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Friday, August 1, 2008
Working Hard for the Music
Greater Louisville, KY
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For the 120 members of the Eastern High School marching band, performing in perfect unison on the field takes plenty of hours of practice.
It’s 11:00 AM. The temperature is 89° with a heat index of 98°. The Eastern High School band is only two hours into a 60-hour practice week and already everyone is sweating.
You might not think much about the halftime performance at the football game unless you’ve been a member of the band. These students think about it a lot. Starting in mid July, they log about 500 hours preparing and practicing the eight-minute show they will perform at home games and take to numerous competitions through November.
This morning, the band is practicing a new step—the jazz run—taking long strides across the field at a jog.
They’re working without instruments at first, getting the feel for the step. Ultimately, they must step in perfect unison…while playing an instrument…without looking down.
Mike Arthur, in his 9th season as the band director at Eastern, explains that the program they are preparing for this year is “Visions of a Matrix.” Arthur says it’s all original music inspired by the “Matrix” movies. It involves a girl with a laptop who is being chased by the other players.
Their schedule for two weeks in July consists of three hours of work on their field movements in the morning. After a break for lunch, they work on the music for several hours before heading back to the parking lot to work on their marching moves for another three hours. They finish at 9 PM. But just like kids on the football, field hockey or soccer teams, they’re doing it because they love their ‘sport.’
“It’s hard work. It takes a lot of adrenaline and a lot of perseverance. But it’s fun and you have lots of friends. You get a lot out of it,” says Karen Tate, a sophomore and clarinet section leader.
Karen says most people don’t realize how much work goes into the band’s performance. “We get doubted a lot. [They say] we’re ‘just the band, walking down the field,’ but they don’t know that we’re here in the heat from 9 to 9 every day for a few weeks and that we really do train ourselves, mentally and physically.”
Heat and dehydration are, naturally, factors. Baritone section leader Michael Ritchie is ready for the heat, outfitted in an Underarmour hot weather shirt, a bandana and a straw cowboy hat. As a senior, he has experience staying cool.
“We drink a lot of water. When we’re doing some of the drills and you go at a real fast tempo, you can actually feel cooler moving than standing still,” Ritchie says.
These young men and women must work through difficult, exhausting days together. It can strain the team’s camaraderie—but it also forges deep friendships.
Head drum major Melissa Moore, a junior, says, “We get our work done but we have fun. Of course, we have our own drama. But we’re our own little family. We get along with everyone.”
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