<p>Anybody familiar with Yale's Jazz Band and Marching Band? Is music a strong area as well as academics? We've seen the whole spectrum on our college visits, some uni's bands are not as good as our HS...</p>
<p>The Jazz Ensemble is excellent (in my opinion–my son was in it for a while). The Concert Band is also very good, and does some interesting tours (the last one was to South Africa).</p>
<p>The marching band is a different story. The Yale Precision Marching Band is one of the Ivy League “scramble” or “scatter” bands (all the Ivies except Cornell follow this model). Although they try to play well, the focus is on being funny. You should check out their webpage for more info, and you can see videos of them on YouTube as well. It’s a lot of fun, and not a huge time commitment, but if somebody is interested in a traditional marching band, it may come as something of a shock. For example, here’s the YPMB last year–this is their entry in the Hawaii 5-0 marching band theme song competition:
<a href=“Aloha -- The YPMB Vs. Hawaii Five-O - YouTube”>Aloha -- The YPMB Vs. Hawaii Five-O - YouTube;
They didn’t win. My son is the kid playing the guitar behind his head, and his roommate is the kid with the musical saw–that kid is going to be the drum major this year.</p>
<p>Thanks, that’s really helpful. Loved the video! I guess Marching Band should be fun,
Jazz - more intense :)</p>