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Minarets’ Marvelous Marching Band

Screen Shot 2016-02-09 at 10.21.07 AMWritten by Nick Hunt

O’NEALS — The Minarets High School Marching Band is unique from other high school bands because the percussion is student-led, meaning that we students get to choose and make our own cadences (songs).

When we make our own songs or choose what to play, the entire percussion group gets to take part in choosing, rather than just one person.

Screen Shot 2016-02-09 at 10.20.43 AMThe percussion section of the band also plays in the schools rallies, and we get to create our own performance for the rallies.

There is an “instructor” for the percussion section because it counts as its own class, but the instructor lets us practice our own songs and do our own creative thing with our drums. The rest of the band is taught by our instructor, Brett Moglia.

Whenever we have a performance coming up, such as a parade, we will practice our march and playing while marching. In the band you have to be able to play your part while marching on beat, in step with the rest of the band.

Screen Shot 2016-02-09 at 10.21.24 AMYou also have to know the form, where your place is in the block, where to march, your turns, and the call-outs. The Minarets Marching Band does silent call outs, which means you have to pay attention to the band instructor while marching with everyone else and playing, to see his/her signs to let us know if we are stopping or turning.

Our band plays at all of the home football games, and we have special songs that we will play for the games whenever a touchdown is achieved by our team, and more. We march our way onto the field, and we march around the entire field most of the time, to the bleachers on the far end of the field.

Screen Shot 2016-02-09 at 10.21.33 AMWhen we sit down, we play the songs that the instructor asks us to play when needed. Once it’s halftime, we sometimes play a song at the beginning, and get the rest of halftime to go and get food and drinks and take a break from playing.

Nick Hunt is a Minarets student enrolled in Digital Writing

For more information contact Minarets at this link.

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