<p>is anyone here a member of the ucla marching band, or do you know anything about it? i'm thinking about joining it, although i've never been in a marching band before. i know how to play an instrument well though, so i don't imagine it will be that difficult to learn how to march. yeah but anyways, does anyone know how much of a time commitment it is, some bad things about it maybe, or any general useful information i should know while considering it?</p>
<p>marching is very hard to learn for some people. moving while playing an instrument isnt that easy. i was in the marching band in hs.</p>
<p>I'm a fresman, I was in marching band this year. My high school doesn't have a marching band, so I never marched before. If you play a woodwind and you've never marched before (me), then don't even bother trying to join. Even if you get in, there's an 80% chance that you're gonna hate it. Gordon (director) hates woodwinds. You'll probably end up as an alternate. If you play brass then you have a good chance. </p>
<p>If you get in, you'll get to move in earlier than everyone else for band camp, which is basically band practice everyday 9am-9pm. Not that bad. </p>
<p>Regular practices are Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, 2 hours each. Once again, not that bad, UNLESS YOU'RE AN ALTERNATE. Most saturdays are game days, it's basically a full day thing. We have to get to the Rose Bowl 6 hours before kick off for practice, so we usually leave around 9am or 10am in the morning, and get back late evening.</p>
<p>I would suggest you audition for it, and if you get in, go to band camp. Find out if you're gonna have a spot or not (you find out before second week). If you end up as an alternate, then just quit. No point in staying around unless you wanna deal with a whole quarter of being treated like *****. But then again, if you pull through it, you'll most likely get a spot your second year. </p>
<p>some pros:
-you get to watch all the home football games for free, + two tickets to give out (except for the USC game)
-who doesn't love the attention? :P
-this year we got to go to Notre Dame for free. That was a one time thing though, not gonna happen again anytime soon. There is a trip to Cal every year though.
-if you decide to participate during winter/spring quarter, you get to go to the basketball games too. But once again, for the games that everyone wants to go to (ie. final four/march madness), preference is given to Gordon's "favorites", and then it's based on commitment and seniority.</p>
<p>I'm speaking from an alternate's point of view. Out of the 200 kids that are in marching band, about 50 of them absolutely love it. These kids are the ones with marching experience and were probably never alternates. If you ask them for their opinion, they'll tell you nothing but great things about marching band. 50 of the kids (like me) dislike it, and the level of discontent ranges. and the 100 rest are somewhere inbetween the two extremes.</p>
<p>After spots were given out during band camp, a lot of alternates quit on the spot. At that time, I wondered why they quit. I thought that if I just stuck with it, I might get a chance. Later on I found out why, and realized that I should've quit along with them. Seriously, marching band is all about politics. The way the band is organized is literally like an anarchy. But as long as you don't get on anyone's bad side, you should be ok. </p>
<p>I guess I wasted a lot of time with marching band which I could've spent on my other activities. (I'm also on UCLA's badminton team, dragonboat team, and lion dance team, which I love (ask me if you're interested in join any of those :).) But at the same time I'm kinda glad I joined marching band for the experience.</p>
<p>well that hella sucks because i play alto saxophone. but uhhh, what exactly do you do as an alternate? do you just practice with everyone but don't do the halftime show/playing on the sidelines? haha i would join for the free football tickets alone, but that's just me. do you have like any examples of how they treat you like **** or why it's bad to be an alternate?</p>
<p>learn tuba.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The way the band is organized is literally like an anarchy.
[/quote]
did you perhaps mean dictatorship ;)</p>
<p>If you want to be in the marching band, you will have to audition, or send in an audition tape. You might also look into the Varsity band, they play at all of the sports except for Football games. No marching, they play in the stands at basketball games, tennis matches, volleyball games, etc.</p>
<p>My son is in the band, and he says that the college program marching drills are easier than the ones he did in high school. There are no judges to worry about like in high school tournaments, so the marching standards are a bit looser. </p>
<p>You might try contacting somebody via the UCLa Band website to see what they suggest. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.uclaband.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.uclaband.com/</a></p>
<p>The band has a Freshmen band camp in the late summer where the Freshmen show up a couple of days before the rest of the members for band camp, and that might be enough to learn what you need to know prior to joining the other members of the marching band. </p>
<p>Go Bruins!</p>
<p>haha oops, i meant dictatorship :P</p>
<p>You can't be in the Varsity band unless you're in marching band. It's basically the same thing though... we play the same stand tunes, only thing we don't do is march. And band camp isn't only for freshmen, it's for all the returning members. </p>
<p>and RJK, at the beginning you might get to 'shadow', but as the big game(s) approaches (ie Cal trip and whatnot) you basically go to practice, warm up for like 5-10 minutes with everyone else, and then sit out on the sidelines for the rest of practice. So imagine sitting out by the side of the field for two hours everyday, 3 days a week. Occasionally they'll let you march one game or two, but in my opinion, it's not worth it. And yeah, you sit out during the shows too. umm.. I rather not give you specific details of my experiences on a public thread for various reasons. Maybe if I ever meet you in person I'll tell you about it. or just PM me if you really want to know.</p>
<p>^ everything sofakingwangsta said in her first post
...but just to correct one minor point, there isn't a cal trip every year. there's a trip to the bay area (alternating between cal and stanford) every year.
except this year, because we go up to stanford BEFORE school even starts... so um yah. no trips this year.
BUT... this year will be the "fall of troy" show :D :D :D
it happens only once every four years, and lots of people say it's their favorite show. and since it involves a bunch of us running around in togas, i see no reason why alternates wouldn't be in it xD
i'd say that's reason enough to go for marching band, if only for a year. also, send in your audition tape EARLY in the summer. you can send it in starting in may. maybe it won't get you non-alternate status but it'll at least get you in the band itself if you play a competitve instrument.
oh and the band pays for everything... food for band camp week, trip money, all that good stuff :)
i didn't have moldau's experience, but i DID have a really great first quarter at UCLA through band. erm colorguard. sure it's got its ups and downs, BUT... on the whole it was very worth it to me!</p>
<p>also, from a colorguard point of view: just as moldau said "learn tuba" i say "learn flag" xD
we have one alternate and we don't treat alternates like ***<em>.
although... we sometimes get picked on *ahem</em> rather excessively by gordon. but whatev. we have spiffy flags that are good for self-defense...</p>
<p>what do you play anyways, sofakingwangsta? i was under that the only impacted instruments were piccolo/drumline........do you know if there are a lot of saxophones that ended up being alternates? and would it be beneficial to audition in person as opposed to auditioning by tape?</p>
<p>drumline is pretty crazy... you have to be REALLY good, and they practice like separately from the band. For piccolos, you audition for flute, a plus if you play piccolo too, and during the season they just designate like 3 or 4 of the flute players as piccolos. I think there were... 4 or 5 sax alternates this year? I know a few that quit though, not too sure on the numbers. For me, I actually sent in my audition tape mid July, but I got an acceptance letter exactly a week later. I'd say it's better to audition on tape, because you can rerecord it over and over again until you get the results you want, as to auditioning in person and having only one chance to get it right. btw, your playing skills can only get you into the band... once you're in, they don't care how well you play at all, especially if you're a woodwind. doesn't matter if you're like the god of alto sax cuz you can barely hear it anyway. The only thing that matters to them is how well you march.</p>
<p>what instrument do you play?</p>
<p>so i guess marching plays a role in whether or not you become an alternate? like do they monitor your progress during band camp and if you suck balls at marching you just become an alternate? or do they actually designate alternates by your audition tape? ugh...is it really that hard to learn how to march?</p>
<p>they designate alternates by watching you march during band camp. Marching is actually not hard to learn at all. Its just that once you're an alternate, they make you sit out. And it's pretty damn hard to memorize the drills when you're sitting there and not marching them. I still tried though; at the beginning of the season, I tried shadowing (following behind someone else) whenever I can. And I would keep asking them to give me a chance. They would basically say to you, "ok, march this run through, and I'll see how well you do." If you've been following someone else around or sitting out most of the time, there's no way you're gonna be able to march it perfectly when they ask you to. So then they watch you miss a step or two, and then go, "well, it looks like you're still not too strong, your marching needs more work, blah blah blah, maybe next game." And then the week after, same thing happens. It's a sad cycle.</p>
<p>hmm. if you suck at marching, be a flag...
doesn't matter how well you march, all he's looking at is the flag anyways!!!!
/rant</p>
<p>sofakingwangsta's opinion of marching band seems really biased. Yes, being an alternate is not fun but all freshman are generally treated, well...like freshman. which means being made fun of, picked on etc (but this is common for all freshman anywhere). you just have to get used to it since you can eventually pick on freshman after your first year.
i was not an alternate my freshman year but i was accepted into ucla because of marching band. if you are accepted or get in from a marching band appeal, you better not drop band after one year (gordon will hunt you down). marching band is the most fun i think i could ever have in college. i would highly recommend you do it if you get in and have the ability to do so.</p>
<p>brassman's opinion is biased from... well, a non-alternate's and brass' point of view :P I guess there's no such thing as a non-biased opinion.</p>
<p>nah, I know freshmen who have a good time in band. It all just depends whether you're an alternate or not.</p>
<p>btw, I didn't know you can get into ucla with marching band. Can Gordon actually do anything to you though if you drop marching band after a year? Since marching band is basically a course... he can't really force you to enroll in a class, can he?</p>
<p>No he can't force you to enroll but I imagine he'll give you hell for it (such as phone calls, emails etc). Are you kidding? I wrote my big essay all about marching band.</p>
<p>Gordon hates woodwinds and favors brass because he did SCV (santa clara vanguard...drum corps international, for all you non band people) and was the Brass Caption head and all arranged as well. I did a band appeal in addition to a normal one. I can play everything well except clarinet and flute and was drum major for 2 years and assistant drum major for one. Band is what you make of it, you practice so much sometimes you turn off parts of your brain and go on autopilot.</p>
<p>how hard is it to get into drumline?
also is there a mallet percussion in ucla's marching band as well?</p>