OGDEN TIGER MARCHING BAND

Taylor VB

Tuesday June 10, 2008

Yesterday (Monday) I showed up in the band room at 7:00a.m. It was the start of the week long Marching Band Parade Camp. This is where we learn or relearn how to march in parade form (which is pretty close to field show form). This year is the year that the middle schools change back to junior highs, so we do not have any beginning marchers. That is nice because Mr. Park (who is leaving us for Kaysville Junior High) doesn't have to teach the new people how to march correctly. Marching is not just stomping your feet around the streets, but it is a very delicate process of counting keeping your toes high and making sure your upper body posture is straight and you are keeping your horn angle straight. Marching is correctly called "GLID STEEPING" and no we are not gliding like Michael Caine in "Miss Congeniality"! This is my second year of marching. It has been way fun. I haven't marched since November of 2007, so I am a little rusty. It was very nice to be able to review the glide steeping basics but it was also nice to be out on the streets waking the neighborhood up as we played "Ganna Fly Now (the theme from Rocky)". We are still a little rusty but we are much better than we were last year. We are also playing "El Gato" in the parades. Both of these songs we have are playing, we have played before in pep-band, so all we have to do is learn them all the way CORRECTLY and then memorize them. I have to say the trumpets (which I play) did not do so well today on the streets. That is because we do not have it memorized quite yet. After the second day of Parade Marching Band Camp my lips are not in shape but they will be by the end of the week and my shoulders are starting to hurt from holding up my trumpet so straight. I am also trying to get back in the trumpet fingerings because I have played the French Horn all year and it has different fingerings, so I am having to switch from one to one.

2007 Tiger Marching Band



Me, on the Far Right