Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 1, 1993 TAG: 9309230284
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON RICHERT STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Staunton River High School senior, co-captain of the color guard, admits it gets hard to show up day after day for band practice, especially in summer. But, ``It pays off when you perform.
``You really can't explain it. It makes you feel pretty good. Anybody that's performed understands.''
She speaks from experience. She's felt the heart-pounding thrill of marching onto a field at football game half-times and at marching band competitions. But it's not winning competitions that makes being in the band so exciting.
``It's just the performing,'' she insists.
Since mid-summer - and in some cases since before school let out in June - the area's high school marching bands have assembled weekly, semi-weekly, and, at least once, for a solid week of intense practice. That week amounts to band camp, or ``death camp'' as one band student jokingly put it.
Despite the heat and humidity, the early morning, mid-afternoon and twilight practice sessions go on. And while some students are enjoying their last days of academic freedom by sleeping late and hanging out later, many band students are up with the sun and drained by the time they get home.
Their spirits, however, remain high enough to bring them back - voluntarily - to the field. Back where they retrace the previous day's steps over lines of grass, worn by marching 10 minutes of drill for hours at a time. Forward and backward, just for good measure.
Weeks of practice are poured into executing that single 10-minute show.
``It's a whole lot of hard work, and a lot of people don't realize what goes into putting out a show like this,'' said Jennifer Quinn, a senior clarinetist at Cave Spring High School.
Cave Spring and other area bands spent a week recently at Ferrum College at the Mid-Atlantic Band Camps. Far from a luxury vacation, students paid around $150 to live in dorms, eat in the college cafeteria and spend most of their remaining time memorizing music and learning fancy drill on the football field. Their schedule began with a 7:15 a.m. breakfast, continued with music and marching practice and ended with a 6:30 p.m. practice ending at ``until.''
Band camp necessities: An instrument or color-guard equipment, shorts, T-shirts, baseball caps with cold-soaked towels stuffed under them, plenty of bug spray and sun screen, a water bottle and a comfortable pair of shoes. A stash of your favorite candy and Chap Stick also are recommended.
``Camp is not all fun and games,'' warned Patrick Henry High School's flute section leader, Eula Nall. ``It's a lot of hard work.''
The section leaders of the Patrick Henry band, directed by Sharon Johnson, agreed. They also spent a week at Ferrum College. On their last full day of practice, the nine juniors and seniors gathered during an afternoon break to say they were too exhausted to march another step or play another note.
Until the next day, that is, when they would perform their 11-minute show - learned in their week at Ferrum - for the other bands at the camp. That would be the reward, said co-drum major Shaun Talmadge, when the unmistakable cadence of the drums would blend with the woodwinds and brass. When every step would come together with a note, and when camp officially ends.
That would also be the crowning moment to a week of sweating in the sun while camp instructors drilled music and marching into students' heads until they could play and march at the same time.
The goal is the same for bands that march their camps at home, usually on their high school football and practice fields. Students arrive after breakfast, break for lunch and leave before dinner. Because their practice time is cut short before dark, many bands extend their camps for two or three weeks.
Glenvar band director Melinda Sarver held her camp from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. for three weeks this summer.
``It is a pain going three weeks'' at a time when many families plan out-of-town trips, tuba player Larry Marsh admitted. But most expected it would take about that amount of time to learn Glenvar's field show.
Hosting an extended camp at the high school is also a good way to draw former marchers back to the field, where they assist first-year marchers in the fundamentals, such as the basic ``eight-to-five'' - eight steps to every five yards.
Kevin Stump and Ed Locke, both graduates of Glenvar who marched with the band, returned for Glenvar's first week of camp.
``I guess playing an instrument has something to do with it,'' Locke explained. ``Your love for the instrument'' makes you want to come back.
For Stump, ``It's like a family. I feel homesick.''
Indeed, Glenvar clarinetest Noel Dillard wishes that audiences would support that family.
``I think that a lot of people don't realize the hard work we put into it. Like during half-time, people don't even listen to us. They don't even acknowledge us. They just don't understand that we're practicing so hard - just to entertain them.''
Many bands do view themselves as a big family. Every band member, after all, plays a part, said Cave Spring director Barry Tucker. There are no bench-sitters, and enough uniforms for anybody willing to put in the time.
James River High School's ``family'' nearly doubled in size this year.
As a result, Rosa Lowe, a fifth-year marcher, feels there's a lot more dedication on the part of band members. Director William Allison saw it reflected in the good attendance this summer for two weeks of sectional rehearsals followed by a week of camp at home.
``I don't like getting up at 7 o'clock in the morning,'' Lowe, a senior, said. ``But I know I'm coming to band.''
Already, Lowe is dreading her last football game and band competition. ``I'll miss the marching. And I love playing my clarinet. I get lost in the music.''
Students' love for band, however, is tested at times by the sun and the James River practice field - a former swamp still swarming with bugs. On one misty morning, band students prayed for rain as they walked slowly to the field. They hoped for a day of playing in the air-conditioned band room.
What they got was the usual August heat, made bearable by a huge container of ``Happy Juice,'' a.k.a. ``Orange Lightning.''
The concoction, dreamed up by trombone player Dan McRae, is a syrupy-sweet mixture of some 30 scoops of Country Time Lemonade, 2 scoops of Tang, a quarter-cup of sugar and a vigorous shake of lemon extract. All this is diluted with only one and a half gallons of water.
Lord Botetourt's band has spent two weeks of camp on the Botetourt practice field - a spread of black asphalt that doubles as the school's driving course.
This is where eighth-grader Heather Sarver and nearly 70 marchers have been sweating out their 33 marching formations until their first football game Friday.Sept. 3.
The heat got so intense that band director Rex Davidson suffered a heat stroke on the Friday of the first week of camp. But camp resumed Monday. The field heated back up, and band members toted lots of water with them. And as usual, if they got out of step, moved while at attention, or messed up in a host of other ways, they would have to drop for 10 push-ups.
Sarver says, ``We take pride in what we do, because you feel good when you get it right.''
That's performing, after all. Hitting all the notes, nailing every step - left foot first, and keeping your head held high.
``At first you'll start to think that you're not gonna like it 'cause it's hard work,'' explained Staunton River's Marshall Plotner, a ninth-grade saxophone player. ``But once you get to your competitions and football games, it's just like nothing you've ever experienced.''
by CNB