Thoughts on Marching Band Contest

I was able to hear part of marching band contest at ASU today. A horn major is one of the co-drum majors in the ASU marching band this year and I keep hearing good things about the group. So today I heard a chunk of the afternoon session of contest which included a performance by the ASU marching band.

Very interesting! I played in marching band all four years of high school and of college; the last time I was at a marching band contest was probably in 1979. It was great to see/hear the horn line which is the strongest I believe since I came to ASU. My kids enjoyed the excitement of the event (and counting the tubas in the ASU band–17!) and I enjoyed hearing some really good bands play. The ASU band sounded stronger than I remember hearing last year, and the crowd seemed to be really into their performance.

For those interested in such things, in the few high school groups I saw marching horns in B-flat with horn mouthpieces seemed to be more common, which is the same type of instrument used in the ASU marching band. This photo is of one of the instruments they use at this time by King. [UPDATE: They now use Jupiter Quantum Mellophones].

I know that the F mellophone B-flat marching horn debate is a hot one at times. Horn teachers prefer the B-flat marching horn, while some players and directors prefer mellophones in F. There are advantages to each. I would admit that you can for example hand a trumpet player a mellophone and they will do fine on it, even though it would in an ideal world not be my instrument of choice for a horn major. Watching high school bands at the Tempe Veteran’s Day parade Friday I noted one band had mellophones and B-flat marching horns. I understand it can be problematic to use both due to intonation issues but in an ideal world again it would be nice to have the horn players on marching horns and the non-horn players on mellophones.