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The Marching Band/Instrumental Music program at my school (and presumably at many others) has this gigantic trap. You get 1 semester worth of P.E. credit for every year of Marching Band, but you need 2 years of P.E. credit to graduate (4 semesters). This means that you need to stay in the program for FOUR YEARS... versus taking a year of P.E. Freshman year and Summer School P.E. (for which you get 1 year's worth of credit)
As a Freshman I was like hurrrrr ddurrrr band seems fun and I joined the program. The problem with band lies in its time consumption as an activity or (time/P.E. credit ratio). While band directors will tell their students "heyyyy marching band season only goes till November and you get a Semester's worth of credit" -they fail to mention that you lose two weeks of summer, an academic class during the day, and two hours in the afternoon every day up to mid-November. In the end, unless you are some crazy hardcore player of some instrument, your participation in band is only going to give a better name to your program, not yourself. The return for the effort of an average band member is ridiculously low.
You may ask me why I didn't drop band after Freshman year. Well being a hurrr derpity derp Sophomore I was fooled by the "Consistency" argument -that you have to stay in an activity for four years for it to have any real significance. This is somewhat true, but the problem is, band is NOT a unique activity. Think about how many high schools in America have marching bands, and realize that each Marching Band has at least 60 members, and in many cases 150-300.
That said, there are many people who participate in the activity for the social experience. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. As an asian in the 21th century, however, high school is not for the "social experience" anymore. It's for college.
My last band camp starts tomorrow. No more SC2, just spending 9 hours of the day in the sun doing something that is equally if not more unproductive.
I'd recommend incoming freshmen (high school) to REALLY carefully think over joining marching band.
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Band camp was incredibly productive for me. As drum captain it was an opportunity to get new players up to snuff before the marching season began. Make sure everyone knows their rudiments/chops/marching commands and get the line playing as a unit so we don't have to bother with that basic shit during the actually school year.
I guess it depends on who you're in band with and how the camp itself is structured.
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marching band was fun, but seriously hindered me getting better at sc. i didnt hit D+ until well after marching band of junior year...
and i'd imagine band camp to be more fun than sc2 ;D
if i didnt have to leave for college in 2 days i totally would revisit band camp just as it starts just to creep :3
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On August 18 2010 12:37 DoctorHelvetica wrote:
Band camp was incredibly productive for me. As drum captain it was an opportunity to get new players up to snuff before the marching season began. Make sure everyone knows their rudiments/chops/marching commands and get the line playing as a unit so we don't have to bother with that basic shit during the actually school year.
I guess it depends on who you're in band with and how the camp itself is structured.
You should ask my bandmates about who I'm "with" hahahahah...
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You seem like you need to chill out or flat out just quit. I personally loved my four years in marching band. The two weeks of band camp were always great for me because its a warning to get your shit together for the summer because you're going to start school again soon. Of course, we never had 2 hours of practice every day once the school year started, but it was still a big time commitment for us with games every friday and parades saturdays. Some bands are really competitive, practice a lot, and are big on discipline. Ours was never very competitive, and we had a lot of time to goof off and have fun, I made a lot of friends doing it, and I thought it was really rewarding to go from band noob to eventually a section leader (Trumpets 4ever). It sounds like it's not your thing and you're pissed off. Quit if you can't take the heat.
Also fuck band camp stories. What happens at band camp, stays at band camp.
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Yeah, my attitude is probably the result of being pretty burnt out this summer -research project + community college class kind of puts a nice drag on everything. I'm not really pissed off, just have to get some thoughts out before doing it all again for the fourth time. I don't have problem with spending lengthy amounts of time doing one thing, but our band isn't all that social during practice.
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Oh man, I remember almost blacking out once in the heat. The section leader saw that I was starting to black out and told me to go sit aside during the summer band camp, and I had to stand around the area where it was muddy-ish just to cool off. Grass just doesn't make the day any cooler at all, haha.
I stopped band after my sophomore year to pursue other time consuming activities on campus other than band, because band to me was a huge time sinker, although I enjoyed it a lot (also a trumpet, woot), kind of like how you feel.
I still play in the school Jazz Band though as Trumpet, and its awesome and not as time consuming as marching band.
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I hear a lot of horror stories about band and band camp, but it wasn't really the same in my experience. Maybe it's just because I went to a tiny school and had all my friends in band, but band camp and marching band in general were some of the most fun times I had in high school. I guess it really just depends on where you are and who you're with.
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This isn't the kind of story I expected when I saw the thread title...
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My ex-boyfriend loved playing in band ;-;
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I hated marching band, even though I stayed for 3 years..what a mistake! haha
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On August 18 2010 14:14 Metal[x] wrote:
I hated marching band, even though I stayed for 3 years..what a mistake! haha
4th time's the charm -.-;
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I was the leader of my high school's drum corp
and we had no drum teacher
and it was a new marching band.
and I got no PE credits for that shit, so I had to take two years of PE.
:<
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On August 18 2010 14:43 Thesecretaznman wrote:
I was the leader of my high school's drum corp
and we had no drum teacher
and it was a new marching band.
and I got no PE credits for that shit, so I had to take two years of PE.
:<
Drum Corps is very different from Marching Band O_o
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I gotta chime in and agree that marching band in high-school was really fun! I think you're just mad because you have to go to band camp instead of play sc2 ^_^ try to enjoy it!
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depends on how good the program is i think, i feel like it's incredibly rewarding to look back on the season knowing that you put out a good show. there's a huge sense of pride to it. the social aspect of it doesn't really come in rehearsals, it comes outside of it -- sitting around in the hall waiting for things to start, bus rides to football games/contests, pep rallies, etc etc. not to mention most people don't realize how physical the activity is -- good drill is usually hard drill, and hard drill means you're moving a lot. it's actually fairly good cardio/exercise, even more so if you're marching corps.
i have a lot of friends who have marched drum corps as well and everyone who i've ever talked to who's done the activity has loved it. i had the opportunity to march on the santa clara vanguard cymbal line a few years back but i passed it up because i was already playing in an orchestra that summer. drum corps is serious though... if you hate what you're doing now, imagine doing all-days in the summer and 3-4 shows a week. pretty ridiculous, but the experiences/friends you get are priceless.
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drumline*
I don't know why I keep calling it that for no good reason
either way, no PE credit. -_-
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EPT
