Changes.
December 20, 2005, 04:07 pmSo did you watch it? Of course, you know that I'm talking about the KMEA State Marching Band Championships that were on KET on Sunday.
Yeah, I miss marching band.
I saw two of my directors. I wish I could hang out with Chuck for a couple hours and talk about music.
When I was still in marching band, a lot of the bigger bands had PAs that they would use to amplify woodwind soloists, which I always thought was kindof lame. It seems a new trend is to also use PAs to narrate parts of the show. Gross! Lame!
Also, a number of bands had fucking keyboards. LaFayette had a crazy synth (that was ridiculously prominent) and I think John Hardin opened their second song with a piano part. (I told Mark and he said, “Piano is my favorite marching band instrument!”).
Lastly, it seems like the sound kindof sucks for these things. I'm always seeing mics setup (X/Y or ORTF?) on the sidelines. WTF? Who listens to a marching band on the sidelines? They should just setup a Decca Tree or something up by the press box. Or at least 30 feet or so away. I hate when you hear a bunch of fucking french horns get loud and then soft just because they marched past the mics.
I guess there isn't much of a competitive market for marching band audio engineers.