Color Guard

High School

I saw color guard for the first time when I was in 5th grade. The high school band in my school district used to do a performance of their competitive show at the 5th/6th grade school every fall. (By the time I got to high school this wasn't done anymore.) I was fascinated watching the girls dancing on the field with flags and other equipment, since I'd been taking dance classes for 6 years and enjoyed any sort of dance performance. I had a passing thought that this would be a fun activity to learn, but I didn't really think about it again for another few years.

When I got to the end of 8th grade I remember hearing a few announcements in my middle school band class about joining the color guard section of the marching band, but I had already committed myself to marching the flute so I ignored it. On top of that, only 2 girls from my grade were planning to do color guard, and I didn't know either one very well. Once I got to the high school marching band I learned quickly that the guard was a group of mainly upperclassmen who didn't have the greatest reputations and most of them weren't very good. I was still fascinated watching the flag, rifle, sabre, and dance skills they performed but my intrigue with it wasn't enough to convince me to get involved with that group. More than half of the guard graduated after that school year and a bunch more quit. So few joined the following year that the guard had only 9 members my sophomore year. Plus, they had had three different coaches in three years and the current coach wasn't sticking around either.

At the end of my sophomore year marching season the band director decided to make a big push to improve the color guard program. After two disappointing marching seasons he knew that one major problem that needed to be addressed was improving the color guard program. No matter how good the horn and percussion players were, the band would never reach it's full potential if the guard program wasn't up to par. He found a new instructor who was enthusiastic and committed and persuaded her to hold color guard practices through the winter to introduce the basic skills to potential members. When he told the band about this I was intrigued again and thought that maybe the color guard would finally be worth joining. It seemed there would be a change in the group dynamics and attitude. Plus I had 10 years of dance training and 2 years of marching experience under my belt, which meant I only had to learn to spin and toss the equipment. I would have less ground to cover learning a new activity halfway through high school.

I went to the color guard winter practices and gave it a try. I didn't feel like I learned very much but I liked all the other people that were trying it out too. I didn't really want to get too attached to color guard. I was thinking ahead to my senior year and based on the skills of the other flutes in my grade I was pretty much a shoe-in for flute section leader that year. As much fun as color guard sounded I didn't want to give up my chance at such a leadership position.

When June came and it was time to get the next year's marching band season kicked off I got set to spend another season in the flute section. Unfortunately, only 4 girls showed up to the color guard informational meeting and the band director threw a fit at our band class the next day about how after all he'd been doing to get this program improved no one was willing to take a chance on it. He knew I had dance training and had been attending the winter practices and was probably hoping I would do guard. It probably wasn't but I certainly felt that his rant was directly at me. At the end of the band class I swallowed my pride and told the band director that I would do color guard. When I went home and told my parents that night they were a little uncertain that this was a good change to make as a junior, but was mind was made up. Honestly, I still missed dance and doing color guard would give me a chance to dance again. On top of that I wasn't very happy with many of the girls in the flute section and some of the girls who I knew were joining color guard were friends and people I knew to have positive attitudes. It seemed like a group I would fit with better. Plus, I liked the idea of being part of reinventing something. I felt like I'd make a bigger difference in the band doing color guard than if I just stayed as one more flute player.

It was the best decision I ever made in my life. Learning to spin flag was a mental and physical challenge. The coaches had a lot of ground to cover in a very short time, having to get 10 brand new guard members out of 14 total ready to learn a full marching band show in less than 2 months. We had rehearsals for three hours every Monday and Wednesday night. We did countless drop spins and other basic exercises and I had a particularly hard time with tossing at first. But within a few weeks the group had become fast friends and even though it was hard work I always felt good at guard rehearsals. Learning a marching band show for the first time in the guard was magical. I felt like I was learning marching band for the first time all over again and I began to remember why I loved it so much. I loved how the flag movements seemed to fit perfectly with the music, sailing up and down and around in circles. I felt as if I was sailing on the music with my flag. And being able to perform dance again, with or without a flag, was amazing.

It was the best marching band season I'd had so far. I loved learning new guard skills and it made band rehearsals less tedious than it had been in the flute section. Band competitions were more fun too and I definitely enjoyed hanging out with the color guard girls in the bus, before warm-up, and after the performance. I was thrilled to let the good times continue doing color guard into the winter for the indoor competitive season. Winter color guard, or winterguard, turned out to be an entirely different ball game, but just as fun. Winterguard is color guard performed indoors without the band. We perform to recorded music in a gymnasium and similar to marching band, winterguard shows are elaborate and theatrical, expressing their story or theme through music, dance, equipment, costume, and backdrops. Winterguards perform on a vinyl floor tarp that’s painted to fit the show theme and used for drill placement. 

My first winterguard season was a little rough, since most of us had never done winterguard before and it was the first winterguard show our coach had designed. Our show was called "Better Dating Through Technology," set to an alternative rock song by our coach's cousin's band. The show explored how teenage communication, especially with regard to dating relationships, has evolved over the years from note passing to e-mail to instant messaging to text messaging. We had large note, e-mail, IM, and cell phone props that we brought out and displayed throughout the show. It was an amusing concept and it was fun to tell the story through the guard show. Learning the drill had quite a lot of trial and error and the flag, sabre, and dance work was much more complicated than in the fall. I faced a bit of frustration trying to master some of the new skills but I was proud of my accomplishments. I was excited to toss a double on sabre (a toss that spins twice in the air before catching) and I even had a dance solo at the beginning.

The organization for competitive color guard in Michigan is called the Michigan Color Guard Circuit (MCGC) and it has several different levels for color guards based on skill level and age. We started in the lowest level for high school guards back then, Michigan IA class, but the judges moved us up a level after the first performance to Michigan AA class. At the state championships we placed 8th out of 15 or so guards in Michigan AA, a respectable finish for a brand new guard.

If you remember, the one thing that made me unsure about joining color guard was giving up the opportunity to be flute section leader. I wanted to hold a leadership position in the band before I graduated, but I didn't think that would happen for color guard after only being in it for one year. But in the end the stars aligned to make that happen too. The color guard has two captains, unlike all the other sections with one section leader. There were two juniors on the guard who had more experience than I did, but only one of them was going to return to guard senior year. Everyone expected the other girl, Kaitlyn, the only junior to have done color guard since freshman year, to be a captain. But the other position was up in the air. Soon it became apparent that out of all the other new juniors I had the strongest guard skills and was the best leader. I was excited but not entirely surprised when I was picked as the other captain, and all the other girls were happy with the choice. I took the position very seriously and worked hard to set a good example and help out the other girls as much as I could. 

Gradually over that first year and a half that I was in color guard, the negative reputation that the Novi guard had began to fade away. The band members willingly acknowledged that we were a fun group of people, we worked hard, and the improvements we made in such a short time were amazing. But I didn't realize just how much color guard had gained recognition until no fewer than 30 girls chose to join winterguard that year. It was exciting to think that so many were interested, but 30 was a huge group to work with. But we managed and the show actually turned out to be amazing. Our coach had designed a show meant to display the joy she felt about being involved in color guard and coaching us, performed to Ben Folds's "The Luckiest." I hadn't heard this song prior to learning this show, but once I did I realized that this song described very well my own feelings about color guard as well. Every time I performed this show I felt an outpouring of joy and love and I let it carry me through. The coaches did a wonderful job of teaching the new people the basics they needed to know and splitting the guard into several featured groups to display the more advanced skills of experienced members. I had a dance solo to open the show again and was a featured dancer and sabre later in the show as well. At the end of the show the 6 seniors and one younger girl who was moving at the end of year came together at front and center. It was a beautiful show. Here's the song with lyrics.

College

Just like marching band, I contemplated the idea of continuing with winterguard in college, but didn't take it seriously right away. Unlike marching band, not all colleges have winterguards. To continue with guard after high school you often have to join an independent program, which usually rehearse all day every Saturday and Sunday from November to April. It's a grueling schedule and it's difficult to have a social life in college with it too. I was somewhat interested in auditioning for one of the independent color guards in Michigan since there were a couple good ones, but I wasn't too keen on the rehearsal schedule. I would have preferred joining a color guard affiliated with whatever college I attended. Once I decided on MSU I looked into whether or not they had a winterguard. They did, a group called MSU Expression, but it was student-run and not very good and I wasn't sure I wanted to deal with that. But when I attended the Performing Arts Camp the summer before starting college I learned that the guard coach for the MSU marching band was planning to take over the winterguard and improve it. It would have a new name, State of Art, and he promised it would be good. I was thrilled.

After having so much fun my first season with the SMB, making lots of friends, and learning a lot from the coach I was excited to try out for State of Art. I made it without a problem and even got to be on the rifle line. (I finally learned to toss higher than a double on weapon that year.) The show we did was to a song called "Songbird," by Eva Cassidy. It was a graceful, lyrical song about falling in love, but our coach used the metaphor of singing and melody that appears in the song to create a visual motif for the show based on reading music. As the show progressed we pulled black fabric lines across the floor and pulled back parts of the tarp to reveal the lines of a music staff. At the end of the show we laid down our flags to look like music notes on the staff. 

It was a much more complicated show than either of the ones I did in high school. At all times in the show there were 2 or more groups performing different choreography, sometimes on different equipment or dancing. We did quite a bit of weight sharing partner work and formations sometimes wove in and out of each other dangerously. It felt as if every count of music had a movement assigned to it and everything we did had to be with clear intention. I had seen guard shows that were this complex and wanted to be able to do them, but actually learning one was a different story. But I was determined and I was successful. Giving this much attention to the details of the music and movement made the performance feel stronger and richer. And the judges seemed to agree. At the state championships we were the clear 1st place winners in Collegiate class. MSU's winterguard was on it's way.

I was on State of Art for three more years and every year the show became much more challenging and complicated than the year before. My equipment and dance skills were pushed to their limits many times, but each show I did made me stronger and prepared me to tackle the challenge of the next year's show. Sophomore year we tried a different style of music and movement, performing to Bjork's "Hidden Place." We got an innovative new dance choreographer (who would work with us every year after that). We threw higher tosses (I was up to quads now) and threw flags and rifles to each other. We also now had the baton twirler from the marching band on the winterguard and our show became more impressive because she was there to do exciting twirling inspired tricks. We got 1st at states again and kept moving forward.

Junior year our coach told us we would perform at the nationals for the first time and as a result had to move up from Collegiate class into Independent A class, the first of the three classes for the Winterguard International (WGI), the international color guard competitive organization. Now that we were competing on the national level we really had to step things up. We had sabre for the first time, a few lifts, throws, and other gymnastics-type moves incorporated into our dance choreography. I helped lift a girl in the air, caught another girl who was basket-tossed, and flipped over another girls back to name a few. The show was called "Follow the Lead," and had many follow-the-leader visual motifs. It was set to the song "The Moment I Said It" by Imogen Heap. We attacked the learning process with determination, as we always did, but none of us had any idea of how far we could possibly go. Then at the WGI regional we attended that year we surprised everyone by beating out all other Independent A guards, which included all of Michigan’s other Independent A guards and a couple from other Midwest states. After that competition our coach told us that he thought we had a good shot at making finals (the top 15 in our class) at Worlds. It was an unbelievably exciting prospect. But it seemed even more possible when we took first place at states in this new class, beating out color guards that had been around much longer than us.

On the first day of the world championships in Dayton, OH early in the morning. We performed in prelims that afternoon and felt pretty good about how it went, just hoping it was good enough to move on to semis. I’ll never forget when our coach came and found us as we were getting ready to have our pictures taken. He huddled us all together and said, in a forced calm voice, attempting to contain his excitement and surprise us, “Guess what, guys. You got a 92 and you’re seated in first place out of everyone.” We erupted into girlish shrieks of joy. At semis the next day we were even better and came out first again. Finals were the same day in the evening and we went into it with a feeling of sheer excitement, hardly daring to hope that we’d keep our position through finals. The finals performance felt amazing, every spin, toss, and dance move felt solid (at least for me). I could hear the audience cheering like crazy throughout the whole thing. It was a nerve wracking awards ceremony because we had to wait all the way to the end to hear our results. When the announcer got down to the top three we all held hands down the line and squeezed really hard. The guard that came into finals in 2nd was called Salem Blue, so when 2nd place was announced we had an extra half second of anticipation as the announcer pronounced that initial ‘S’ sound of the name and we waited to hear what came next. When we heard that 2nd place was Salem Blue we squeezed our hands even harder, knowing that we had indeed done the unthinkable and won. Standing up there on the red carpet getting the gold medals hung around our necks, I realized how incredible this accomplishment really was. It’s a moment I’ll never forget.

Winning Independent A class meant that we moved up the following year to Independent Open class. As difficult as this show was I think it might be my favorite. It was set to music from the soundtrack of the movie "Angels and Demons," but the concept our coach had us illustrate inspired by the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. He wanted us to picture that we were like Orpheus, having fallen into the Underworld and having to fight our way out. More abstractly we were trying to show the idea of falling into pain and struggle, fighting your way out, and succeeding. I loved Greek myths and I loved the music when I heard it. The coach brought in one of the acting professors to help us develop the right characterization. We had to have an intense, angry, almost evil persona in the first part of the show as we played the forces fighting against a person trying to get out of their struggle. In the second half of the show we developed a more determined longing persona as the person started to succeed. Also, about two months before the winterguard season started I went through a break-up with my boyfriend. I was still struggling to get past it at the beginning of winterguard season, but learning and performing this show actually became cathartic for my feelings. I was able to release my pent up frustration through the angry character, the intense choreography, and the powerful music.

Our world championships experience that year wasn't nearly as joyous as the year before. We faced more of a struggle against the competition in Independent Open and our rehearsals were much less relaxed. We had lots of mistakes in our prelims and semi-finals performances, but managed to make into finals in 14th place. The finals performance was the best it had been all season and we managed to move up a place and finish 13th. In the past two years since I graduated, State of Art has continued to improve and hold their own in Independent Open class, finishing 7th in 2011 and 8th in 2012. In the span of 6 years, State of Art has grown from a new surprisingly good Collegiate guard to one of the best winterguards in the state, a guard that Michigan high schoolers dream about joining. I'm proud to call myself a founding member. Here's a video clip of a news story about State of Art my senior year on one of Detroit's local stations:

The last two years since I graduated college I've moved on from being a guard performer to a guard instructor. I was brought on to coach a 5th-7th grade color guard in the school district I grew up in, which has turned out to be a wonderful experience. The students I teach only perform in exhibition for no score at winterguard competitions, but they have lots of enthusiasm and are so impressed by the more advanced color guards they get to watch. Even though I only teach them basic flag and dance skills I still try to make their shows have expression and meaning. The first year I coached them they performed to Shakira's "Waka Waka: This Time for Africa," which was written for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. I studied abroad in South Africa during the World Cup in the summer of 2010 so this was a song that had a lot of meaning for me. Last year I created a show to one of my favorite songs, Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten," a song that describes well how I feel about many things in my life and has an inspiring message for the girls I coach.

Winterguard is the activity that truly strengthened my sensitivities to the emotional and thematic potential of music. I reached an advanced enough level in color guard that I've learned to imagine the choreographic and show design possibilities of music I listen to. I'm planning to keep coaching color guard for several more years (depending on where my career takes me it might not always be with my current guard) and every year I try to push myself harder to be more creative in the shows I design.

Music Listening

I've discovered over the years that the music I prefer to listen to is generally music that means something to me in some ways. I don't usually choose music just for itself. It has to have a purpose or some greater meaning to my life. This could be music that reminds me of something I've done in the past (a trip I went on, a band piece I played, a dance, marching band show, or color guard show I performed or saw, an emotion I felt or am currently feeling, a movie, TV show, or play I've seen, a book I've read, etc.). The music I listen to crosses many different genres. Here's some example of some of the types of music I end up listening to:

• Movie or TV soundtracks- I've have tons of these, both instrumental scores and compilations of pop songs included in movies. I love listening to the music played in a movie or TV I enjoy because it's fun to think about how the words of each song or tone of instrumental pieces convey the mood and emotions of the story so well. Some of my favorites:
• Angels and Demons
• Center Stage
• The Chronicles of Narnia
• Downton Abbey
• Ella Enchanted
• Finding Neverland
• Glee
• Invictus
• The Lord of the Rings
• Merlin (BBC)
• Moulin Rouge
• Once Upon a Time (ABC)
• Peter Pan (2003)
• The Princess Diaries
• Titanic
• 13 Going on 30
• Broadway/Movie musical soundtracks- Whenever I see a musical play or movie I enjoy I love listening to it's songs again afterwards. I've always loved musicals and listening to their music is a way to relive the scenes I enjoyed in the play. This kind of music does a great job telling a clear story through song and the lyrics are often very witty or emotional. Favorites:
• Beauty and the Beast
• Cinderella (Rodgers' and Hammerstein)
• Hairspray
• Into the Woods
• The Lion King
• The Little Mermaid
• Little Women
• Mamma Mia!
• Mary Poppins
• Peter Pan
• Rent
• The Slipper and the Rose
• The Sound of Music
• West Side Story
• Wicked
• Classical- After several years in instrumental music (and in ballet as well) I developed a taste for classical music. I enjoy listening to various classical pieces that I have a connection to in some way through band, winterguard, or dance. Favorites:
• Recordings of concert band pieces I played in high school, particularly ones by composer Frank Ticheli
• "1812 Overture"- Tchaikovsky
• "Overture to 'Candide'"- Leonard Bernstein
• "Pictures at an Exhibition"- Mussorgsky
• "Carnival of the Animals"- Saint-Saens
• "Spring Concerto"- Vivaldi
• "The Moldau"- Bedrich Smetana
• Prokofiev's "Cinderella" ballet
• Tchaikovsky's ballets: "The Nutcracker," "Swan Lake," and "Sleeping Beauty"
• Christian- My Catholic Christian faith has always been an important part of my life and during college I was involved with Campus Crusade for Christ which introduced me to many powerful worship songs. I started to develop a taste for listening to Christian rock and more traditional Catholic hymns as well. In many ways music is the best way I learn about and connect to my faith. Favorite artists:
• Casting Crowns
• Chris Tomlin
• Hillsong
• John Michael Talbot (Catholic hymns)
• Steven Curtis Chapman
• New Age- Unusual sounding New Age music, especially the soundtracks of Cirque du Soleil shows was an acquired taste. The first time I heard it for a ballet routine in 5th grade I thought it was completely weird. But after listening to a song hundreds of times (as happens in dance) it grew on me. The sounds and repetitive melodies are actually very intriguing. (This kind of music makes for good winterguard shows by the way.) Other New Age artisst I enjoy are Imogen Heap and Enya.
• Miscellaneous- I do listen to quite a bit of mainstream popular music but I tend to buy this music as individual songs, something I heard on the radio, in a movie, on TV, at a social event, or a variety of other places that I connected to emotionally in some way. I do have a few full albums, usually given to me as a gift, but mostly individual songs. Here's some examples:
• Leeann Womack- "I Hope You Dance"
• Queen- "Bohemian Rhapsody"
• Chantal Kreviazuk- "Feels Like Home"
• Creed- "Higher"
• R.E.M.- "Everybody Hurts"
• My Chemical Romance- "Welcome to the Black Parade"
• Bon Jovi- "Livin' on a Prayer," "Wanted Dead or Alive"
• The Goo Goo Dolls- "Iris"
• Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova- "Falling Slowly" (from the movie "Once")
• Lady GaGa- "Just Dance," "The Edge of Glory"
• Belinda Carlisle- "Heaven Is a Place on Earth"
• Taylor Swift- "Love Story," "You Belong with Me," "A Place in This World," "Enchanted," "Long Live," "Today Was a Fairytale"
• Madonna- "Ray of Light," "Dear Jessie"
• K'naan- "Waving Flag"
• Journey- "Don't Stop Believing," "Any Way You Want It"
• Black Eyed Peas- "I Gotta Feeling"
• Coldplay- "Clocks," "Viva la Vida," "Fix You"
• Michael Tolcher- "Kings in Castles"
• Katy Perry- "Firework"
• OneRepublic- "Marchin On"
• Mumford & Sons- "After the Storm"
• Natasha Bedingfield- "Unwritten," "Wild Horses"
• Dixie Chicks- "Landslide," "Cowboy Take Me Away"
• Beyonce- "Single Ladies," "Halo"
• Earth, Wind & Fire- "September"
• Shakira- "Waka Waka"
• Other songs from the 2010 Official World Cup album

Marching Band- College

When I reached the end of my high school marching band career I didn't feel an overwhelming desire to continue with marching band in college. I was still somewhat undecided on where I would go to college and I hadn't spent much time looking into the marching band programs at the colleges I had applied to. It was a thought that crossed my mind occasionally, but at the end of my senior year marching band season there were too many other things that needed to happen before the time came to audition for a college band. It wasn't until February of senior when I made the final decision on the college I would attend - Michigan State University - that I began to consider college marching band as a serious possibility. Also, if I did college band I would have to audition for color guard (being too out of practice on the flute and preferring guard anyway), so I would have to make sure that the guard was 1) decent quality to ensure a challenging experience and 2) still a reasonable chance that I could get in with only 2 years of guard experience.

In February of senior year I attended a scholarship competition at MSU for prospective honors college students. It was a two-day event where we spent all day Friday touring the campus, attending seminars on academic programs, and meeting other current and prospective students at organized gatherings, then took the test for the scholarship on Saturday morning. I didn't get a scholarship out of this but attending the event and learning more about the university and the honors college in particular definitely convinced me to go to school there. While us students took the test on Saturday morning, our parents attended their own seminar on honors college requirements and financial information. The seminar presenter was an admissions counselor who was also the visual coordinator for the MSU marching band. After the test was over, my parents took me over to meet him and ask about the marching band and the color guard. He went on about how great the band was (of course) and how guard members were expected to be quick learners since the band learned a new halftime show for every home game. With this information and some searching on the internet for audition and band expectation information I began to realize that MSU's color guard could be a reasonable option and some seeds started to grow in my mind that this could actually be possible.

My friend Jenny from high school color guard was also going to MSU and wanted to try out for the marching band. In the spring of senior year we agreed to audition together. The audition day was a blistering hot Saturday in June. The building it was held at, Demonstration Hall, the building where the bands stores their equipment and holds indoor rehearsals, was not air conditioned. The audition skills were not too difficult but I was sweaty and miserable the whole time. I remember feeling pretty confident about the audition routine and thinking there was a variety of abilities in the other people auditioning. It was unclear how many open spots there would be so the audition could go either way. But I was hopeful.

When I got my letter I was a bit disappointed. The letter said they were considering me but felt I still had room to grow. I needed to attend a color guard camp at MSU that summer so they could watch me more closely and make their final decision. Under this circumstance my tuition for the camp would be covered by the university. I later found out that Jenny had got in right away. I was annoyed that I had to jump through this extra hoop to have a chance of being in the band and I started to wonder if it was worth it. But my parents told me that I had started down this path and I owed it to myself to see it through as far as I could. The camp I attended was the MSU Performing Arts Camp, a 3-day camp held every summer for high school color guard members and drum majors. There were four of us prospective MSU color guard members who were asked to attend the camp. In the end I actually enjoyed myself at the camp a lot. I made friends with the other MSU girls and the high schoolers I shared a room with. I learned a lot from the MSU guard coaches running the camp and hoped even more that I would make it so I could continue learning from them.

Finally in August I got the news that I had made the band. Even better, all three of the other MSU girls who went to the camp made it as well. Being a member of the MSU Spartan Marching Band means a lot of work in the week before classes start. This is the band camp week for the SMB, known as Preseason. Band members move in to their dorms 4-5 days before the rest of the students do and Welcome Week officially begins. Preseason is an intense week of learning the pre-game show, starting to learn the first halftime show, practicing basics, and for the freshmen, learning the parade march known as The Series and other essential SMB traditions.

I remember frantically moving into my dorm room on my first day of Preseason. New member rehearsals began at 1:00pm so my family and I drove the hour from our home to MSU's campus early that morning and working quickly until lunchtime to get everything moved into my room. In the end we got all the furniture moved in and set up but boxes of clothes and personal items were left sitting out in the room for me to unpack and put away later. My first introduction to the SMB was time spent sitting in a circle meeting the other guard freshmen and the squad leaders. (The old go around the circle and tell your name, your major, where you're from, and what dorm you live in routine.) I already knew Jenny from high school and the three girls from Performing Arts Camp - Amy, Sarah, and Candace - but there were now 9 other freshmen, 3 squad leaders, and 1 section leader to get to know as well. (Twenty-four hours later there would be 18 other guard members to meet as well. Lots of new people to keep track of. Yikes!)

Then we got to the work of learning marching basics in the SMB style with all the freshmen from the other sections - attention, parade rest, and dress center positions and procedures. We also learned the attendance block procedure that the band did at the beginning of each rehearsal. The band formed a specific block formation and marched in place and played the fight song (clapping to the music for the color guard) while squad leaders checked to make sure everyone in their squad group was there. There were also traditions of cheering and high-fiving during the break of the song to learn as well. When we tried this for the first time I remember feeling a little overwhelmed by just being thrown in to try it without any instructions, but it was so much fun I was smiling the whole time. We also had to do a 3/4 mile run around that section of the campus. Even though I was okay with running it definitely made me realize that this was going to be a lot more intense than I thought. From there the guard split off from the rest of the band to do work on guard-specific marching and flag basics. Later that night all of the freshmen gathered in the band room of the music building to learn about the history of the band and the proper way to sing and clap the fight song. We had freshman orientation activities like these every night from 9-11pm after regular band rehearsals.

The next day the rest of the returning band members joined us after lunch. When all 300+ members of the band were finally assembled on Dem Field for the first full attendance block of the season I was suddenly overwhelmed by how big this band was. And the same feeling continued when all 36 guard members gathered inside the Dem Hall ballroom to do stretching, dance, and flag basics together for the first time. I had no problems with the skills we practiced but I was definitely daunted by the number of girls in this section that I had to fit myself in among.

In those first few days I remember feeling that most of the returning members were a bit cool and distant from the freshmen (with the exception of a couple sophomores and the squad leaders). Not in an unfriendly way, but as if they were waiting to see how we measured up before really getting to know us. That didn't really bother me too much. The 14 guard freshmen had already bonded and this was just the kind of support system I needed during this week. At meal and water breaks we swapped stories of our high school experiences, reasons why we chose our majors, and hopes for the coming year. I especially became friends very quickly with a girl named Rachel who lived in the same dorm as me. (We both lived on the 2nd floor, just on opposite sides of the building.) Rachel and I ate breakfast together most mornings and walked to and from practice together. We had a lot in common too, including having taken dance classes our whole lives and being Christians who made faith an important part of our lives. Even though I saw Jenny at practice every day, her dorm was in a different part of campus so it was nice to have a new friend who lived so close by.

But the most grueling task of Preseason was learning The Series, the parade march routine the band did as they marched to the stadium before every home game. The Series is a 4-minute long drum cadence with a sequence of movements (horn swings for the band, flag presents for the guard) and vocals choreographed to it. Some parts are full unison with the whole band and others are specific to each section. The goal of Series is to look as intimidating as possible through sharp movements, loud, guttural vocals, intense facial expressions, and complete synchronization. MSU's team name is the Spartans, based on the great warriors from the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta. In the spirit of the Spartan warriors of ancient Greece, we're supposed to look like an army marching to war when we do the Series on the way to the stadium (where the football team will battle to win the game). It's a pretty good metaphor in my opinion. Doing the Series correctly with as much intensity as possible is a tradition that all band members take very seriously, and the effect is definitely achieved.

The guard freshmen were first introduced to Series on our second day with the band. We got a head start on it before the rest of the freshmen since it takes longer to learn our part of Series. For horn players, Series is very physically demanding since they high-step march the whole time, but it's also very repetitive. They can learn the horn moves very quickly, since their aren't very many. Their biggest challenge is the endurance. Guard Series is not high-stepped (since our knees would get in the way of the six-foot flag poles), so it's not quite as physical. But our flag movements only repeat in a few places so we have a lot more to learn and remember. It's more of a mental challenge for us. The routine is physically challenging enough and the intensity feels very unnatural, so it takes quite a degree of mental concentration to stay focused on the movements and the timing. Here's a video of the band doing Series to the stadium on a game day. This is actually from the first football game my freshman year.

I remember being completely blown away when I saw the squad leaders do Series for the first time. They were so sharp and intense and this kind of guard routine was like nothing I'd ever done before. I was a little concerned that I wouldn't do it well enough. When we started learning I began to realize that small details are essential in guard Series. Everything has to be exact from the angle and height of the flag on each movement, the position of the hands, the posture, the intensity in the eyes and face, the exact timing of each movement, the grip on the flag pole, and even the way muscles are tensed and released. These things are important at all times in color guard, but especially in a routine like Series with little room for error. On top of that there's the vocals as well, which have to correspond perfectly with certain movements. Volume, pitch, expression, and enunciation have to be exact. The squad leaders always got on our case about forcing our voices to be deep enough that we didn't sound like girls. A lot of new band members lose their voices for a couple days while learning Series.

For me, the facial expressions, muscle tenses, and vocal intensity of Series was especially difficult. Also, when the line order for the Series block was set I was placed at the very front of one of the two freshmen lines. I would learn later that this position meant that the guard instructor and squad leaders thought I was strong and consistent, but in the meantime it just meant that I couldn't see anyone else while doing Series and I to rely entirely on myself to remember and execute the routine. I resented that for a day or two but soon it became a challenge that I was determined to overcome. I was in the front and I had to be exact or else the whole line behind me would see it. We practiced Series for 1-2 hours every afternoon with just the color guard and then from 9-11pm on 3 nights of Preseason with the rest of the freshmen. Those nights were the worst. Everything hurt. My head hurt from the sound of the drums echoing through the gym, my feet, legs, and back hurt from standing up straight for so long, my arms hurt from holding up the flag, yanking it around, and tensing my muscles. Even my face hurt from trying to look intense and angry. I had bruises on my arms, legs, and back from the flag smacking against them over and over in some of the movements. The building we practiced in had no air conditioning and I was drenched in sweat. I got sick of the squad leaders constantly harping on us about everything we were doing wrong. My biggest problems with Series were that I tended to lean forward and my tenses weren't strong enough. Two of the squad leaders seemed to make it their personal missions to make me improve these things and were constantly on me about it.

Some of other freshmen complained bitterly that week about the work, but I kept my mouth shut. If we wanted to survive in the band we had to learn to do this well so there wasn't much use complaining. I did what I did as a freshman in the flute section four years ago when I started in high school. I learned that the best thing to do as a newbie was to work hard, keep your mouth shut, be nice to everyone, and do as you're told. It seemed to work because through all of this the squad leaders and the other freshmen were friendly and respectful to me. I knew hard work and determination well, but until that week I never knew the amount of self-discipline I was capable of. Series was extremely tough but it was a challenge I was determined to meet.

In the SMB the color guard is not part of the pregame show, so we spent a lot of time inside Dem Hall during the day working on flag and dance fundamentals while the rest of the band learned pregame. As the week went on and the pregame show began to come together I began to catch snippets of it's full effect. Toward the end of the week when we started learning the halftime show we would see run-throughs of it when we came out of Dem to join them. The sound of the band playing that music was one of the most wondrous and powerful sounds I'd ever heard in my life. It filled me up inside and sent chills down my spine. In all four years I spent in the band I never lost my wonderment at the pregame show. The whole thing was magical - the powerful rah-rah music that fired you up, the perfectly synchronized marching, the razor sharp turns, the drum major and baton twirler routines, and the way the drill moves matched the music perfectly for maximum effect. It was the impressive nature of marching band at it's absolute best. And even though I wasn't marching that exact routine I felt honored to be part of an organization that could do something like that.

Then came the process of learning my first college halftime show. In the SMB, like most college bands, we learn a completely new halftime show for every home game. The drill learning process moved much more quickly than in high school and each member has to be much more self-sufficient in order to keep up the pace. My brain got a major work-out the day we learned the drill for the first halftime show that season, a medley of popular karaoke songs. We cruised through all the drill positions for the whole song in the span of an hour and a half. It was tough but I managed to keep up.

Now the SMB color guard has an alternate system where there are 4 extra members than the number put on the field for each game. The "bottom 8" members are put in pairs to learn each show. If you are assigned a paired spot, or "shadowed" as we call it, you and your partner both have to learn the drill positions for that spot. The Thursday before the game auditions are held where the instructor and squad leader determine which person from each pair will march the show. The members who are shadowed are usually freshmen (and maybe some weaker sophomores). Having to be shadowed for every game your freshman year is not uncommon. But some freshmen are lucky enough to get their own spots, even luckier if you can go your entire freshman season without getting shadowed once. I was one of those lucky ones. Later on I would learn it was because I was consistent, dependable, learned quickly, and had a good attitude. At the time it felt like a gift and a stroke of luck and I was determined not to waste it and work hard enough to keep my own spot.

The final test of Preseason was the Freshman Dress Rehearsal, which was actually more of a demonstration for the rest of the band that we could perform Series correctly. Until this point none of the other returning members besides the squad leaders had seen us do Series. All new members from the entire band lined up at the start of Wilson Road, a street that runs the length of the south end of campus. While the rest of the band and the directors walk with us we march all the way down Wilson, a distance of about a mile although it feels longer, and back. The squad leaders critique and instruct us along the way but the rest of the band stays silent, only interacting at all when they step in to the block to give us water on the breaks after each run-through of Series. The squad leaders are intentionally very tough and critical with us the whole way down the road. It was a very challenging experience and I remember feeling a little angry, but mostly just determined to do well. About halfway down I began to feel almost calm and confident and for the first time Series began to settle in and feel comfortable. At the end of road we stopped for an hour at a big field where the squad leaders split us up into small groups and worked with us on specific Series skills. The mood here is much lighter and not so intimidating.

When we made the return journey we turned right about halfway up the road so we could finish at a specific place on campus called The Rock. (One of those classic giant rocks that people like to paint with special messages. The band always paints a congratulation message for the freshmen after Freshman Dress.) All the way back the comments from squad leaders became much more encouraging and positive (I would learn later this was done on purpose). At this point in the experience I was just so exhausted I was running on just adrenaline. I could tell we were almost done and I just calmly kept going. I was so focused that I didn't realize that the rest of the band had disappeared until we were close to the end. I wondered briefly where they went but I didn't give it much thought. We stopped right before the bridge next to the Rock. All along the bridge I could see the other band members lined up cheering for us. The director gave the signal for us to the band's field entrance march (called the Kickstep). We Kickstepped across the bridge and the drum major whistled for us to halt. We finished out the Kickstep sequence in place, halted, and heard the whistle blow again to signal that we could relax. At that moment shouts and cheers erupted from all sides and the other band members rushed in from the sides of the bridge. Before I realized what was happening a guard senior caught me in a bone crushing hug. Over the next few minutes I was hugged by nearly every member of the color guard, many of whom were crying, and told how proud they were of me. I didn't cry, but many of the other freshmen did. I just felt numb, relieved to be finished and trying to make sense of all this emotion around me. Finally the band president directed us over to the Rock where there was more cheering and pictures in front of the Rock. Then the director led us over to the steps of the Auditorium. He told us that by completing the Freshman Dress task the new members had proven their abilities in the band and we could now consider ourselves fully a part of the band. All together for the first time all 300 members sang the alma mater and fight song.

As this week went along I slowly began to appreciate the traditions that were so important in the SMB. At the end of Freshman Dress I saw for the first time just how much this all meant to every member of the band. I had seen it before from the student leaders, but it was overpowering to see it from every member at once. It was hard to believe that so many people could have so much love for this organization, but here it was. And as the days went by that season I understood it more and more.

I tell the story of my audition and first week in the band to reach an understanding of how I first fell in love with the SMB and how I fought to earn my place there. The rest of the experience from here on out was for the most part smooth sailing. I belonged to the SMB and the SMB belonged to me. It became a part of me in more ways than I'll ever fully know. It shaped the person I have become.

In four years in the SMB I learned more than 20 halftime shows and did more performances than I could count. The halftime shows we did included Broadway, classical, Journey, Queen, Motown, gospel, game show tunes, 90's rock, James Bond, alternative rock, dance, Bruce Springsteen, and Fiddler on the Roof. I watched the Spartan football team struggle through the 2006 season, the shame of the Big Ten conference, and then rise to greatness in 2007, 2008, and 2009 until the coaching of Mark Dantonio. I cheered and clapped through countless football games, sitting there with the band to the very end - win or lose, searing heat or biting cold, bright sun or pouring rain. I loved the way the crowd roared when the band took the field at every game. It was an extraordinary sight getting down on that field and looking up at the mass of 75,000 people surrounding me. The size of the audience never scared me, instead I was thrilled by it. The only people that got to be on that field were the football team, cheerleaders, dance team, Sparty mascot, and the band. I loved the feeling of being able to excite people with a performance, the joy they got from hearing the music and watching the marching. Whenever I told people I met in classes or other activities that I was in band I always got the same reactions: "That's so cool! Wow, I could never do that. How do you have time for it? What's it like to be out on that field? I love watching the band." After four years of being ignored and under-appreciated in high school band, it was great to be so respected by the student body in college.

In band I traveled to three bowl games - the 2007 Champs Sports Bowl and 2009 Capital One Bowl in Orlando, FL and the 2010 Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, TX. These trips involved free trips to Disney World, Universal Studios, the San Antonio Riverwalk, and the Alamo, plenty of free meals, time relaxing by the pool, shopping in malls, and wonderful memories with friends, all for the price of a few rehearsals and performances. I witnessed glorious victories and agonizing defeats out of Spartan Stadium at away games at the University of Michigan, Notre Dame, University of Pittsburgh, and Ohio State. (Including MSU's first victory over U of M in 7 years.) I met band members from visiting schools. I joined the band service sorority Tau Beta Sigma and devoted hours of my time to helping out with some of the behind the scenes work in the band. I watched three more freshman classes do their Freshman Dress and congratulated them joyfully at the end. I met my first boyfriend in the band and was overjoyed when he asked me to the band formal sophomore year. And then I sought solace from my section and the routine of rehearsals and performances when he broke up with me almost two years later. I made friends for life here and a few more who would come and go.

I used to look over at the student section during each football game, thinking about how different my life would be if I hadn't tried out for band and spent my football games there instead of here. Same thing during Preseason when I watched the rest of the students enjoying Welcome Week while I sweated from the heat and hard work. But I never wished for that. Sure I sacrificed some of the normal student experience to be in band, but I gained so much more.

At my last home football game my senior year I soaked in the feeling of doing everything for the last time - rehearsing in the early morning, eating brunch with the guard girls, getting hair, makeup, and uniform ready, walking up to Adams Field, attendance block and practice before Series, marching to the stadium, waiting to go through the tunnel, watching pregame, cheering on the team in the stands, performing the halftime show (traditionally to songs from favorite past shows chosen by the seniors), the postgame show, marching back from the stadium, and singing the alma mater with the band one last time. I reveled in the senior traditions - hearing my name called at the end of halftime, throwing a rose in the river during the march back, and singing the second verse of the alma mater with just the seniors. I couldn't help crying a little bit through all of this, remembering the journey I had made over the last four years.

Marching Band- Middle School & High School

Middle School
My first marching band experience was preparing for the city's Memorial Day parade in 7th grade. The middle school band director took us outside a few times during class to practice marching in step, playing and marching at the same time, and making a turn without completing messing up the formation (epic fail). I remember Memorial Day itself being cold, rainy, and very long. But overall I liked marching. I'm not sure why considering the fact that I realized very quickly that memorizing music was a pain, marching in step with others was really hard (especially for middle schoolers who have no clue what they're doing), trying to make a turn while in formation was confusing as heck, and holding up a flute for the entire parade route was really tiring on the arms. My second marching experience - marching at Cedar Point with the middle school band - was considerably more pleasant, likely because the weather was nicer and the route was shorter. If anything, at that early stage I began to recognize that as difficult as marching band was it certainly opened doors for some exciting opportunities - and a trip to Cedar Point was only the beginning.

Every fall the 8th grade band at my middle school has the opportunity to march with the high school band in the pregame show at a home football game. When it came time for me to do that performance I was really excited. I always loved performing music for an audience and the idea of getting to be out on the field for something as important as a football game pregame show was thrilling to me. I remember the high school flute players being really nice, helping us out to make sure we stood in the right place and carried our instruments correctly. With their crisp white uniforms, sharp horn movements, and ram-rod straight posture they seemed so much more powerful and professional than us little middle schoolers. It was hard to believe that some of them were only a year older than us. I remember thinking that this was something I definitely wanted to do in high school. It wasn't an overwhelming feeling and it wasn't something I really shared with my friends unless they asked about it, but it was more of a personal understanding that this was the next step, this was a route I would naturally follow.

High School
A little less than a year later I sat down for my first high school marching band rehearsal. In June of my 8th grade year everyone who was going to be in the high school band for the following school year had a rehearsal one evening to start rehearsing the music for the show. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by the difficulty of the music I was given. I couldn't believe how I could possibly be able to play it, let alone memorize it. But I worked on it, practicing through the summer on my own, attending flute sectional rehearsals, and going to full band music rehearsals every few weeks. As the time for band camp in August came closer the music gradually started to make a little more sense.

And then there was the task of learning to march... The brief stints of marching in middle school band were nothing compared to this. The freshmen had specific rehearsals where we learned the technique of proper marching inside and out, a grueling process. This started with learning how to stand still at attention, how to hit that position immediately when called to attention, how correctly snap the instrument from attention to playing position and back, and how to properly dress a line (which means check to make sure it's straight and adjust). Then came proper foot placement while marching, correct step sizes, and learning to keep a line straight while moving and playing. My back and legs hurt from standing at attention so long.

Then came band camp week - 6 days in August when the whole band came to the school each day from 9am-8:30pm and worked on learning the drill (marching routine) for the competitive show and putting it all together with the music. The first couple days were focused on practicing marching basics with the whole band, sectional and full band music rehearsals, and learning the drill for the opener (the first song in the show). Learning marching band drill is a highly tedious process and extremely confusing for first timers. Basically, marching bands use a coordinate grid system for band members to know where to stand on the field in each position of the show. The yard lines are used to mark the x-axis and the side lines and hash marks for the y-axis. For further precision, band members are directed to stand a specific number of steps to the right or left of a yard line, and in front of or behind a hash mark or side line. However, logical terms like "left," "right," "in front of," or "behind" aren't used. Instead they use "inside" and "outside" to refer to how close you are to the center of the field. For example, if you are to stand 2 steps inside the 40 yard line, that means you are 2 steps away from the 40 toward the 50 yard line. If you are 5 steps outside the front hash, that means you are 5 steps in front of the front hash, away from the center of the field. Confusing, huh? An entire marching band show is made up of several of these coordinate positions (called sets). Each band member receives their own coordinates for each set of the show. We learn our positions on the field along with the number of counts/steps to go from one position to the next. This creates the movement of the show.

It wasn't so bad once I got used to it, but there was a lot of head scratching on that first day. I frequently found myself on the wrong side of a yard line or hash mark from where I was supposed to be, with impatient upper-classmen getting on my case. I had been learning choreographed formations in dance all my life, but this was way bigger and way more precise. It was a challenging task to learn it all but I was up for it. Then came the day when we put music and marching together for the first time, and I was hooked.

It was the second evening of band camp (I think) and we started the gradual process of putting music with the opener drill set by set. The show that year was a collection of music by the composer Dmitri Shostokovich and the opener was his "Ballet Suite #4- Introduction." We got into our starting position, where we would play several measures of music in place before we started moving. The flutes didn't play at all until the second drill move so I had quite a while to just listen to other sections playing before I had to move and play myself. Within the first few measures I had chills running up and down my spine. There was this incredible stillness out on the field as all of us held our positions, poised to move on just the right count, then gradually one section at a time we began to move and add our sound to the group. What's more this music was loud enough and grand enough to fill an entire football field and beyond. The sheer power of this sound and movement coming together filled me up inside and I remember thinking, "This is amazing. What could be more thrilling than this kind of performance?" (Hear Shostokovich's "Ballet Suite #4- Introduction" below. The music itself is majestic enough to give you chills.)

I learned very quickly that marching band was more than a new art form to learn, it also has it's own distinct culture to navigate. It's a culture that's consistent across all marching bands, but each school/band has it's own individual subculture is well. All marching bands, high school and college, are deeply steeped in tradition. All bands have traditions that have existed for years and new ones are always being created. And most of these traditions which include pre-show rituals, band camp antics, marching style and technique, songs, chants, and general attitudes are passed down from member to member. As a new marching band member it's to your benefit to work hard on blending in. Pay attention to anything the director or your section leader tells you, listen carefully, do as your told, know your place, try your best to learn quickly, don't complain, and be nice to everyone. Fortunately I had a personality that was almost perfectly suited to marching band. I followed rules well, I got along with everyone, I had a positive attitude, and I was eager to learn. Through summer sectionals and band camp the flute section very quickly began to feel like a second family. It was a wonderful feeling to know I had this group of friends looking out for me.

Freshmen who play well and learn to march quickly are valued in marching band and those who don't are viewed as liabilities by the upper classmen. Upper classmen members know the effort and commitment required to excel in marching band, they also know that this is a team activity and the band succeeds or fails together. And the only way to succeed is for every member to know his/her individual drill and music and execute it at a high quality. Freshmen who don't catch on quickly enough make upper classmen very nervous and threaten everything they have worked hard for. Trying to get a group this large (my high school band had between 150 and 200 people) to be that synchronized is tough. But when it happens it's absolutely magical and that's what marching band members long for and work so hard for. That's what makes marching band so exciting to watch for an audience.

The first two years of my high school marching band career were fraught with some unexpected ups and downs. When I came into the band my freshmen year a new director had just been hired. I knew him already because he had been my band teacher back in 6th grade at the upper elementary school and I was happy for him, knowing he had wanted the high school job for a while. But the upper classmen resisted the change. The previous band director had led them to an unprecedented 2nd place finish at the State championships the previous year and they somehow had their doubts that this year could be a repeat. On top of that, the previous band director had left no plans for the next fall's show when he left. When the new director took up the position he realized he had merely weeks to get a show designed. The concept was hastily put together, inspired by a show done by the drum corps Phantom Regiment several years earlier. There was no time to commission an experienced drill writer so the teacher who helped out as visual instructor stepped in to do the work in a pinch. As a freshmen with no previous experience to compare, I found the whole process of putting a marching band show together to be exciting and magical. It was only mid-season when our competition results were less than favorable and the director felt we weren't progressing quickly enough that I began to realize that things weren't as great as they seemed. In the end we finished in 6th place in our class, a far cry from the year before, but still fairly respectable under the circumstances.

I was raring to go when marching band season came around the next year. I was a sophomore now, I knew how the system worked, and I was pumped to learn a new show and experience it all over again. I was really excited about the show we were doing that year, based on music from the Stephen Sondheim's Broadway musical, "Into the Woods." I had never heard of "Into the Woods" until the band director announced it to us at the end of the previous school year and showed us a video of the musical, but after watching it I immediately fell in love with it. "Into the Woods" is based on the fairy tales of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel, and explores what happens after happily ever after with some surprising twists. I love fairy tales and I love musicals so that made this even more awesome. Watching other schools' band shows at competitions the previous year I came to appreciate how creative marching band show design could be. Music concepts ranged from classical music to Broadway to film scores to popular music and more. Some shows had elaborate props and scenery, while others had little. The possibilities were endless and it fascinated me of the different ways that music, drill, and theme could be combined to produce a full show.

All seemed off to a great start that season until the last 3 days of band camp. Thursday of band camp was August 14, 2003, the day of the big blackout in several of the northeast states. Power went out at the school during dinner and once it was determined that this was a widespread problem and power wasn't coming back anytime soon we were all sent home for the evening. Our evening rehearsal had to be canceled and when power didn't return the next morning, so did all of our Friday rehearsals as well. Power came back Friday afternoon but the lack of power for such a long period of time meant that many of the school utilities were not functioning well enough for us to be there all day. We were only allowed to practice for 3 hours on Saturday morning. Overall we lost 18 hours of rehearsal time that we had no way of making up. The director extended our rehearsal time the following week but it was no where near enough. You wouldn't think that something like a blackout could effect a marching band season so much, but it definitely did for us. The lost rehearsal time dampened everyone's spirits and put us behind in the show learning process. At the same time, the "Into the Woods" show turned out to be not as great as I hoped. The music arrangements were fine but the drill wasn't nearly as exciting as I hoped. Not to mention the color guard only had 9 members that year, not nearly enough to have visual impact for a band of 180 members. We finished 6th again that year.

A lot of people quit the band after that year. But everyone who was left was 100% committed and determined to make the band great. My position in the marching band had changed dramatically too. I had chosen to leave the flute section and join the color guard, at the urging of the band director that the color guard needed more members (and committed, hard-working, talented members at that). It couldn't have been a better change. But I'll tell that story in more detail in my color guard post. The show for this season was music from Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera's ballet "Estancia," which depicts a day on an Argentine ranch from sunrise to sunset. Argentinian ranch life wasn't a part of our marching band show, but images of sunrise and sunset played a large role in the visual aspects of the show (ex: drill formations and flag colors). Spinning a flag and dancing to the band's music was a very different experience from playing the music but it was just as powerful. I loved the way the flag movements seemed to fit perfectly with the music, rising and falling with the highs and lows.

I can't quite explain how it happened, but things began to fall into place for everyone with the band that year. Gratitude over a full band camp, a higher level of focus and positivity, and a color guard that was a little bigger and much better definitely seemed to lift everyone's spirits. In the end we only got 5th place, but the competition had been steeper that year and our scores were higher overall so everyone was happy.

My senior year in marching band couldn't have been better. My graduating class had made it through the struggles of the first two years and overcame it to finish junior year on a high note. (No pun intended...) There was no where to go but up now. I was one of the color guard captains this year and I wanted nothing more than to help all the younger members succeed and love marching band and color guard as much as I did. We had a great show that year called "Prisms," based on a visual concept of the color that appears when light shines through a prism. We had four large pyramid shaped "prisms" out on the field that rotated to show different colors. The band members were divided into four color groups - red, yellow, blue, and purple - wearing a sash in their color over their uniform baldrick. At the end of the show the band members pulled off these sashes and threw them in the air to reveal the silver baldrick underneath. The four colors were also represented in the flags at different parts of the show as each group was featured. The colors and the drill all fit together so well and it looked amazing. The music came from the Cirque du Soleil show "La Nouba," which was extra cool since I loved Cirque du Soleil's unique music style.

I remember feeling nothing but pure joy and excitement all season long whenever we practiced or performed that show. I can't really describe it much more than that. Performing that show was one of those times in life when it feels like everything falls into place. I was doing an activity I loved surrounded by people who meant so much to me. I had spent four years honing my marching band skills and I got to say farewell to my high school marching band career with great memories in that last season. Once I learned the guard work I just let the music carry me through every performance, smiling the whole time. Here's a video of the beginning of the show so you can get an idea of it:

Concert Band

Through most of my childhood I wanted to learn to play an instrument. I had friends who took piano lessons and I was always impressed when the school music teacher had them occasionally play pieces for the class. The little bit of instrumental music I learned in elementary school music class - playing the xylophone and recorder - intrigued me. It felt like a foreign language that I'd been given a taste of and I was anxious to learn more. But soon I would get my chance to learn. At the end of 4th grade the band teachers from the 5th/6th grade school in my hometown came to visit our school to do presentations on the band program and help interested students choose an instrument to learn. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to learn an instrument. Now it was just a matter of choosing one. In the end I chose the flute - it was elegant, feminine... and I had the easiest time making a sound on it.

When I moved on to the 5th/6th grade school the following year there were a lot of new things to adjust to, but band was something I immediately enjoyed and felt like I belonged in. I loved learning to play the flute and I was excited to finally learn the language of musical notation that translated into beautiful music from the instrument. I worked hard to practice almost every day, working through our music exercise book and trying my best to master the skills we learned in class. Early on it was just about learning our individual instruments - finger placements, pitches, embouchure, and reading the notes.

In the second half of the year we began preparing for our end of the year concert and I was exposed to full band arrangements for the first time. All year we had only been playing short exercises where all instruments played the same rhythms and pitches at the same time. Now we were playing longer and more developed pieces of music where each instrument played different parts and the music was a blending of several rhythms, harmonies, and melodies. These were the kinds of band pieces that I would play for the rest of my school band experiences (increasing in difficulty obviously) and I loved them. I loved the combination of different sounds and melodies when the whole band came together. I loved the feeling that stirred within me when the whole band played together and the journey the music took me on. I remember that first band concert in 5th grade had a Broadway theme, which was even more fun because I recognized several of the songs. I had listened to plenty of band and orchestra music in my life and it was exciting to be on my way to learning how to play that kind of music.

I stuck with concert band and the flute all the way up to senior year of high school. Some of the commitment to practicing every day eventually wore off a bit as I got older and the music became more challenging, but I still persevered and worked hard so I could get reasonably good chair placements and make it into the highest level band before the end of high school. (I just barely made it. I was third to last chair my senior year.) I played countless band pieces through middle school and high school, each one challenging me with new rhythms, pitch ranges, tempos, dynamics, and styles. I took private lessons for a little while too and worked on solos and duets for Solo & Ensemble festival. (I learned quickly that solo flute wasn't going to work very well for me and I wasn't really that motivated for it.)

I knew that I wasn't going to be a professional musician in an orchestra or a music teacher, but I still loved playing music and all the skills I learned from it. Looking back on my instrumental music experience I realize now just how many math skills are embedded in music - fractions, powers of 2, adding and subtracting while counting beats, multiplying and dividing to get beats per measure, and estimations for beats per minute, just to name a few. My understanding and confidence in math definitely improved after I started learning music in 5th grade and I went on to take AP Calculus and pursue a math endorsement with my teaching degree. Playing music requires intense concentration to follow complicated rhythms with your fingers and embouchure, remember which finger placements correspond to which notes, sustain crescendos and decrescendos for just the right amount of time, wait for just the right second to take a breath, count note values carefully to be exactly in sync with everyone else, and count even more carefully to make sure you enter at exactly the right time after a rest.

Through band I came to appreciate how extremely technical music is, but also how emotional and powerful it can be as well. As I mentioned before I often felt that each band piece was somehow taking me on a journey from the beginning of the piece to the end. As I played and listened to the sound of the band around me I used to let my imagination form pictures in my mind related to the music, sometimes inspired by the title of the piece and sometimes not. I loved letting the music carry me through an emotional journey based on the tone of the piece - joy, excitement, anger, sadness, loneliness, conflict, triumph, and more. I have recordings of several band pieces I played in high school and I still listen to them often and enjoy playing them for my students. This kind of music can still take me on a powerful journey today. And even though I don't play the flute anymore (except for fun occasionally) when the situation arises I'm amazed at how much musical terminology I still remember. I could find some use for that in the classroom...

Dance

I started taking dance classes at a local dance studio when I was in kindergarten. My first dance class was a ballet/tap combination class and we did a tap dance at the end of the year recital to a song called "Be My Little Baby Bumblebee," complete with bumblebee themed costume. I went on to take dance classes all the way through senior year of high school (13 years), learning the styles of ballet (including dancing on pointe), tap, jazz, and lyrical. Ballet and lyrical were my favorites because I found I preferred graceful, elegant, and expressive forms of dance the best.

From kindergarten through 5th grade I only took 1-2 dance classes a week and only performed at the studio's end-of-the-year recital. But by 4th grade I started to get an itch to do more with my dancing. A few of my friends had joined one of the studio's competition groups and I was interested in trying that too. In 4th grade I was also placed in my first ballet class that performed its recital routine as part of the studio's ballet production. The ballet productions were a sequence of several ballet dances all set to music from the same movie or stage show, telling a story or expressing a theme through all of the dances. I loved the feeling of performing my dance as one part of a larger story of many dances. The ballet production from 5th grade, set to music from Cirque du Soleil's "Quidam," remains one my favorite dances to this day.

In 6th grade I joined a competitive dance group for the first time. As part of this group I learned a tap dance and a jazz dance to perform at 3 competitions during the winter and spring months, as well as the studio recital. I also started learning to dance on pointe and taking classes in the Cecchetti method of ballet technique. Cecchetti ballet classes teach specific ballet technique exercises at the barre and in the center, along with classical ballet theory and terminology. The classes are organized into 6 grades of increasing difficulty and dancers must pass an examination before a panel of judges to move on to the next grade. I made it up through Grade 4 in Cecchetti. In 7th and 8th grade I also added classes in lyrical/modern dance and was part of the studio's competitive production routine. (This was similar to the ballet productions but shorter and featured more than one style of dance.) Eventually I was taking up to 7 dance classes a week.

I loved being a part of a competition group, even though it was a much more intense dance learning environment than I had experienced before. I was expected to learn dances at a higher level and much faster than I had before in order to be ready to perform at the first competition in late January. For the first time I also began to understand what it really meant to perform a dance. This was more than executing a set of steps exactly as taught, but putting strength and energy into every body movement and expressing emotions through facial expressions and body language. It wasn't easy at first, but soon I realized how much more powerful and exciting it felt to dance with true performance quality. Being in a competition group was an exciting social experience too. I became close friends with many of the girls in my group and enjoyed hanging out with them between classes and at hotels when we had to travel and stay overnight for competition weekends. I loved the camaraderie at the competitions - preparing our hair, makeup, and costumes together, warming up together, watching other dances and cheering on other groups from our studio, and celebrating the award results. I only won a few major awards at dance competitions - a 3rd place overall for a tap dance in 7th grade and some 1st places for production routines - but that wasn't important to me. I just loved performing, watching other dances, and spending time with my group.

The summer between 7th and 8th grade I experienced a national dance competition for the first time. Now this isn't quite as big of a deal as it sounds. There are hundreds of dance competition companies that hold events at high schools and convention centers around the country during the winter and spring months. Then each of these companies has 1-3 "national" competition events during the summer, usually held in popular vacation destinations (ex: Las Vegas, Orlando, New York, Chicago, Atlantic City, Myrtle Beach, Los Angeles, etc.). Nationals aren't that different from regular competitions, but the judging is a little harder and there might be some more specialized categories. My studio went to nationals every other summer, since it tends to be expensive and time consuming. The first nationals I went to was in Biloxi, MS. I remember having some of the most fun there I ever had in all of my 13 years of dance. Best of all our production routine from that year, "Mary Poppins," won 1st place and got a huge response from the audience. Because we won that award we got to perform it again at a special exhibition showcase for dances that won top awards. I went to another nationals two years later in Myrtle Beach, which was also pretty fun, but I'll always remember the Biloxi nationals as being my favorite.

When I got to high school I found myself in the position of having to make some tough choices about my dancing. At the start of 9th grade I was placed in the studio's Junior Company, the second highest competition group. Unfortunately the classes for that group conflicted with marching band rehearsals, which I had recently joined at my school. I had made a commitment to band so I couldn't back out of it, and I enjoyed so it didn't want to. Not to mention I realized it was probably best to focus on extracurricular activities that were school affiliated now that I was only four years away from college. But it was tough to realize that I had to either be in a lower level competition group or not do a competition group altogether. In the end, as hard as it was, I chose to not do the competition group. I still took ballet with Junior Company and was in the studio's "Scooby-Doo" production that year, but it definitely wasn't the same.

But when one door shuts, another always opens. For the first time I was able to pursue dance outside of the studio. This started with performing in a local community theater stage play production of "The Nutcracker" in the fall of 9th grade. This wasn't the actual ballet, but instead was a drama version with speaking, but there was some dancing. I was cast as the Sugar Plum Fairy because I had the most dance training of anyone who tried out. I performed in two dance numbers and even got to be on pointe. I had done a couple plays before but this was the biggest role I ever had in one. I loved being able to dance and act in the same show and I had always dreamed of being in "The Nutcracker." (What little girl who takes dance classes doesn't dream about that?)

Through the rest of high school I still kept my dance classes to a minimum, taking just a ballet class and maybe one other class. Senior year I only did a solo. Through much of freshman and sophomore year I missed the dancing I used to do in middle school. The other activities I did were fun but they didn't fulfill me in the way that dance did. That changed junior year when I decided to join the color guard section of the marching band. Here I got to dance again, albeit with a flag/sabre/rifle and on a football field or gym floor, but I got the same feeling of joy of performance I had in dance. Not to mention my years of dance training meant I already had many of necessary skills for color guard and I excelled quickly. I won't get into much more of this now since I'll give more detail in my post about color guard. Senior year my school started a dance program and I got involved with the after school dance company.

After high school the only dancing I did was in conjunction with color guard, performing in college guard and then coaching middle school guard. I love watching dance TV shows like "Dancing with the Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance" and movies with a dance theme. I'd like to learn to ballroom dance someday and I enjoy exercise DVDs that are dance inspired. It's something that got into my blood a long time ago and will always be a part of me.

I never had the technique or the body type to be a professional dancer and I knew this from a young age. I never wanted to pursue that route in life either. I had other life passions that interested me more as career paths. However, dance played a huge role in developing my musical interests. Around 4th grade I started listening to music very much from a dancer's perspective, imagining what style of dance, choreography, and costume would fit with any music I heard. I was especially drawn to music that told some sort of story or had a clear theme. In my 13 years of dance I learned more than 30 different dance routines and the ones that are the most memorable had a clear story or theme as well. This is why I loved the productions so much. I loved being part of a story told through dance and how the music could express the emotions and events of the story. The music of the productions I was part of included "Home Alone," Cirque du Soleil's "Quidam," "Chicken Run," "Mary Poppins," "The Little Mermaid," "Cinderella," "Scooby-Doo," "Alice in Wonderland," and "Peter Pan." I even got to play some interesting characters. I was a painter in "Mary Poppins," one of Ursula the Sea Witch's evil minions in "The Little Mermaid," a fairy of Spring accompanying the Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella," and even Tweedle Dum in "Alice in Wonderland." Through all of these dances I learned about how music, choreography, costumes, and props could all work together to tell a beautiful and powerful story with no words at all. Dance has definitely made me very sensitive to how music can express emotions and tell a story.