Thomas J. West Music

As a marching band director, I spent the first eight years of my career trying to transform small, unsupported band programs into something worth doing. Simply performing at Friday football games did not give my students a pattern of skill development I wanted them to experience, nor an event where their efforts were respected. Unfortunately, there were little other options except competition.

Being young and idealistic, I figured we could go into Group I (35 members or less) competition, build for a few years, and grow the band program to around 50 members. I was wrong. There were obstacles I didn't anticipate:

• The judging community of that particular circuit did not take us seriously and were not invested in our growth other than to point out our shortcomings. (This was my perception - I'm pretty sure it wasn't their intention to promote themselves that way - body language told me "you suck, your band was no fun to judge").
  
• Despite a supportive principal, I could raise absolutely no support for the band outside of the band parents. Arts education isn't even on the cultural radar.
  
• I was competing against Group I bands who audition their completely extra-curricular cometitive band and keep the playing membership at exactly 35. The playing field was most definitely not level.

The end result? We competed for two seasons, vastly improved our ability to perform in year two, didn't get rewarded for that growth competitiverly, and packed it in. Competition was doing very little to help me grow my program, and the trade-off in time and resourecs spent didn't justify the experience.

Today, in my fifth season as a judge (wow - five years already?), I see small band programs competing that have very similar situations to what I experienced, and yet they keep competing, because there's no other performance opportunities for them to help build their performers skills. My suggestion to these small, undersupported bands: stop competing and do your own thing.

The most successful small town band program I've ever seen has 90 members in a Jr./Sr. High school of only 900 studfents. They have made their band program the pride of the town by playing audience-friendly, yet contemporary field shows that do not strive to be as layered and mentally demanding as a competitive show. They quite simply play  a medium easy music book and sound great doing it, and their town loves them. Along the way, the design staff pushes the limits a bit and jelps the program grow. Concert band, not marching, is where the bulk of the musical growth is occurring. Marching band, however, is what gets kids in the door.

Fellow small band directors, take stock in what competition is doing to help your program. Does the community you serve support your vision for the band's growth? What do you need to do to gain their interest and educate them at the same time? How is competitive band appealing to your student body (answer: unless your band is big and exciting, you go on cool away trips, or you are winning competitions, it isn't appealing at all).

Build your own program: Want input from judges and other colleagues? Open up a band YouTube account, film your performances and practices, post them without publishing them publically (yes, you can do that), then invite colleagues and judges to critique you by sending them an email invitation. I will be more than happy to look at any band's video an email you suggestions. I also do online and in-person clinics for music ensembles of all kinds. There's lots of help out there to build your program - you don't need competition to get the support you need.

Make your band something to be excited about. Make it something your community can get behind. If competition doesn't do that for your program, why are you doing it?

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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