<p>My HS son, who is a good student and passionate about playing snare in the marching band, is interested in looking at selective universities that have strong marching bands. It's difficult however to assess the quality of a school's marching band program, so I thought I'd create a five-point scale to post on the CC boards for his universities of interest, and ask any current or former students from those schools to attempt to categorize the band there. Please let me know how you'd edit the following 0 - 5 scale, organized from least to most intensive:</p>
<p>0 No on-field performing band</p>
<p>1 A student-run "scramble" band that plays loosely and performs satirical shows (e.g. seven of the Ivies, Stanford, Rice)</p>
<p>2 A student-run marching band that performs as a fun extracurricular (e.g. Cornell)</p>
<p>3 A professionally-directed but non-competitive marching band that is open to all participants regardless of skill level (e.g., Duke, where the main draw of the marching band is that it's a prerequisite to getting into basketball games as a member of the Pep Band)</p>
<p>4 A serious performing band with membership by audition (most bands at schools with major college football programs might fall in this category)</p>
<p>5 A band that is nationally-recognized as one of the top marching band programs in the country (e.g. Michigan, Ohio State)</p>
<p>Is this a useful and accurate categorization? Can you improve it?</p>
<p>seems solid… just don’t confuse ability of the football program with ability of the marching band.</p>
<p>One band I will throw out there that is VERY, VERY good is that of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA. However, JMU probably doesn’t fall into the “selective” school category, but neither would Ohio State, in my book. Depending on how selective you are looking, you might want to consider Michigan, Texas, Southern Cal, UVA, Notre Dame… but again, those programs would be hard pressed to match the level of JMU (not that marching band should be more important than the academics).</p>
<p>something that you might also consider, would be marching in drum corps international, which are summer touring ensembles of ~150 members consisting of percussion, brass, and colorguard. More info at: <a href=“http://www.dci.org%5B/url%5D”>www.dci.org</a> (or you can PM me, I participated for 2 summers).</p>
<p>I was unable to do marching band this year, but I would also warn your son that I’ve heard from most people that marching band in college is much different than high school marching band.</p>
<p>Also true… college marching band is often a large party. They do not march and play like a competitive high school marching band. Another reason that if you are looking for a serious outlet, I would suggest DCI.</p>