Marching Band - Rehearsals

Rehearsals

Some bands will perform the same field show at all of their appearances during a single season. Others will avoid repeating a performance in front of the same crowd. In either case, the amount of rehearsal required varies greatly depending on the number and complexity of the formations, and the difficulty of the music. Some bands do a new field show every week, but only practice drill for two or three hours immediately before the performance. Other bands can practice a single show upwards of 20 hours per week (or more, for some competitive drum and bugle corps, who have been known to practice as much as 16 hours a day) for an entire season. This amounts to an average of 400 hours spent rehearsing for every minute of a competitive show in a season.

In the US, some states, such as Texas, have association rules that prohibit high school bands from practicing too much, in order to avoid injuring or overworking students. Texas has an 'Eight Hour Rule' which states that no competitive part of a marching band can spend more than 8 hours per week, including full band rehearsals, sectionals, and time before competitions, rehearsing. The things that do not count towards the 8 hours are competitions, parades, football games, and rehearsals during the scheduled school day. In other states; however, high school marching bands can practice 40 or more hours a week, such as Indiana.

Music for parade and show bands is typically learned separately, in a concert band setting. It may even be memorized before any of the marching steps are learned. When rehearsing drill, positions and maneuvers are usually learned without playing the music simultaneously – a common technique for learning drill is to have members sing their parts or march to a recording produced during a music rehearsal. Many bands learn drill one picture or form at a time, and later combine these and add music.

Rehearsals may also include physical warm-up (stretching, jumping jacks, etc.), music warm-up (generally consisting of breathing exercises, scales, technical exercises, chorales, and tuning), basics (simple marching in a block to practice proper technique), and sectionals (in which either staff or band members designated section leaders rehearse individual sections).

When learning positions for drill, an American football field may be divided into a 5-yard grid, with the yard lines serving as one set of guides. The locations where the perpendicular grid lines cross the yard lines, sometimes called zero points or gacks, may be marked on a practice field at eight-, four-, or two-step intervals. Alternately, band members may only use field markings – yard lines, the center line, hash marks, and yard numbers – as guides (but note that different leagues put these markings in different places).

In order for members to learn their positions more quickly, they may be given drill charts, which map their locations relative to the grid or field markings for each formation. In other groups, spray chalk or colored markers are used to mark the location of each person after each set of drill, with a different color and, sometimes, shape for each move.

Some bands use small notebooks, also known as a dot book or drillbook, which they hang about their necks, on the drum harness, or around the waist. These contain pages of "drill charts", which often either give a picture or list coordinates that band members use to find 'pages' or 'sets' on the field. Coordinates are normally listed in 8-to-5 steps off the front sideline and front and back hashes, along with the number of 8-5 steps off of the yardline listed on each page. Some bands are even using small plastic pouches that hang about their neck on an adjustable strap, which has a zipper pocket for holding drill, flags to mark sets, and a pencil. There is also a clear plastic window in front to display the current part of drill being worked on at that point in time.

Members may also group into squads, ranks, sections, or (especially with scramble bands that primarily form words) letters. Instead of each member having an individual move, moves are then learned on a squad-by-squad (rank-by-rank, etc.) basis.

March steps and traditional music and drill that are unique to an organization are often taught at a band camp, a time set aside for intense rehearsal before the performance season begins. Many U.S. university bands meet for a week of band camp prior to the beginning of the autumn semester. Other band camps exist for individual band members, drum majors, and auxiliaries to practice their skills and learn generic techniques in the off-season. For many bands, band camp is actually camp: the groups board at a campground for a period of time. Other groups simply hold band camp at their typical rehearsal facilities. Many bands have an initiation night at the end of the camp to help build a greater bond between the musicians. More often than not, initiation is focused at the newcomers to marching, for example, freshman in high school/college. One of the major exceptions to this practice are Summer Sessions, practices that those who are planning on trying out for The Ohio State University Marching Band attend.