Reversing recent trends, both the marching band and the color guard have improved their performances and leadership.
“Our seniors are really the standard in the group,” band director Doug Hoover said. “Virtually every section leader is a senior, so if they’ve done a good job they’ve set us up for the future really well.”
Senior Andrew Chasen is a veteran member of the drumline, a heavily senior dominated section, which works to keep tempo.
“We’re the ones keeping the tempo for everyone else, so if we screw up, everyone else screws up,” Chasen said.
The drumline was deemed especially important this year. The show performed in competitions by the marching band is titled “Pulse,” immediately highlighting the drumline.
“If you’re doing a show called ‘Pulse’, you want to make sure you have a steady one,” Hoover said. “Certainly, our drum line this year has the capability to be a strong point in the show. We felt, designing the show, they should be a strong contributor.”
The music in the show reflects different themes than in the past, tied together with one shared element.
“It is a little bit different this year than some things we’ve done in the past because there are some modern tunes in it,” Hoover said. “We’ve taken music from Blue Man Group, Cirque du Soleil, as well as the famous stampede scene in Lion King. The idea is it all has a great beat.”
The color guard, which performs with the band, must match the theme created in “Pulse”. Their choreography was composed by director Liz Bryan after assessing other elements.
“Listening to the music and understanding what the directors vision is and knowing what the girls can do…I just took those ideas and expressed them in a color guard matter,” Bryan said. “We wanted to show a pulse throughout with the choreography and heighten everything the music was saying. It helps the audience so not only can they hear the music, they can see the music.”
While the band lacked competition success in previous years, Chasen feels confident.
“We’re trying to place this year, we’re trying to get trophies,” Chasen said. “We usually place kind of lower, but I feel like we might be able to do it this year.”
While the majority of the drum line will move on to graduate at the end of the season, Chasen hopes that his impact in the band doesn’t leave when he does.
“I feel like it’s a good way to go out, but I feel like people also go off our experience, they look up to us so we try to do the best we can,” Chasen said.
The leadership and maturation of the drumline has been complemented by the rise of the color guard.
“You can’t even try to be competitive without a good color guard these days, and our kids are doing a great job,” Hoover said. “They add visual punch to what you’re trying to play and march.
Two years ago, in an effort to improve, the color guard hired Bryan, a former spinner of her own.
“Liz has made a huge difference in our performance level,” senior Jessie Sauerwein said. “Her work is artistic and challenging. Having cool work is always really encouraging, making us work even harder to achieve her visualization.”
Bryan’s arrival marked her first coaching gig. She was led to the position by advice from the former color guard coach.
“[When I arrived] they were at a basic level,” Bryan said. “We could toss it and everything, but there was definitely room for improvement. You could tell it was a very young program.”
While the team once only had four members, it has expanded to 10 members.
“It’s a growing program and it’s very exciting to have people who are so dedicated to it,” Bryan said. “These girls, they really do want this program to go somewhere, and as a coach, that’s really exciting.”
