<p>Reading the responses, I think there is a disconnect here, I don’t think anyone is saying that marching band isn’t worthwhile or somehow ‘less worthy’, they were responding in the context of the original question, which is what did people think about the value of marching band to someone presumably majoring in music, more then likely music performance, and that is the context of the responses. </p>
<p>Having done marching band in high school, and having seen high school marching bands that were incredible, it isn’t that there isn’t value to it, or that the kids doing it are doing something special, they are. It is a team built experience and to be good at it, to be the kind of bands that win competitions and such, it takes a lot of dedication and commitment.</p>
<p>In the context of a kid seriously thinking of going into music performance, something my S is heading into and having seen what kids do to reach for that, the benefits of marching band to me are outweighed by the negatives of doing it (negative in the context of preparing for a BM program). The discipline and teamwork and such are helpful, but here are the negatives:</p>
<p>-Marching band takes a lot of time, at least at a serious level, lot of practices and work. While that discipline is not a bad thing, kids seriously heading into music already have a lot of things to do. Practice is a large slot of each day, serious music students heading to conservatory practice several hours a day, and many of them belong to youth orchestras and chamber groups that further takes their day.Add that to schoolwork, and marching band’s demand on time can take away from the other aspects. </p>
<p>-The kind of skills marching band requires of a musician are different then that for a concert performer or soloist, marching bands combine a stage show with the music, and the emphasis is not on the kind of sound required from an orchestra or other traditional performances, and because of that what you learn to do in marching band is not likely to help you ace an audition into a music program (would if you were heading into a marching band program at the college level, but that is different). </p>
<p>-For kids whose primary instrument isn’t a marching band instrument (violin, piano, cello, etc, etc) they would be spending time working on a totally different instrument from their primary one, and while it is not a bad thing to learn about other instruments per se, it doesn’t do much in terms of working towards getting into a BM program. </p>
<p>-Entrance into performance programs are very different then getting into a college for academics. Marching band as an EC would probably be a plus, but music schools from everything I can tell don’t really look at the music CV all that much (might be in borderline cases), everything is the audition, and I suspect then that marching band if heading into a conservatory or performance program within a LAC would give much of an edge, to be honest, even if they look at the CV. If a student had the choice between a marching band or a youth symphony or chamber program, the latter would count a lot more (if it counts that much at all). </p>
<p>Again, I think marching bands are a wonderful experience (well, okay, i can say that looking back, in my HS it was like another poster, we had to do marching band if we wanted to be in the music program) and you do learn a lot there, I am just saying that I don’t think that for kids heading into music programs that the kinds of things it teaches add up to a plus for heading into music school as a BM and given the amount of time it takes, given how much effort it takes to get into a performance program, marching band IMO is probably more a negative then a positive in terms of what it teaches, and as far as being an edge on admissions, it probably isn’t. I would be saying something different for music education or even as an EC for admit to an academic program, but for performance, I would say it isn’t worth the effort.</p>