Thomas J. West Music

As marching band programs across the U.S. are entering or finishing their pre-season rehearsals, drill writers are getting their personnel lists finalized and putting pencil to drill pad (or mouse to software) to create the visual package for their fall shows. Drill writing is typically not something learned in great detail at the undergraduate level and is often reserved for specialists. Band directors often prefer to save money and have more direct creative control over their shows by writing their own drill. I personally have always written my own for a variety of reasons, and definitely learned by experience what tends to work and not work for the average high school band.

I think it is safe to say that the majority of high school marching bands across the country perform in small football stadiums with low to mid-height press boxes. As a result, there are things about drill writing that lend themselve better to a lower vantage point. One of the visual aspects that holds true from a perception standpoint is that depth on the field is not easy to see, but lateral movement from side to side generates a lot of visual impact.

The Excitement Of The Rotating Box - And Why It Is Hard

Modern marching units, especially those in competition, love to program visual formations that generate a lot of excitement. One of the formations that has risen to prominence beginning in the early 1990's is the rotating box - performers in a grid shape rotate around a center point. Because of the ranks, files, and echelons of a box formation, the audience can visually watch the form evolve from front to back as first the ranks, then eschelons, then files become parallel with the yard lines and that "flash of daylight" goes through the block.

For the average high school band, however, rotating block forms are extremely challenging to execute cleanly. To have clearly defined ranks, echelons, and files, every performer in the grid must be in exactly the correct position for every single count of the maneuver. The exposure to error is very high and recovery from errors has to be practically instantaneous. This requires bands to have a very effective system for rehearsing drill so that exact repetitions are possible. It also requires every performer, regardless of experience level, to be extremely aware of their step length, path, and orientation on every count of the move.

Rotating box - made with picasion.com - can't see image? Click here

The Alternative - The Slanting Box

Rather than rotating the block formation, if you begin with a parallelogram and then slant it the opposite direction, you produce much of the same visual effect from front to back:

Slanting box - made with picasion.com - can't see image? Click here

A few things to notice about the slanting box:

1. Each rank of the box still travels - there are no mark time positions.

2. The front rank has to accurately march their set, just as in the rotating box, but they do it as a unit.

3. The ranks behind the front rank can clearly see the echelons and files in front of them and adjust their step size through the course of the move. This is true in the rotating box as well, but since every performer is moving forward on the field, managing the movement is much simpler. Also, ranks move as a unit instead of every performer operating as a soloist.

4. You still get that "moment of daylight" as the echelons become files at the midpoint.

In small stadiums with low vantage points, the slanting box gives nearly as much visual effect as a rotating box with much less demand placed on the performers. It deceptively looks a lot harder to execute than it actually is. Also, a slanting box looks great with a small number of performers. I have written drill for as few as 12 winds, and a slanting box still produces some visual effect when so many times a band that small struggles to make any formation have visual impact.

Additionally, you can continue to slant the box until it pulls into a company front - an easy way to make a visually impactful moment. A lot of drill design is about creating "visual cadence points", or writing predictable formations that resolve in conjuction with resolutions in the music. Visually, we want to see forms hit at the same moment that the music phrases arrive back to the tonic chord.

One last note: since depth is harder to perceive in low stadiums than lateral movement, you may find it effective to create more distance from front to back in the box than from side to side. Elongating the form north to south can lighten the perceived density of the form and can take up more real estate on the field, perhaps to drop some color guard performers in between. If the performers are the same distance front to back as they are side to side, the form can appear fairly dense from the front. This is another variable you can control to create some visual interest - not only does the box slant, but it condenses from a more open form to a tighter condensed form.

Try a slanted box or two, especially if you have a small band in a low stadium. I think you will find the results to be quite effective.

This article (c) 2011 Thomas J. West. All content on ThomasJWestMusic dot com is licensed under a Creative Contributions Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Please contact the author before publishing on or off-line.

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