized your part, the person next to you’s part, and pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about the music.

Joining band had an immense and almost immediate impact on my life. Before being in band I had never had a talent that I felt completely confident in. I enjoyed practicing and spent many hours trying to improve my musical ability. In

I’ve spent hundreds of hours working with my peers, building friendships while working toilsomely to perfect one show each year. When we weren’t on the field practicing, we were performing at football games or at community events, bringing the community together with a sense of pride. Being a part of the marching band has taught me to put the betterment of my peers over myself and I have made it my goal to make the people around me the best that they

I have learned how to read musical pieces, how to play different piano-like instruments, and how to better organize my thoughts and critical thinking. I am a sophomore in high school and have been for a while now. That makes the experience of me being in band a time period of one to two years. Band has changed me for the better, whether it be me learning how to navigate myself through life or music, it has been there for me for a long time now. Without band and music, I do not know who I would be.

Music education provides personal benefits to students that enrich their lives. In the study of perceived benefits of music by Dimitra Kokotsaki and Susan Hallam, it was found that “participating in an ensemble enhanced feelings of self-achievement for the study’s participants, assisted individuals in overcoming challenges, built self-confidence, and raised determination to make more effort to meet group expectations regarding standards of playing” (12). In an ensemble, every member is equally important, from the first chair to the last chair. Thus every person must be able to play all of their music and be ready for anything. When one person does not practice their music and comes to rehearsal unprepared, it reflects upon the whole ensemble.

I hate marching band. Leaving the trap of a class was the best decision I made in my high school experience. Once I was through with band, I joined theater. Joining theater for my schedule well, introduced me to friends, and opened my mind to new possibilities I hadn't considered before. Marching band was physically demanding.

Musicians are “great problem solvers in school and social situations” because they have a stronger corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects the two halves.(Berman) When an outsider joins band their minds are opened into a whole new world. This is because when a person is making music there is not only one place in the brain that is being activated. A musician is using parts of the brain that have to do with the visual, auditory, and motor functions of the brain. People who play a musical instrument are working multiple parts of their brain at once making it easier for them to remember information more.

Presently, High School has been changing point before going to college and beginning my dream. Before my breaking point I need one more step. I required the doubt to decide if I would be joining an extra curriculum activity, demanding decision for a freshman to make before even meeting my teachers. A month before I started school, my brother convinced me to join the Hawthorne High School Band and Color Guard. I meet the band director Mr. Hughes, who has always believed I had a talent and did his best to polish my color guard skills year by year to be the outstanding person he sees.

Marching band was fun I was very sceptical about getting all my music memorized but Ms.Snider made it very easy and kept encouraging me to get it done, along with the other members in my saxophone group. I had watched the marching band as a kid and I never thought that it was as hard as it really is. Getting all the steps and starting on your left food is very important when staying in step and getting a good rating at contest. My friends and I got even closer, and I made a lot more friends.