Marching into the Season

All most students see from Milford High School’s marching band is its halftime performance at home games and their part in the Homecoming parade. Little do people know, they compete with that halftime performance against other schools around the district and county.

Saturdays for members in the marching band are booked. They practice from 8 a.m. until the time they have to perform around 6 p.m, which gets them back to the high school from competition as late as 10 p.m.. When they don’t have a competition Saturday, they practice from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m; that’s an 8-hour practice in the day while many students are sleeping in and then going to work or hanging out with friends.

To get ready for their main competition season, they practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5-9 p.m. and Mondays 6-9 pm.

Despite all the practice time, many band members love every minute of it.

“It’s really fulfilling,” says Maggie Cooney, a senior in the band. “Our shortest week is 20 hours but as it’s the time to get into the season to have our performance, it’s just fulfilling.”

It takes a little bit for freshmen and even eighth graders in the high school marching band to adjust to the new schedule and practically re-learn how to walk and march.

“Learning the marching technique is foreign,” said Drum Major Hunter Barns. talking about challenges as a new marching band member.

There are seven sections in the Milford High School marching band: low brass, high brass, woodwind and woodwind saxophones, drumline, pit, and color guard. All sections come together to produce their performance, Emoj-tions, which has three songs, or movements. There’s an anger movement, sad movement, and happy movement.

It starts off with their anger movement where they play Paint it Black by Rolling Stones, customized by Jacob Turnbow, an MHS marching band alumni. This then transitions into their sad movement where they play Hymn of Acxiom by Vienna Tang. Lastly, they move into their happy movement where they play Happy by Pharrell Williams.

This performance is a 10-minute show of playing an instrument and marching simultaneously. Endurance is built as the competition season continues.

“The show this year is the best I’ve seen,” said Barns, a senior at Milford high school. Each song’s emotion can be shown in the way the band members march and the way the color guard performs. Color Guard members show the emotion through their faces and flags.

The band is not allowed to have Mrs. Sare, the band director, as its conductor, so Moening and Barns take that role and handle it well to make sure all sections work together and stay on time.

Each section has its own leader to ensure that everyone is doing what they’re supposed to do.

¨My job is to ensure everyone [in low brass] is doing what they need to do and keep everyone in check,¨ said Cooney, the low brass section leader.

Like any other physical activities, members of the marching band warm up and stretch before every performance. They then have a ¨bring it in” time and talk about their goals of that performance and talk about things they can improve from the last performance.

Commitment to Marching band is very high with practices that last up to 8 hours. There are only a few that miss practices or are late; if you are in marching band, there is no doubt you want to be there.

“Everyone gives 110%. Its inspiring to see everyone come together and give that 110%,” said Barns.

Sare explains certain qualities to be successful in marching band are about being proactive, hardworking, and always having new ideas.

Last year, the Milford High School marching band finished 11th in the state. This was the 24th consecutive year they made it to States. In their more recent meet at Troy- Athens high school on Saturday, Oct. 8th, they got second place in the competition.

Goals this year for marching band are to qualify for states. Their top two scores in competition get averaged together. That score then gets compared to all other schools in the state. The top 12 schools qualify to compete in the state meet.

“Our goal is to always do better than the year before,” Sare said. “We are always competing with ourselves.”