Marching Band Season

The season is over for the GPHS marching band. Let's do a review and sum it all up for anyone who keeps hearing the announcements of the wins without knowing what they are hearing. Spoiler alert; we won... again.

Grants Pass HIgh School Marching Band and COLORGUARD Season Review

By Lillie Olson

It is finally over. For seniors leaving as reigning champions for their whole four-year high school career, there are feelings of relief and sadness. As of Nov. 11, 2023, the marching season is over and band members now move into the concert season. With just over a month-long competition season after two months of training, the band and guard attended five competitions and five football games. Each time, they presented their show to a crowd and worked toward their final championship run. We march no matter the weather. We brave through the smoke until it becomes illegal, and endure the pouring rain. We march inside fog clouds and through the blistering heat or, conversely, until we are frozen to the bone. You hear us when we are on that field--apologies for the interruption in your daily routines.

Photo Credit: Band Moms via Facebook

Photo Credit; Corban Foster, main drum major, dressed as Ken for Barbie Day.

For those of you that have not heard much about the band, there is more to the marching band than past times and half times at football games and those kids in the halls that scream "bum bum bumm." For the first two weeks of the season, there are 12-hour practice days back to back. In this set of practices, band members learn the straight leg technique GP uses and how to play an eight-minute audio of four different songs, put together all from memory. They use objects called dots to find where they go on the field to form pictures for the audience. (No: placement on the field is not random.) Band members learn how to collectively walk like penguins so they look and sound smooth on the field. Spirit days are held to keep morale up; big slay.

Following band camp-- two weeks of students questioning their life decisions with friends-- we enter the football and competition season. Props for the show are made. Mr. Norfleet enjoys walls with pictures, and practices continue two to three times each week. However, these are only three to six hours, not twelve. Before the game begins, the band and guard line up to do pre-game, which involves running out on the field to the fight song chant and then playing "The Star Spangled Banner" and the GPHS fight song once more. The whole band enters the stands, right next to the student section, fighting for space, and plays stand tunes during the game. For half-time, the show is presented to the crowd for a few reasons: for practice, for the older people who only come for the show, and to fill the time and entertain. During the show, guard costumes and band uniforms are presented, so we all look like one big team. There are names to the funky parts of our cutesie little costumes; the hat is called the shako, the feather is the plume, the pants are actually like overalls and are called bibs, the triangles on our wrists are gauntlets and the jacket is just the jacket. Each outfit that is presented costs several hundred dollars.

Photo Credit: Mrs. Norfleet

Photo Credit: Austin Stadium Megatron Video

Competitions tend to follow a simple regimen. Members show up at the high school as early as three a.m., load buses with all of their stuff and instruments, and sit for two to twelve hours on the bus together with a few rest stops to keep it legal. Band members offload at the competition site, eat food the lovely boosters make for the kids or they buy, and head to change into uniform and warm up. Warm-up is two hours at minimum: one to practice visual, which includes "walking" in lines together to consecutive clicks and constantly being told to be flat-backed, better presented, to keep horn angles up, with toes that say, "Hi, Mom!" and straight legs. Then, the band entered the sound warm-up, which is also an hour long, where scales are played and the group uses tuners to make sure each instrument's sound is good before running through parts of the show. Directly following that, sections of instruments meet up to have a chat, chants are screamed and tips are given before the show. Two lines, which become about a three-minute waiting period for anyone wanting to pass through, take the band to the next destination because they have roughly 250 people. Props are grabbed and readied for the field. If any member other than the pit crosses the 50-yard line, the time starts, so the players go to the 45 while the electronics get hooked up. There is a 13-minute window for the total production. This year's show is eight and a half minutes long. The group marches, plays, dances, and occasionally slightly suffocates before they move off the field to go have a full team meeting. Re-entering as a group to the stands, they watch as the drum majors (the people on the podium who wave their arms in grey uniforms instead of blue) salute the judges and hopefully accept awards, standing on the field during the award presentations. They eat again and repeat for the second part, called finals. The first half of the day is for prelims, which is where bands compete against other bands with similar numbers of participants, labeled with A's; Grants Pass is AAAA, which is the biggest section. Then, for Finals, it's a free-for-all, where everyone competes against everyone, running the show once more. The group sticks around after Finals Awards to have a speech from our director and possibly several group photos before heading back to camp, undressing, reloading the trailer and heading home.

The cutesie lil seniors got to be front and center for about four whole minutes one night with the football and cheerleader seniors. Presented with a beautiful rose and overly excited directors, the leaders got to have photos taken with their ever-so-proud parents. A couple of times a year, the seniors will be recognized for random events, which always leads to loads of tears...not usually from them, though. After the season is over, a Band Banquet is put together to honor the year of hard work and to have one last hurrah for goodbye sake. Everyone dresses up, eats food, cries over videos and presents each other with awards while laughing until stomachs hurt.

Photo Credit: Nikki Hayes

Photo Credit: Band Dads Via Facebook

The band takes a big trip every couple of years to present in a parade or at a concert. Last year, they went to Disneyland for a week. In that, they marched a parade and had consults with Disney Producers. In the upcoming months of this year, the jazz groups will head to Japan to play in concerts with a Japanese high school band and start an exchange line with them, where GPHS will send students there for a year and, the next year, they will send students here. California was a smaller trip the group took at the end of the competition season this year in hopes of "dipping toes into a bigger pond," as said by Mr. Norfleet. The group competed in one of California's regional competitions, but not their championships. GPHS finished second place. Previously, in 2012, the marching band went to California and finished 16th. That's progress in my mind. Keep in mind: Grants Pass' band has around 250 members. The bands that they are competing against have around 300 to 350 members.

Announcements about the band will quiet down now that the concert and basketball season is upon us. You can see the band at basketball games for hype songs and at GPHS winter and spring concerts. GPHS will head to the state contest for concert awards and, hopefully, will win again. Guard will go off to compete in their winter season, which will consist of them dancing and choreographing indoors instead of on a field to live music. GO GP.

Sources:

Interview with Norfleet
Grants Pass High School Marching Band Facebook Page

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