Here's the half-time show put on by the Ohio State University Marching Band at Ohio Stadium last Saturday. It was titled the 'Hollywood Blockbuster Show' - and it delivered. I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.
Apparently the band had only a week to set up and rehearse that show. That's an amazing performance, given so little preparation. Kudos to all concerned.
Peter
9 comments:
Thanks for sharing that! That was incredible.
I do love half time shows! Thanks for sharing
It's always a joy to watch the OSU marching band. Did you see their tribute to Michael Jackson? Or the salute to video games? Both are available on You Tube, and are well worth your time to seek out and watch.
That's one thing that greatly annoys me about TV coverage of college football these days. They bombard the viewers with information about all of the other college football games in the country, at the expense of being able to watch the halftime shows these kids have spent so much time working on.
Yep, they are GOOD! :-)
Whatever. I wouldn't march in that band for love or money, and I know of people who have turned down a full music scholarship when they discovered that part of the deal was being forced to march in the band.
@Mad Jack: Why is that? What's wrong with it or the university?
I'm not sure why Mad Jack loathes marching bands as he does, but as a music major I *can* contribute my $0.02, which are worth the usual amount in this economy...
The fact is, some instrumentalists LOVE marching band, while others loathe it. Some just prefer to play concerts, not worry about marching in various patterns in front of thousands of people *while* playing those concerts. Your typical instrument major, if he/she is actually serious about the instrument, is practicing around three or four hours *every day*, and that does not count time spent in band or orchestra rehearsal, as well as the inevitable smaller groups (saxophone bands, percussion groups, etc) that they get drafted into. There is a lot of homework to be done when you're a music major, too: papers to be written, some pretty difficult musical analysis to do, music repertoire to memorize, composition classes, conducting classes, and of course your core classes on top of everything else. If you major in music ed, you're effectively double-majoring already because you have to take all the music classes AND all the education classes. If you're a grad student, throw in a TA job which at a minimum will involve grading and class attendance, and will sometimes involve teaching a class or two. If you're an undergrad, you may well have a work study job, another campus job, or an off-campus job. (In my case, I had all three at once.)
Now imagine you've been asked, on top of all your other commitments, to spend another 2-3 hours per day in marching band rehearsal which, as you can see from that video, is extremely demanding, to put it mildly. No weekends off, either, because weekends are game day plus clean-up-after-game-day-day. In short, you have to either a) really love it in order to do it, or b) suck it up for the free ride it often (reasonably) entails.
I was in marching band in high school and all I can say is: WOW!!
I was in the marching band for 4 years in college. It was normal to have a different routine every week. We only had one day to practice it on the field. All of the individual directions are marked on their music. An experienced bandsman can catch on pretty quick. The guy that did the choreography deserves high praise.
Post a Comment