<p>The Prince of Perfection, the King of the Universe (i.e., my son) has joined his school’s marching band. As we are not musical at all, does anyone have any information, insight, anecdote or advice to share about marching bands? If you do, I’d love to hear from you! Thanks.</p>
<p>Welcome to the bandmom life. Be sure to keep up with all dates, due dates, uniform pieces, etc. Learn to love or hate Band of America competitions. Due to marching/competition schedule, your son may be blocked from taking ACT/SAT tests in the fall - plan accordingly.</p>
<p>" Due to marching/competition schedule, your son may be blocked from taking ACT/SAT tests in the fall - plan accordingly."</p>
<p>He’s only 9, so we have a little time! But that’s good to know for down the road.</p>
<p>Enjoy being a Band Aide 
I found something to help with all of the time and traveled with the band to competitions. They always need help and love the audience. Got to know a lot of people and always knew what was going on in the school. Band is a great group of people and became like a family. Band kids remained my kids’ best friends even after graduation.</p>
<p>LOL. As former DM of the Rice MOB, I have plenty of stories, but most of them are inappropriate. 
I can, however, say that it’s an experience that will serve him well for the rest of his life… all my friends still perform with community bands and on weekends, and within my group of closest friends, we actually have pretty good instrumentation and could throw together a pretty good impromptu pep band. Being involved in a music group teaches teamwork at the most basic level, as well as giving band members a chance to really shine individually. It’s a fantastic thing.</p>
<p>What instrument does he play (or <em>will</em> he play once he’s actually learned how to do more than honk out a few ungodly notes)?</p>
<p>PS- I met my husband in the band. =)</p>
<p>Learning that your son is only 9 explains why you can call him the Prince of Perfection. He’s got several more years before the devil attempts to possess him. That’s such a nice age.</p>
<p>“Learning that your son is only 9 explains why you can call him the Prince of Perfection. He’s got several more years before the devil attempts to possess him. That’s such a nice age”</p>
<p>It’s a wonderful age and I’m enjoying it immensely. He’s also a nice change, personality-wise, from the demon he follows in the birth order. She was born speaking in tongues, but he is the most loving little person. He plays the clarinette and is starting to get good at it. Some of the music is really enjoyable to listen to and he is so proud. His band (all 9 and 10 year olds) marched in the Memorial Day parade and did a heckuva job with Yankee Doodle. They marched the entire two miles in their proper spots. the only problem was the parents with strollers marching in front of them who were so slow that they ended up slowing down and separating the band. Lots of fun, though. He absolutely loved the whole thing and is looking forward to more parades. Seems like a good pastime, no?</p>
<p>Fantastic choice! Each instrument tends to attract people with a certain personality, and clarinetists are largely known as quirky, intellectual, introspective and incredibly kind people.</p>
<p>I have a couple of tips for you. If he’s also doing concert band, it’s possible he may want to later switch to another instrument, like tenor or bari sax, for example. If this happens, try to persuade him to keep marching with the clarinet, at least. Those heavy horns are a pain to march with.
Second, he should march with the cheapest clarinet available–preferably a different one from concert band. In college, I marched (“marched” being debatable, since this was the Yale Precision Marching Band) with an old metal clarinet I bought in a pawn shop for fifteen bucks. It was perfect for marching. A cheapo plastic clarinet would be good, too. You might also want to buy some plastic reeds to use for marching.
But won’t the cheap horn and plastic reeds negatively affect his sound, you may ask? Secret answer: it doesn’t matter very much, because the brass and drums drown out all the woodwinds anyway. It’s a different story in concert band of course.</p>
<p>D who marched also had a “marching flute” aside from the good ones. If they need to wear the regulation black shoes, make sure they are comfy ones.If they are lucky like my kids were, they get to wear plain white sneakers.
The uniforms can get hot hot hot for those later summer parades. S wore an underarmour type undershirt under his jacket and D wore the female versoin of a “wifebeater” type undershirt.Their uniforms had the fake white ruffly dickey type shirts. I used to refresh the uniforms by using those home dry cleaning sheets you put in the dryer.
S was one of those sax toting kids.D had it the best they usually requested her piccolo which is the tinsiest instrument available.</p>
<p>I married into a band family. All three of my kids were in the HS marching band, although rising 10th grader has broken our hearts by deciding to do a computer programing class instead of band this coming school year. What will I do for my Friday nights without the football games and the half time programs??</p>
<p>Agree with the previous posters about getting a second beater instrument for marching. My boys used their Dad’s old HS trumpet for Marching band and a much nicer one for concert band. Our HS band requires the students to wear a band t-shirt under their uniforms and on hot games they were allowed to strip down to them in the stands. If your son’s band has the same requirement, see if you can buy a couple of extras so you can keep a clean one on hand.</p>
<p>Get involved, chaperone when you can, it’s a great experience!</p>
<p>“Second, he should march with the cheapest clarinet available–preferably a different one from concert band. In college, I marched (“marched” being debatable, since this was the Yale Precision Marching Band) with an old metal clarinet I bought in a pawn shop for fifteen bucks. It was perfect for marching. A cheapo plastic clarinet would be good, too. You might also want to buy some plastic reeds to use for marching.”</p>
<p>Great tips! He marched this first time with the (forgive me) expensive wood clarinet that his nanny bought for him. I was seriously wondering about this.</p>
<p>You guys have the great information. Thank you so much!</p>
<p>Kathie, you could go out and just watch the band anyway, or you could go to a fabulous restaurant or a movie or a spa . . .</p>
<p>zppsermom: Band was the best thing that happened to our son. We are not musical in addition being born in foreign country we did not even know the proper names of the instruments. I think band has taught our son many valuable traits, like getting along, time management, goal setting, defeats and victories, and decipline. All these was not without price. In TX high school marching band is brutal during the fall. For a 7 min. show they practice like crazy. We actually used to pray that our football team would suck. We would be very happy if they lost. If they sucked there wouldn’t be any post season games.</p>
<p>We loved the concert season though.</p>
<p>We made the mistake of buying not the cheapest, but medium priced instrument in Junior high. In HS we spend the money for high end, but we think we should have gone at the higher end even in JHS. His musical talents would have been better.</p>
<p>Learning an instrument at that age is an excellent, EXCELLENT thing to do.</p>
<p>Don’t let him march with that expensive wood clarinet! It really won’t like the extremes of temperature and humidity that a marching horn can undergo. Plus, he might drop it.</p>
<p>“We made the mistake of buying not the cheapest, but medium priced instrument in Junior high. In HS we spend the money for high end, but we think we should have gone at the higher end even in JHS. His musical talents would have been better.”</p>
<p>I’m going to use this as a way of making myself feel less guilty. When the little angel decided on his instrument, my mother took herself (she doesn’t get out that much) to Sam Ash and demanded an excellent clarinet. Don’t get me wrong, the thing sounds fantastic, but it seems a little showy, particularly since he has this funky mouthpiece and case, while his classmates have the school instruments. But, hey, my mother is an elderly widow, who will gainsay her?</p>
<p>We upgraded my son’s clarinet twice as he moved up through the grades. Each time, the improvement in his sound was obvious and immediate. Ditto for improved mouthpieces, and even ligatures. Your son has a headstart, which is great. Just not for marching, please.</p>
<p>“We upgraded my son’s clarinet twice as he moved up through the grades. Each time, the improvement in his sound was obvious and immediate. Ditto for improved mouthpieces, and even ligatures. Your son has a headstart, which is great. Just not for marching, please.”</p>
<p>That is such great advice. He won’t march again now till the fall, but I’m going to be sure that he has a less expensive instrument for marching. This summer, he’s just going to continue with his private lessons, so we don’t need to worry about changing clarinets till September. I never would have thought of that. Thanks!!</p>
<p>Hunt? Do you have any reed advice? The Prince seems to struggle with putting them in. Is there a trick, or will improvement come with age/experience/dexterity?</p>
<p>Managing reeds is something you just have to learn by doing, I think. His private teacher will help him with that, too. As I mentioned, you might want to try a plastic reed for marching band–they are more indestructible, although they don’t sound as good.
One other tip: be careful in buying a used clarinet for the marching clarinet. A lot of them are in bad shape, and it can be hard, and expensive, to repair them. A cheap new plastic clarinet might be a better choice.</p>