Still Banding Together
Strike up the band.
At the high school level, it's easier said than done. Yet whether their membership is 300 or 30, area marching bands keep marching on.
"At some high schools, the bands are shrinking,"Butler band director Andy Yaracs said. "Our numbers have been extremely stable for the last 12 years.
"Kids want to belong to something successful. It's just like joining a team. If it's been good, kids grow up wanting to be a part of it."
The Butler Golden Tornado Marching Band will play in the Citrus Bowl Parade on Dec. 30 in Orlando, Fla. It has played in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Rose Bowl Parade and similar events since 1997.
The 300-member band was one of three high school bands invited to play at the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing. It's also been asked to perform at the Vatican, in Australia and at other international venues.
"You can't accept everything, but it's an honor to be invited,"Yaracs said.
Lisa Hummel is band director at Union High School in Rimersburg, which has a 30-piece band that plays in the annual Clarion County Autumn Leaf Festival as its big event.
The effort is no less, nor is the pride in performance."With a small school with so few kids, you're sharing with all of the sports teams and other activities in school,"Hummel said. "Everybody works together with everybody."Union's band includes cross country athletes, cheerleaders, members of the yearbook staff ... sometimes even football players.While Union's band has 30 members, Butler's band has 29 "leadership" positions among the 90 seniors who participate.The Union district has 50 to 60 elementary school kids playing a musical instrument. Butler has 1,200."We march nine tubas. In a year where we graduate four, it can be a concern,"Yaracs said."A lot of our kids play different instruments in the concert band, so we can cover all the parts necessary,"Hummel said.Large or small, much goes into producing the Friday night football and weekend parade music so often taken for granted.
Preparation for high school marching band begins in fourth grade."Six years down the road, those kids are up here,"Yaracs said. "You have to balance your (grade school) classes in terms of instrumentation, so by the time they get here, we don't have to change a whole lot.""You can't have two trombone players and 15 trumpets,"Mars band director Jennifer Kennedy said. "You can ask kids to move over, but the transition doesn't happen overnight."The consensus of area band directors is that young boys want to play the drums while young girls want to play the flute."Percussion is the biggest thing,"said Scott DiTullio, Allegheny-Clarion Valley band director. "Everybody wants to be a rock star.""The french horn, tuba, trombone ... Those are tough sells,"Slippery Rock director Les Fine said.The size of the instrument can be intimidating — or simply inconvenient — to an elementary school child."The bigger instrument doesn't appeal to a small kid,"Knoch director Rick Hayden said. "Lugging a french horn back and forth to school on a bus ... Snapping a flute into a case is much easier."For a kid starting out, the low baritone instruments can seem a little boring, too."For the good of the organization, kids eventually switch instruments."Balanced instrumentation is a must and the kids realize that,"said Karns City director Dorina Aigner. "I've been here 18 years and have never had a problem balancing our band."Yaracs agreed."Balance emerges eventually," he said. "Every kid starts out wanting to be quarterback on the football team. There's a position that fits for everybody."
Band members form a sense of family, large or small."They feel a sense of ownership and pride in the music they were a part of,"Seneca Valley director Rob Matchett said.Freeport director Bob Harris said once a kid joins the high school marching band, he or she sticks with it."In sports and other activities, kids drop off here and there,"he said. "But 99 out of 100 times, if a kid is marching with us as a freshman, he's marching with us as a senior."Moniteau band director Mark Rodgers, a Butler graduate, notices a tighter family atmosphere with a small school band. Only 24, he marched in Butler's band just a few years ago."A band with 300-plus members, you can't possibly know everybody else,"Rodgers said. "The big school bands cherish the trips and they are wonderful memories. The small school bands cherish each other."Everybody knows everybody else's name in the Moniteau band. They're all friends."Aigner described marching band as forming a "lifelong extended family.""These kids form lifelong friendships because they spend so much time together in a goal-oriented program," she said. "We push them, they push themselves and we all produce a beautiful thing together."We've had band members go on to become lawyers, scientists, pharmacists, etc. The music never leaves them. When they go on to college, if there's a band, it tends to call them back."
Marching bands generally practice two days a week, primarily because their members are involved in other activities.Yaracs said about one of every seven Butler High School students participates in marching band."Practices can be challenging because we're working around so many other things,"Rodgers said. "Of our 77 band members, 27 participate in a fall sport.Slippery Rock's band has 10 members participating on a fall sports team. Karns City has football, volleyball, track, baseball, softball and soccer plays in the band.Freeport's band has had football players perform at halftime."My first three years here, we had kids play the first half, grab their instruments and play in their football uniforms," Harris said. "Whatever it takes, we do."<BR><BR><BR>
Watch a college football show and there's a good chance you'll see a Butler County flavor to the performance.Seneca Valley has five graduates in the Penn State marching band, one in the University of Michigan band, several at Slippery Rock, Westminster and Youngstown State.Knoch has graduates playing in the SRUand Youngstown State bands. Karns City has three members in the Clarion (Pa.) University band.The SRUband has two flute players, one saxophone and three percussionists from Mars. The Planets' marching band is also represented in the California (Pa.) band and the Penn State concert band.Butler has graduates performing in marching bands at Notre Dame, West Virginia, Pitt and Penn State."We have numerous band members who have gone on to become band directors in other parts of the country, including Texas, Florida, Virginia and Oklahoma,"Yaracs said.<BR><BR><BR>
Many schools have graduates come back to work as volunteers at summer band camps.Karns City graduate Steve Groves was a member of the Gremlins' marching band and now writes instrumental music."Our halftime show featured songs from the rock group Queen and I couldn't write the arrangement,"Aigner said. "Steve came back and did the whole thing."All in a day's work to keep the music playing."Graduates are always giving back and that makes all the work and preparation worthwhile," Yaracs said. "Guys playing football on Friday nights are displaying skills our musicians don't have."When we play our instruments, we're displaying skills that they don't have."
