Size problems

When I saw the subject line, I thought spammers had infiltrated. Goose feathers 2.0.

The internet has ruined me.

Here are my thoughts...


The field show isn't bad. There are some cool movements and while 550 marching members prevents DCI type drill, there's still room to move. The drill this year is better than some recent seasons.

University marching band isn't competitive in the sense of marching festivals or competitions. It is about entertainment and promotion of the department and university. The Marching Southerners are quite effective at that, and the notoriety of having the largest University marching band in America is pretty cool.

If the shows are entertaining (they are), I don't see an issue. I don't think it is possible for the band to be larger than it is and continue to be effective, but I think it is find where it is. In terms of the cost of travel, even if the band was 300 members I doubt they would have gone to Columbia. The dollar figure I heard was that it was going to cost $300,000 to send the Southerners to the game. If we had 300 members instead of 500, it still would have been $200,000. The band could easily have raised the $300k if travel was feasible. We went to Kentucky with 400 members and played an exhibition at the KMEA Marching Championship semifinals. I actually helped to make that happen. We already traveled to an away game this season and played 10 shows. While they have this week off as well, an overnight trip is always asking a lot of members. I would like to have seen them make the trip, but I can understand why they didn't. Unless I am mistaken, I think that the cheerleaders and Cocky didn't go.

That's my opinion.

This has been done at times in the past. I’m thinking specifically of that nightmare TTU game in 2010. I was at that train wreck and we had a pep band there.

There are a few different strategies which could play out in a multiple-band scenario. (To keep things simple, we'll call them the A, B, and C bands.)

1. The A band would be audition-only with a very strict instrumentation of no more than 250-300 members. It would be the direct analog of the current Marching Southerners, performing corps-style shows at area high school exhibitions and halftime shows at away football games at nearby CUSA schools (KSU, MTSU, WKU) plus regional nonconference games (such as South Carolina, troy state, UAB, Ga Tech, etc.). The A band would be a subset of the B band, which would include everyone else. The B band's size would be limited only by the number of uniforms and/or available instruments (where applicable). They would perform ONLY at JSU home games, marching pre-game along with (perhaps) two limited halftime shows during the football season, such as Band Day (stand tunes with the kids) plus some sort of theme show later in the year, such as a patriotic show for Veterans Day, including a traditional Ballerina tune (e.g., Quilting Party, Gamecock Saturday Night). The B band would perform in the stands at all Jax State home games, but would not travel to any away games.

2. The A band would the same audition-only group described above, but would NOT be a subset of the B band. They'd be two entirely different ensembles (much as Chamber Winds is separate from Wind Ensemble), with the A band playing exhibitions and the B band playing football games. I don't like this plan, and don't believe it would work well at all for Jax State, so I don't want to waste time describing it.

3. A similar plan as No. 1, but with an additional C band, which would be an audition-only pep band numbering no more than 50-100 members. The C band would be horns and batterie percussion only. No colorguard, no Ballerinas, no pit. They would only play stand music and would not march any kind of field show. They would only play at away football games which were too far/costly to carry the full A band. The C band would ideally be a subset of the B band, but would NOT include any A band members. This would allow Jax State to (for example) send the C band to an away game in Louisiana, on the same day the A band plays an exhibition in Rome, Gadsden, Birmingham, or Tallapoosa. The B band members who are not in A or C would get the weekend off.

I like plans No. 1 and 3, and hate No. 2. That separate ensemble plan would very quickly discourage students from coming to JSU, since many would (wrongly) assume they weren't good enough to try out and would choose a lesser band with an easier path to the field. Meanwhile, as awesome as exhibitions are, there was one year (93 maybe?) where we barely had any football games, and it was terrible. There was no stress relief at all for the band members. (Football games provide such relief in buckets.) I think the A band would probably end up killing each other, and the B band would end up running out of warm bodies to re-supply them.

Between Plans 1 and 3, I like 3 the most, with one important caveat: if funding became an issue, it would have to be understood that the A band would take precedence over the C band. In other words, if the football team was playing at Coastal Carolina on the same day the A band was set to play an exhibition in Atlanta, and the university were only willing to pay for one set of buses, then the A band would need to play the exhibition and the C band would need to stay at home. Why? Because the A band's Atlanta exhibition would have FAR more ROI for the University than the C band's stand tunes in Myrtle Beach ever would. If the University loses sight of this, then they'll kill the Marching Southerners and suddenly wonder why they're having trouble topping 8,000 students when they were so tantalizingly close to 10K.

The benefit of Plan 3 over Plan 1 is two-fold. First, it makes it possible to send a strong pep band to away games on the same day as important regional exhibitions. Second, and most importantly, it gives the B band members a firm stake in the band -- they'd still be playing football games and a couple of halftimes -- plus they'd have a second chance to play in an audition-only group with the C band. The C band may not be playing exhibitions for thousands of screaming high school kids, but they'd be a tight-knit group, and would have one heckuva good time on those away game trips. (Seriously... with only a couple of exceptions, those old pep band trips we used to do in the Gulf South Conference led to some great memories.) With the reduced rehearsal needs (fewer marching rehearsals than the A band would require) the B and C bands would become very attractive alternatives to strong players who otherwise might not be able to march due to jobs, internships, tough schedules, etc.

Meanwhile, that A band would just be awesome. To echo what JSUSoutherner said above... cutting down on the numbers would not seriously impact the sound. I've seen HardCorps' 40-ish members outpower a full 200-member marching band from another college, and before that, I was part of a 40-member travel band that sounded nearly as powerful as the full 275-member band we left behind in Jacksonville. The A band wouldn't have any dead weight at all. Every instrument would be played by someone who legitimately earned that spot. The sound they'd produce would be ... mesmerizingly terrifying.

You would have to police it. The B and C bands could not be run as "beer in one hand / horn in the other" crap ensembles. As fun as that sounds in theory, it's pretty obvious when an ensemble starts playing and doesn't take itself seriously. (I won't name names here, but watch most college bands and you'll see.) The C band would need to play the stand tunes as well as HardCorps*. The B band's couple of halftime performances would need to be performed at a Southerners level, even if the shows were less demanding. The second these bands get passed to a G.A. or whomever with an attitude of "anything goes... it's just a band for kids who couldn't make the cut for the top band" these groups will deteriorate to the point that they'd send a very poor message to potential recruits at football games.

"Yeah, I saw Jax State's band at a Georgia Southern game in Statesboro back in '25. They were terrible. They might've been good once, but they're just riding on reputation now."



* Edit to add: I mentioned HardCorps here, but just to be clear: The C band and HardCorps would NOT be the same. HardCorps needs to remain a completely separate entity, including the best players from ALL the football bands, plus jazz band, etc. HardCorps' repertoire would include Top 40 and funk, while the C band would play "Eat Em Up" and the Fight Song. HardCorps would have bass, guitar, and drumset. The C band would be a scaled down marching band, with scaled down marching percussion. Not at all the same thing.

I vote to keep it the way it is. It it ain't broke...