In technical terms, it’s a combination of dance, performance, and equipment that creates a visual accompaniment to a marching band show. To us, it is so much more. Our flags, rifles, and sabres are more than just metal, wood, and tape. They are our prides and joys, our security blankets, our babies. We spend hours perfecting tosses, watching silks swirl over our heads, making sure that we catch with our hands in just the right places.
It all started at McKinley High School. Kendall Aaron, Carlton Phillips, and Corey Thomas they all was in the band for all 4 years. They enjoyed band and it was their main focus after their grades. McKinley High band was so important to them, they took it serious as it was reflecting their grades. They were so excellent in the band that they were offered 3 scholarships from 3 different schools.
Temporarily, guards and concertina wire secured the perimeter. In the days leading up to the battle, the Soldiers in the unit noticed that some of the locals were acting suspiciously.
Perry Band Olympics. This phrase both excites and terrifies every band student in Ankeny. Every year, our directors selects different songs for their students, and the students spend around six weeks practicing. My junior year solo was the hardest solo I’ve prepared, it challenged me in ways that I had not been prepared for.
The battle fields were
Years and years ago, many qualities could be found in warriors that are still prevalent today both in the present and past world. In “Mulan”, Fa Mulan from China is a very courageous woman. Defending her people and ,ultimately, saving her people despite the fact that she is a woman and could be killed if her secret were ever found out. Chris Mintz, a former 30 year old Army infantryman, threw himself into harms way, taking seven bullets, and surviving the encounter. Beowulf, from Scandinavia, held a great deal of pride without too much arrogance.
In Arthur Miller’s dramatic play The Crucible, John Proctor, the protagonist, symbolized truth and justice by displaying honor and pride in his name. The change in balance between those two attributes acted as a catalyst in defining moments of the play. In the beginning, Proctor equally reflected both pride and honor in separate events. However, when forced to make a decision, he chose honor over pride. Ultimately, both his honor and pride pushed him to commit the ultimate sacrifice.
Pride has no good outcome. Pride is not a virtue that brings about peace, love, and prosperity. It is a selfish emotion that promotes injustice by claiming superiority over others. Being the result of an unstable theocracy, religious extremism, and a flawed village; The Salem Witch Trials were vulnerable to letting arrogant figures rule them. In his play, The Crucible, Arthur Miller presents the consequences pride produces through his most authoritative characters Hale and Danforth, who consequently lead the trials to its disastrous fate.
Pride leads to the downfall of Salem A crucible is a laboratory instrument used to heat off any excess water. In the same sense, when “heat” is applied to the Protestant society in Salem, Massachusetts, the readers are able to see the true characters of the townspeople. The readers see whether characters are motivated by greed, by pride, by integrity, or by other impulses. Most people are motivated by pride in one form or another.
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.
Color guard is extremely special and important to me. Many ask, “what is color guard?” “What do you guys even do?” When an audience watches a performance, what most people see is a bunch of people jumping and dancing across a football field, in strange costumes with flags and weapons in their hands, to marching band music. It may seem a bit ridiculous and whimsical to someone that has never been to a marching band competition.
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 high school marching bands grow larger, they typically trade in their military marching style for the less technical core style of marching. As a result, schools are throwing away the military tradition that has been continued throughout time and they lose the formality and precision only a military style band can achieve. Three major differences between a military marching band and a core marching band include the music they play, how they march, and the impact they have on their community. The music a band plays can influence how well their overall performance goes and how the audience feels the band did during that performance.
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
My life has been full of many opportunities to participate in things that I love and these opportunities have taught me fabulous lessons. Through my persistent hard work in the Clark high school marching band I have been very fortunate to learn important lessons about positivity, service and respect. Being in my high school’s marching band has drastically changed my life for the better. I would not have made it through all the curve-balls that school has thrown at me had it not been for the marching band, which taught me to find the positive in any and every situation. Working out and making countless mistakes in the scorching Texas heat does not seem like the ideal place to learn about positivity, however that is exactly what it is.
