Band prepares for upcoming season

Members of the Russellville High School Marching Hundred attended band camp this past week to prepare for the upcoming football and competition season.

Most people see different sports teams practicing long hours to get ready for their upcoming seasons, but people may not realize that band students in the area are putting in the long – and hot – hours as well.
For the past two weeks, the Russellville High School Marching Hundred has been involved with several different camps to get students prepared for the upcoming season.
Last week, colorguard, majorette and dance line members worked on their specific routines and “rookie” band members learned marching band basics.
The full band also gathered to begin learning the music for this year’s halftime show that will feature music from The Jackson Five including the duet “Reach Out and Touch Someone’s Hand;” “Never Can Say Goodbye;” “I Want You Back” featuring the low brass, percussion and colorguard; “ABC” and “Rockin’ Robin” featuring the majorettes and dance line; and the closing ballad “I’ll be There.”
This week, the entire band met each day for the official “band camp” week to work on marching basics, drill, sets and music – and they did most of this on the asphalt of the high school’s driver’s education parking lot in the 90-degree heat.
“We’ve always had a week-long band camp but this year it’s almost been like two full weeks,” band director Gary McNutt said. “It can be a bit of a shock, especially to the rookies who aren’t used to how physically demanding practices can be.
“In addition to marching basics and drill, we also do physical training in the mornings, like jogging and aerobics, to get conditioned. The horn players have to learn how to control their breathing so they can march and play at the same time; the drummers have to learn to carry these heavy drums while they’re marching; the auxiliary have to be able to do their routines while going to different sets – it’s a lot to take in and it can be tough if you’re not used to it, especially in this heat.”
McNutt said the past two weeks of practices were mandatory for anyone wanting to participate in marching band this season because so much is taught during this time period that it would be hard to get caught up.
“This week is really the foundation for what we’ll do the rest of the year,” McNutt said. “We get all the groundwork done for the show, both the music and the drill, so it’s important to be here for that.”
McNutt said the week of band camp is so important to a band program that many directors opt to take their students to an out-of-town location so students will be able to devote their entire attention to getting things just right.
“Band camp is vital to what we do because it’s a time for us to really focus and devote all our time to getting the show ready,” he said. “School hasn’t started so the kids don’t have homework or other activities to deal with. They can just focus on learning as much as they can learn in a two-week period of time.”
Senior band member Matthew Sewell, who is serving as the drum major this year, has been marching since the eighth grade so he knows how important this week was for the band program.
“This has been an intense week for everyone,” Sewell said. “It’s very important for every band member to be here and give it 110 percent because it takes every single band member to be successful. Even if we’re just missing three people, that can really mess things up.”
As drum major, Sewell is in a position of leadership, but he said the Marching Hundred will have many leaders this year.
“We have a lot of seniors but we also have a lot of rookies, so we’re weighted pretty heavily on either end,” he said. “That situation can be challenging and sometimes it’s hard to get 150 people going in the same direction, but I think we’ll be able to work together this year and accomplish great things.”
That kind of attitude is exactly what McNutt wants to see – dedication to be a good program.
“I’m extremely proud of the kids and the staff for the way they have worked this week,” he said. “It just makes you proud to be part of the Golden Tiger family and it gets your ready for Friday night football and Russellville Dogs.”
But just because the two weeks of camp are over doesn’t mean the hard work is over. McNutt said they will continue to work on the music and drill and clean up all the sets up until October so the show is as seamless as possible for not only the Friday night halftime show but for the competitions they will go to as well.
“We don’t have to have two weeks of practices, we don’t have to practice in the morning, the afternoon and in the evening, and we don’t have to keep on practicing throughout the year,” McNutt said. “We could just coast and we could lower our standards, but that’s not the way this program is built. We don’t want to be average – we want to be great.
“There is a standard of excellence we are reaching to achieve, and it’s a standard the alumni that have gone on before us have set. We always want to make sure we are doing our best to maintain that standard.”