Consider marching in a straight line while playing an instrument, remembering where to march and what number to turn on and still stay in step with the person in front of you while wearing a thick wool uniform in what feels like 90 degree weather in the summer and about 40- 50 degrees in the winter (of course that’s for us band students who have the full uniform on, I cant even begin to imagine what the twirlers and flags feel like). Sounds crazy I know but hey, that’s band for you.

A lot of time is put into band during marching season. There are Monday night rehearsals which are two hours long, sectionals on Tuesday and Wednesday that are two hours long, plus morning practices before school until after the SFA marching contest. Then we get to chill for a bit — on marching — not playing.

Band is really fun to be in though, except when you are late to band practice during marching season and you have to run a lap, which isn’t that awesome. But it’s great when you get to go to the state fair, parades and Disney World!

Yeah, I would say it’s pretty cool, but it has its difficulties; like when we are marching sometimes you will get hit by a bass drum, trombone, baritone or tuba when doing counter marches or just parade marching. Sometimes everyone else has stopped, but the person behind you tends to keep going until they end up hitting you (sometimes I wonder if that is where the expression “DUCK!” really came from).

Aside from getting hit with giant metal instruments that extend a foot away from the body and then feeling like you just got hit by a huge sledge hammer, marching is easy — almost.