Marching Band Rules

My very musically gifted daughter has joined her high school's marching band.  Okay, she pretty much joined it back in June, that is how long the band has been meeting and practicing.  They practice a lot.  A LOT.  Long practices.  Frequent practices.  Many, many, many practices.  They went away to camp, the whole lot of them, and practiced playing and marching and moving.  They are pretty good.  I say this with a completely untrained eye and ear.  I never marched.  I attempted to play musical instruments, with little success, even though I was stationary in a chair the entire time.  I am not musical.  I am creative, and gifted in other ways.  I can make up alternate lyrics to almost any song (the pitch of the signing is sketchy).  I can write simple poems.  I write this blog (although I am not sure if that qualifies as "being creative", but I write and people understand what I write.  The word on the street is, not everyone can write in a way people understand their message.).   Non-musical mom says this marching band is pretty good.  Mom who is rather sick of driving back and forth says, "They better be good for all the practicing they do.  For all the practicing, they should be marching down the streets of Pasadena on New Year's Day in the blessed Rose Bowl Parade".  Sick of driving mom is pretty grouchy, but she has a solid point.

Marching Band, from my rookie marching parent perspective, seems to have a set of rules.  Not necessarily written rules, but rules like prison.  Unwritten, sometimes unspoken rules, that you must figure out to move seamlessly among the other inmates marching parents.  I am not sure if a veteran marching parent will shiv you for messing up, or breaking a rule, but they may shun you or talk behind your back.  (I am a direct kind of girl.  I may prefer a shiv between the shoulder blades).  Anyway, here are the rules I have surmised thus far:

Marching Band Rules

1. The band will compete in competitions.  When you ask what exactly marching band competitions are,  you will be told, "Competitions are so much fun".  When you try to get beyond "the fun" aspects, you will be asked to drive several marchers to the competition, and help haul props out on the field for performances.  That sounds like work, I am not sure where any fun will be had . 
2. Practice begins fifteen minutes before the stated time. 
3. Practice ends ten to fifteen minutes later than the stated time. 
4. The drums are always playing.  Percussionist do not care, they never did.  I am curious to see what the walls must look like in a drummer's home.  God bless those parents.
5. The Marching Band will always be doing some type of fundraiser. I could go on a preach on how the Arts are underfunded, and it is a shame.  I could tell you how playing an instrument is connected with higher achievement in math.  I won't.  I will just try to sell you some festive holiday greenery, or flowers in the spring.
6. To be in band your student must purchase shirts indicating their class, their section, and the show they are performing this season in the band.  The student will hit up the parents for the money.
7. Band Parents are to wear shirts indicating they are part of the marching band.
8. Band Parents sit near the band at football games.
9. Your marcher will be tired all the time, but still want to attend the frequent, long practices
10. You will ALWAYS be able to see your marcher (and they will look the best) even though the goal is for the whole band to blend together as a single moving force.

I know this much to be true of marching band.  I alternately hate and love the marching band.  When viewing the family calendar and seeing how many days it takes up, or having to go on vacation without my daughter because she was at band camp during the summer, or seeing her blistered feet that she will continue to march upon...I hate it.  However, when I hear her talk about the new friendships she has made, and sit in the stands on a Friday night, under the lights and see her take the field playing and moving forward, backward, and side to side whilst playing her clarinet...well, then I really love the marching band.  She is learning to use her time wisely, work hard, and be a team player.  All of those things will serve her well academically and socially.  Sure, I still have to figure out all the marching band rules.  I will have to do fundraisers.  I will drive the wheels off my car.  But maybe, just maybe, someday I will say, Marching Band, RULES!!! 

(maybe)