Win the Dot!
My high school designing season is over, but I’m right in the heart of everything university band related. I’m still designing and then teaching/rehearsing every morning. We are currently finishing up show #4 of 7 for the season. So we are truly at the halfway point. Our season will continue roughly another 7 weeks and we’ll learn 3 more halftimes as well as a partial alternate pre-game.
While the high school designing season lasts from basically May to September, once I finish a design I’m pretty much finished with it. I send it to the client and that ends the process other than waiting for all that money to roll in. :) Yes, it does take a toll on my time and sometimes my patience. But the university season is a real grind, because I’m constantly working through a cycle of designing, teaching, rehearsing, and performing from the 2nd week of August until the end of November…..and if the football team plays well enough, it could continue into January.
Did I mention we are currently at the halfway mark in our show preps? We are also approaching mid-term. You know that students are hitting mid-term because they are spending long hours studying or preparing projects. When you see them in the morning, they just don’t have the same pep they did in August before classes started and they looked forward to their semester with great anticipation. Now reality is starting to set in. I know high school BDs experience the same phenomenon. I did for the 21 years I taught high school. We would come out of the gate at band camp just blazin’ and then school would start……..The learning pace would begin to slow and suddenly it would be more difficult to keep students engaged and excited. I had to be a real cheerleader sometimes. Fast forward to this year….
My students have unwittingly given me blog material. They kind of hit a wall this week. I wouldn’t say they hit THE WALL. Instead of the Green Monster in Fenway’s left field, it was more like a short concrete retaining wall. An obstacle for sure, but not impossible to overcome. Add to the whole mid-term thing the fact that our current show is the most challenging yet this season in regards to music and visual design. There is a lot of color guard integration so that means pass throughs and routing and, etc. Just lots of detail work in most every phrase. It can get tedious.
So during rehearsal yesterday, some things were said. I didn’t get to hear them, but learned of them later in the day. It boiled down to members not being kind to one another in regards to moving from dot to dot. “I have to get to my dot and you are in my way.” Or something like that. There was frustration and more importantly hurt feelings.
This got me thinking. While not everything has a sports analogy equivalent, I really like using them. You often hear athletes and coaches talking about “winning plays”. Meaning if you best your opponent during enough plays, you win the game. Don’t worry about the game as a whole, concentrate on winning as many individual plays as possible. This can apply to a unit or an individual. How many plays does your offensive tackle “win”? How many times do they best the defender across the line of scrimmage from them achieving their offensive blocking assignment?
As band directors, designers, and techs, we too ask our players (performers) to win plays. We ask them to win their dots (coordinates on the field). And we don’t just ask them to win their dots during static pictures that their corporate dots form, we ask them to win their dots each count of the movement to get to those formations. That’s a lot of dots/wins!!! One for every count of the entire 7-8 minute show!!
Now think of the individual band member. They can win EVERY dot and the group still underachieve. How? Well, it’s not just enough to win my dots. I need to win my dots in a way so everyone around me can win their dots too! The star running back is relying on his offensive linemen to individually win their plays so the running back can break through the line of scrimmage for that first down. The same thing applies to our marching band performers. As a performer, I need to win my dot in such a way it helps you win yours.
All of this takes kindness, patience, communication, and consistency. The performers must deal with each other kindly. Being direct isn’t necessarily bad, it can be done in a kind way. Being patient with the process and with others while working through reps in order to get routing worked out is really important. Communicating with those around them in the form is crucial to the success of the group effort. And finally, working to be consistently accurate in achieving the dot helps those other performers to adjust and key off of each other to guide.
Here are some guidelines I apply.
Performers moving backward always have the right of way. Yes, they have to be consistent and predictable, but they can’t see behind them, so……
Performers may need to alter they pathway in order to accommodate others in the space. This usually is the case when the performer is moving independently of a unit in a form. A group of performers could also corporately alter a pathway. Clearly, a performer who is part of a form must take the appropriate pathway of the form.
Performers may alter the step size within a given phrase to accommodate others in the space. The default is usually, “Take equal sized steps throughout the phrase.” If the phrase is 16 counts long, then the performers are to use 16 equal sized steps to achieve their assigned dots. However, sometimes it is necessary for performers to use a slightly smaller or larger step during a phrase to accommodate a pass through or to allow another performer to pass in front or behind them.
Be consistent and predictable. Over the course of a few repetitions of the phrase, zero in on the pathway and step size. Identify the halfway point of the phrase and be there on the middle count. This will help others gauge their movements based on yours.
Be patient and kind. First try to coordinate with others by cooperating and working as a group to solve the challenge in any given phrase. If the group effort isn’t able to solve the issue, then seek advice from a staff member/director. What a great environment for cooperative learning!
Win the Dot! Win all of the Dots!!—DB
