In defense of marching band

Photo credit: Mrs. Terry Tennant

"This one time at band camp" jokes aside, there is much to be said for high school marching bands.

They create a special atmosphere at Friday night football games. They perform at halftime, play the fight song after touchdowns, and bring an air of excitement to the proceedings as they march into and out of the stadium.

Just as important, though, is what the band – as both a school organization and a social ethos – does for its members.

For many, band is their strongest and sometimes only real connection to the school. They don't necessarily fit elsewhere, but when they get together with their peers in the band room, they feel at home.

Band kids are their people.

I was and wasn't a band nerd. I played the saxophone, but I never marched a routine in my life. Because I also played football, I was excused from marching band and wouldn't pick up my instrument until November when football season ended and we started rehearsing Christmas music.

So I never experienced the family atmosphere that is perhaps unique to marching ensembles.

It took having five kids (all of whom spent at least some time in marching band), a heavily involved wife and a now-10-year stint as the Wickliffe Swing Band announcer for me to really understand it all.

Every high school band endures its share of derision from other students, but that is perhaps less true at Wickliffe. The Swing Band is well regarded within the school and around our community, so its members are maybe a notch or two higher on the social scale than they would be in other places.

Still, in the end, a band geek is a band geek. Most of them gladly wear the title and wouldn't trade their high school band experience for anything.

For more kids than you may realize, band is the one thing that gets them through four otherwise miserable years of high school.

So go ahead and make fun of their weird hats, the corny songs they play and the faux military discipline on display at every performance. Call them whatever you want.

They're too busy playing loudly and proudly to even hear you.