Marching Band

While the exact roots are not accurately known, hazing has likely existed for countless generations.  Intended to mentally and physically acclimate new members to organizations, this tactic usually backfires, as evidenced by the recent death of Robert Champion on November 19, 2011.  There are many types of marching bands, but some of those in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) run a higher risk of hazing susceptibility than those of Predominately White Institutions (PWIs) due to their high-profile status, intense level of competitive spirit, and the intrinsic cultural need for bonding, loyalty, cohesion, brotherhood, and sisterhood.  Understanding, addressing, and preventing this issue will not come through legal measures alone, as such attempts in the past have only driven members to adapt and resort to further subversion.  This case study was conducted on the campus of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and centered on interview, focus group, observational, document review, and audiovisual material review data pertaining to the school’s marching band, the “Blue and Gold Marching Machine.”  The findings support the claims that educators and administrators should a) understand the psychosocial (psychological and social) factors that are the root causes of hazing, b) address potential hazing climates by analyzing and shaping organizational culture while working to dispel long-standing negative ideologies, and c) preventing hazing cultures from forming by instilling leadership development, particularly in the servant-leadership style.  This holistic course of action would prove to be more efficient and sustainable than past methods, many of which center only on regulations, punitive measures, and policies alone.

From the 1850s wind and brass bands started mushrooming in all the towns and villages of the Maltese Islands. This brought great changes to the Musicians of traditional instruments who previously had defined roles within the Maltese community and who played music that was improvised or unwritten.

This was a paper read in the Seminar EXPLORING THE TRADITIONS AND ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTION OF LOCAL BANDS (Gozo, 2015).

Hospitality is a sacred obligation that counts among humanity’s oldest customs. Since ancient times, hosts have been called to recognize the divinity of visitors and ensure guests receive food, drink and shelter, asking nothing in return.  Drawing on brass band culture and engaging the public through the medium of alternative community street band performances, HONK! festivals invite musical exploration and celebration for free. Musicians travel at personal expense and, in return for the free public performances they offer, they receive food, drink and shelter from local volunteers. This report explores this unique intersection of modern ethnomusicology and hospitality anthropology, and will describe the organization behind, and experience of, hosting 195 visiting community street band musicians during the inaugural HONK!TX festival. Ultimately, it attempts to answer the question: why do volunteers open their homes to strangers?

This paper explores the interaction of the embodied practices of musicking and discourse in bringing forth identity and creating community in contexts of marching, playing, singing, dancing and bantering during the visit of Sir George White Memorial Flute Band from Broughshane, County Antrim, to an Orange lodge in the Ayrshire mining village of New Cumnock, on the occasion of the annual celebration of the Battle of the Boyne. 

    The paper shows that communal embodied experiences of musicking can both define and transcend boundaries whilst bringing forth communal identities, and also highlights the strategic uses of discourse to account for embodied ways of being in the world, and to define and redefine the nature of the community being produced.
In Reily, Suzel & Katherine Brucher. 2013. Brass Bands of the World: Militarism, Colonial Legacies and Local Music Making. Ashgate: Farnham.

The paper draws on work by Victor and Edith Turner to explore the long term political effects of transitory but powerful emotional experiences in bonding band members to each other and to the broader social world of working-class loyalism within which these experiences are brought forth.

This research study identifies techniques of creating and releasing musical tension in audio-visual performance media, specifically within the marching arts. A successful composition in this medium is defined, in part, by the coordination of effects between pitched musical elements, non-pitched (percussive) musical elements, and movement (choreographed) elements. Such compositions create a concert performance situation in which there is aesthetic gratification and a sense of sophistication in which aural stimuli interact in congruence and in conjunction with visual stimuli. By identifying the creative practice through conversation with practitioners, designers, choreographers, and composers, the common practices of the genre can be identified to better inform future design and composition endeavors. This will benefit not only the marching arts but also those directors and musicians who wish to create enhanced, audio-visual performances in any setting.