<p>My son is interested in participating in U-M marching band in Freshman year. </p>
<p>How hard is it to get in?</p>
<p>How much time a marching band member needs to commit each week? Is it manageble? </p>
<p>Any information is appreciated.</p>
<p>Marching band auditions are competitive. The time commitment is quite significant. It requires arriving in Ann Arbor early and there is practice every afternoon around 4:00. The time commitment is manageable but requires you to make choices with what you do with the rest of your time. It is a great experience that carries with you long after your days in Ann Arbor. It is exciting to watch the alumni band perform at homecoming. But it is not for everyone.</p>
<p>There are plenty of other options at U-M if the time commitment for marching band is too much. I believe there is a concert band that requires a commitment of one evening per week.</p>
<p>I’ve heard all of this second or third hand. If your son is interested in the marching band, he should try to talk to someone who is in it. If you don’t know anyone or can’t find anyone, I would suggest having your son email the director of the marching band and ask him to refer your son to student who can answer his questions.</p>
<p>I’m an incoming freshman and might be interested in marching band. Do you need lots of experience? My HS doesn’t have marching band. Are most of the members from the school of music?</p>
<p>You’re not required to march in the actual audition, so experience in directly marching is really only an advantage when trying to make block (or perform in the games). I know there are students from the school of music in the band, but definitely not the majority. Everyone I know in the marching band is either in LSA or the RC.</p>
<p>Check out the MMB website - [Michigan</a> Marching Band](<a href=“http://mmb.music.umich.edu/]Michigan”>http://mmb.music.umich.edu/)</p>
<p>More MMB info on the following YouTube video - <a href=“Pride of UMich - YouTube”>Pride of UMich - YouTube;
<p>Former MMB member here, marched for 4 years and just graduated. I was heavily involved in many aspects of the band (student staff, volunteer staff, etc.), especially the audition process. Feel free to PM with any questions!</p>
<p>Addressing some general questions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How hard to get in?
Depends heavily by section and by year. Some sections are cyclic (really big classes one year and then smaller classes for the next few), while others have been very low on numbers in recent years.</p></li>
<li><p>Time per week?
Practice is 4:45-6:15 M-F, with an extra hour of sectionals a week, and challenges (where you try out for the next show) occur on Fridays after rehearsal. Expect Saturdays to be completely consumed by morning rehearsal and the actual game.</p></li>
<li><p>Experience?
Not necessary. The first cut is just the musical audition, and if you make the cut, you are in the MMB. Further auditions (challenges) require marching, but that is only to determine who marches shows. (Note: drumline/flags are different, check out the website and contact the percussion/flag instructor for details).</p></li>
<li><p>School of Music?
Very few. The plurality of MMB members are engineers, I believe.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Check out the website for audition specifics, and I’ll would be thrilled to answer any more questions!</p>
<p>How musically skilled do you have to be in the marching band? Like, do you need to be on an all-county level or more like just level 3 or 4 ability?</p>
<p>Tenors, I’m not familiar with either system you mentioned. In my personal experience, nearly everyone in my section was a section leader in high school, even at the bottom of the section.</p>
<p>Basically I mean how good musically do you have to be. But what you also said was good enough.</p>
<p>Eh, looking at my last post again, that was quite a BS answer. Section leaders definitely vary based on how competitive their high school bands were - if they even were competitive (I know people who didn’t do chairs in high school).</p>
<p>So how it works is that auditions are taped, and near the end of orientation, the directors sit down and listen to the tapes, then look at how many open spots there are in every section. Numbers aren’t rigid, so we’ve been known to go over quota for some sections. We’ve also had people who re-auditioned and got in on their second or third try.</p>
<p>Thanks Tenor for the answers to my questions. Very helpful. Why is it that very few MMB members are from the school of music? Could it be a schedule/timing thing? I am entering school of music and am concerned it may be impossible to do MMB due to other required ensemble rehearsals. Thinking I should wait till my sophomore year to audition for MMB so I can figure out what my time commitments will be.</p>
<p>Interesting–at Wisconsin many in the very good MB are also in engineering and few are in music school. I sense a trend.</p>
<p>My experience isn’t nearly as recent as digifreak’s 
But I was in the MMB. A few thoughts:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>A couple of posters have mentioned that you need to make it into the “block” to march in shows (at games, etc.). It kind of sucks to not be in the block (I was for a season). Marched in one show the whole season – honestly, it was a lot of work for just that one time. You still need to practice every day. If you come from a school that does not have a marching band, you are likely at a disadvantage in terms of making the block, too. I was a very good player (they did ranking during tryouts, and I was something like 20th in a very large section), so it wasn’t that keeping me out.</p></li>
<li><p>My experience was that it was a lot easier when you lived on the side of campus that practice is on (South or West Quad, for example). I lived up on the hill for part of one season, and it is a long trek down there (even though I had a bike).</p></li>
<li><p>It is time consuming, but a good way to make friends. I ended up quitting after two seasons, though, it was just too much time for me. I wanted to experience more of the other activities Michigan has to offer. But I have friends who did it all four years and loved it – they really define a huge part of their Michigan experience as band members.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>digifreak here; I’d never intended to post with my old account since I just made it for information gathering, but here’s my legitimate account. </p>
<p>@jhg:
- School of Music and MMB?</p>
<p>From my observations, I think it’s mostly performance majors who are discouraged from marching. A trumpet performance major joined the drumline after a few years, and I’ve heard that was the case for him. Another time, I auditioned a tuba performance major who was very excited about MMB, but he simply never showed up for band camp. Of the SoM marchers I knew of, there were two Music Ed. students and two people marching on secondary instruments.</p>
<p>Also MMB is a huge time commitment, and I know one of my fellow section members just transferred to SoM, so he’s leaving MMB to have more time to practice. But MMB is very forgiving about missing time; you have to make it up by working, but as student staff I’d definitely gone out of my way to manufacture work for people. Not a big deal. </p>
<p>The audition comes with a tour and information video, so you are more than welcome to attend that and postpone the actual audition. Also, if Prof. Boerma or Pasquale are around during your orientation, then you could probably share your concerns with them too.</p>
<p>Hi, Int. Thanks for your input :] What did you play?</p>
<p>Thoughts on Int’s thoughts:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I would disagree about not having previous marching experience being a disadvantage as far as making block. Unless you’re from a competitive HS marching band, you’re probably marching “incorrectly.” Personally, I really struggled un-learning bad habits. And yeah, not making block kind of sucks. But there’s often a lot of turnover in block with newer members, since it’s really hard to maintain the fundamentals while memorizing spots and songs. I’d say, at least within my section, that more people are cycling in and out now than when I started.</p></li>
<li><p>Definitely time consuming as hell. It’s really frustrating that nearly every student org has meetings during rehearsal. Undoubtedly my biggest regret in joining marching band was not being able to participate in non-band organizations, but I did dump my time in as much band as possible, so I’m satisfied. I’m still suffering from the massive void from being done, though.</p></li>
</ol>