Hi everybody. I have been asked to do an inservice on making summerband marching fundamentals more "FUN". Do you have any ideas or strategies that you incorporate in your band band programs? Thanks for you help.
I'm interested in seeing more responses here. We are a small 2A.
We do section posters and across-the-fields with popular music that the students enjoy: Disney, Imagine Dragons, Adele, T-Swift, you name it--even Count Basie and Sousa/Fillmore.
When we are on water break, we always have music playing on our speaker system. I don't want to leave a lot of silent down time where kids have the option to fill that silence with negative talk.
Serving as a marching tech at a 5A school, they always danced to footloose right at 11:30am after spending 3-4 hours outside on the blacktop.
I like the other responder's idea about doing a box drill competition.
I incorporate the "HYPE on it" phrase when things get a little dicey. Ex: "Hey Band! It's 100° outside, HYPE in it," and all the band cheers, and you bought yourself an extra hour outside
We also do left/right box drill march offs. Meaning at the end of band camp, we do a left and right box drill march off and have classes compete against each other. Be sure to have your staff help on who is doing the box drill correctly and pull out any students sticking out (not hanging) and pick up the tempo each time. My last 2 kids was a freshman and senior going at 190 bpm and the freshman won. Band went ballistic! That's fun.
