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High school marching bands have evolved into elaborate productions, with hundreds of performers, specialized staff and budgets reaching into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Known increasingly as the “marching arts,” the activity includes about 20,000 band programs nationwide. Some bands have as many as 400 members, while leading programs employ composers, drill designers and choreographers alongside their band directors. Fleets of trucks carry instruments, costumes, props and sound systems to competitions.
Indianapolis has become a center of the competitive circuit through the Grand National Championships, which draw bands from across the country. Two perennial contenders are located just 25 miles apart: the Avon High School Marching Black and Gold and the Carmel High School Marching Greyhounds.
Together, Avon and Carmel have won the national competition 11 times in the past 20 years. Some elite programs also field color guards with as many as 50 girls.
Today’s performances go far beyond familiar football halftime numbers such as “Louie, Louie.” Bands execute curves, clusters and sharp-angled formations while tackling demanding works such as Bartók’s “Concerto for Orchestra.” Students perform from memory as they march, dance and crab-step sideways across the field.
The scale is far removed from the Vincennes, Indiana, Alices, a 160-member high school band that won the Indiana State Championship in 1962. Despite its success, the band operated on a small budget, transporting both students and instruments in an old school bus.
The band nevertheless opened new horizons for its members. Some had never left Vincennes before traveling to Washington, D.C., to perform on the Capitol steps, marching along the Boardwalk in New Jersey or appearing in Canada.
On another trip, the band traveled to Mason City, Iowa, to compete for an opportunity to appear in the movie version of “The Music Man.” After the group lost, its director—convinced the students deserved to win—marched the band off the field while claiming the contest had been rigged.
Whether competing with modest resources in the 1960s or mounting sophisticated productions today, students gain many of the same lessons from band: patience, discipline, cooperation and an understanding of excellence.