Marching Band Season: What's it All About?

Anna Haas

If you have ever been to an Exeter High School football game, you have probably seen the marching band. They are always there to support the team and bring the energy, but have you ever wondered what else they do during the year? Since marching season has officially begun, now seems like the right time to highlight all of the other fun events the Exeter Marching Band participates in! 

To start the season, everyone in the band attends band camp for a week in August to learn the halftime show for the year. Each day we work on marching fundamentals and technique on the field and slowly start to put together our show. This year, the theme is “highway halftime”, and the songs include “Highway to Hell”, “Highway to the Danger Zone”, and “Life is a Highway”. When we aren’t outside in the summer heat, we rehearse our show music plus some stand tunes (songs we play when the football team is on defense) in the band room. Since it is the first time of the year that sections meet, we will sometimes do sectionals, where we work through music together and get to know one another. At the end of the week, there is always a pot luck dinner with everyone’s families, and then we perform our new halftime show for the first time in front of an audience! 

Including a handful of football games, October is a busy month for the band. Around the

middle of the month, we go to the Dover Band Show. We attend this event every year at Dover High School, and it is an opportunity to perform our halftime show and also watch other bands from around the area. It is always a great time, and it is fun to see the similarities and differences between our band and other schools. Some years we even get to see the UNH marching band perform! Later in the month, everyone gets in the Halloween spirit to go march in the parade in downtown Exeter. The songs we usually play for this parade are “Ghostbusters” and “The Monster Mash”. Each section picks a costume to dress up as together, and everyone is entered into a contest. Some examples of the costumes the flute section and I have done so far are fairies, Strawberry Shortcake, and Disney Princesses. Other sections have dressed as things like pirates, minions, etc. At the end of the parade, costumes are voted on, and the top three sections get gift cards. 

At the start of December, the band marches alongside festive floats and firetrucks in the Exeter Christmas parade. This event can be pretty cold, so we bundle up under our uniforms and trade our shakos for Santa hats. To add even more fun, some people choose to decorate their instruments with Christmas lights! Once we step off at the start of the parade, we play an assortment of Christmas songs until we get all the way to Swasey Park. We march for a pretty long time, but it always goes by fast. The final parade the band participates in is the Memorial Day Parade in May. By the time this parade comes around, it’s been a few months since we last put on our uniforms and marched, so it is always exciting to get back to marching band after a few concerts. At this event, we play a collection of patriotic songs along with the national anthem at the beginning. We march through downtown Exeter, and towards the end, we stop at the park in front of St. Michael Parish to listen to people speak. It is usually a pretty powerful and moving day, and it feels like an honor to be a part of it. 

Marching season is always my favorite time of the year, and I hope this article was helpful in understanding some things we do during the year!