Striking a Chord
After a year of pandemic disruptions turned down the volume on school music programs, marching bands across Butler County are back, practicing on the field.
Mars Area School District Marching Band director Dave Soose said there's a “newfound excitement” among students, who are able to play and perform in a typical capacity.
“Band this year is definitely looking a lot closer to normal than it was last year,” he said. “Last year was tough for a lot of kids.”
Last year, the Mars band had to make a lot of accommodations for safety, mask-wearing and social distancing, and cut down on all travel. The group only performed in public five times total.
As of now, the Mars Area Band is planning to travel to all away games as well as to attend competitions, including the national Bands of America competition in Ohio. The band will parade in Kennywood this weekend.
Most marching band activities take place outdoors, but Soose says that the band is still conscious of current events and concerns about the delta variant of COVID-19.
“There's still a sense of cautiousness, because they hear of other things going on around the world,” he said. “We're cautiously optimistic, but overall positive. We're making sure we're following the precautions asked of us, but we're taking it day by day.”
Overall, Soose feels that students are grateful to have the opportunity to perform together again.
“There were times last year during the winter where unless they participated in other activities, these kids didn't see each other because they were home,” he said. “The fact that they're able to see each other a few times a week now, they're pretty excited about that.”
Varden Armstrong, one of the Seneca Valley Marching Band's three directors, said that in terms of attitude and student energy, the band is “above normal.”“There's a lot here where we're still trying to be safe, and follow our guidelines and do what we've been asked to do; but in terms of the kids' approach, the kids are fired up and ready to go,” Armstrong said. “The feeling of the band, the camaraderie and the sense of coming back together is quite possibly the highest it's ever been. It feels awesome.”At Seneca, senior student musicians led summer sectional practices, some as much as once a week, to make sure that the band was caught up in time for camp.“They came in with this incredible amount of enthusiasm, because we couldn't do last year in this manner,” said band director Sara Snyder.Butler Area Marching Band director Jeff Kroner said the Butler Area Marching Band has returned to its previous level of enthusiasm. In 2020, students played six feet apart outdoors at rehearsals, he said, because they did not yet have bell covers for the ends of their instruments and couldn't play while masked in an auditorium.“It was so late of a decision to know what was going on that we didn't do any drill—we had no movement on the field, and the band sat in the stands during games,” he said “There were several games that were canceled very late in because one team or the other had a COVID outbreak.”Kroner said he was a little concerned about not having gotten to know this year's class of students as well, but that they have come into their own as musicians.“The senior class of this year has really blossomed into an amazing group who are creative, and they developed a really good sense of problem-solving because they had to,” he said. “They've really stepped up. I couldn't be prouder of them.”
COVID-19 restrictions may no longer be present, but another problem looms in the band's future: a dwindling group of participants. Kroner admitted the numbers at Butler “are awful.“Our numbers from two years ago are down by 34 kids: That's 15%,” he said. “Sadly, our elementary school program was basically shut down for the last 18 months. What's coming in is going to be very sparse.”Band programs at the high school level rely on elementary and middle school programs to bring kids into playing music. Damage to that pipeline means that the next five or six years will be “a very challenging thing to get through,” Kroner said.“We're going to have five really, really rough years of trying to rebuild and keep it afloat before we get the new kids from the elementary,” Kroner said. “Everybody's going to face the same monsters,”Those monsters are plaguing the marching band at Slippery Rock Area High School, too. Director Les Fine says that there's a big chance that things “get worse before they get better.”“Once a student makes that decision to leave band, they've probably given back their instrument, and it's really hard to get them back,” he said. “I wouldn't be surprised if the marching band would drop down even lower in the few couple years.”
One way Slippery Rock Area School District faced the issue was by holding a beginner music camp for sixth graders earlier in the summer, for students who hadn't had the chance to participate in beginner band last year.“Approximately 45 students participated, which is fantastic, and we have about 55-60 signed up in band from sixth grade now,” Fine said. “We're going right back to the beginning and making sure that students who are starting are starting strong.”In the meantime, the Slippery Rock Area Band is ready for a busy season. They plan to attend all home and away games, and their schedule already has a number of away games all the way up in the Erie region.“We have been told to treat this year 100% normal, so that's the way we've been approaching it: We have not been given any guidelines or restrictions,” Fine said. “The kids are excited.”Slippery Rock Area Band drum majors Leah Harris and Levi Evans aren't discouraged either.“This is one of our best seasons yet,” Leah said. “Our numbers are smaller because of COVID, and we are all worried as to what we can and can't do, but the progress that we've made is really impressive, and we're able to do so much more with our drill and visuals. I feel like being able to do stuff like that without the restrictions has made people a lot more excited.”“It's really helped people come back together,” Levi said. “It may not be at the point that it was before the pandemic, but it's certainly getting back, and it's getting back very quickly.”
