Marching: Horn Position Guidelines

What a great episode for those of us who might be newer to creating a uniform look with our marching ensembles. And a great review for the veterans! Detailed thoughts on what creates a uniform look for your group at set position, for horns up, and in trail position. Bonus: teaching the flutter step, or platform run! Bonus Bonus: LOTS of tips and tricks from 30+ years of experience and stealing others wisdom!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Man. We are rolling through a series on making you a better educator as far as translating marching concepts to your kids. I hope that you enjoyed it so far. Um it's it's it's amazing to me that um I don't guess I should say it's amazing. I'm I'm very appreciative of the fact that you cataloged all of this knowledge that you've acquired over you know three decades and kind of put it into form. Yeah, you know acquired stolen legal terminology. Yeah. Or, you know, hey, I found it. Mitigating the prison sentence. But we man, I hope people are taking advantage of this uh stolen knowledge and we're helping them get ready for another great year, uh another great fall season for marching. So thanks for doing that. And uh where are we? Where are we gonna pick back up in this? I mean, I think we talked about some of our core principles last week being uh some some core strength was really important, learning to balance and and that kind of stuff. What are we gonna dive into today, Mr. Lunny?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Well, just some guidelines and uh ways I like to do as far as horn positions and uh how we uh teach things like the flutter step or a platform run and horns at trail and kind of talk about things like that. These these are things that kind of get overlooked a lot, you know, and and we we stage a certain thing on the field and we tell the kids to get over there, and it just kind of looks like you know, a Chinese fire drill kind of thing, you know, everybody jumping out of their car and running around. And it's like, you know, we need to have kind of something to make it look uniform, even though in essence it's kind of chaotic. And one of the hardest things about teaching is it's much like what we're trying to get the kids to do. We need to teach in a way that looks effortless. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

And it looks like we know what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yeah, and in our mind, it's got to be like a thousand steps going on in our it's chaos in our brain because we're trying to figure out exactly how we're gonna do this. And and we go through all the steps on how to do it because we don't, but we need to make it look effortless because if we look frustrated and if we look like we're not quite sure and we're having to think about things too much, then it makes it harder for the kids to learn. I hope that makes sense to everybody, you know, because then they get frustrated, you know, because they're like, I'm not sure. Is he gonna change this tomorrow? He doesn't sound or she doesn't sound really sure about this.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Right. They don't sound like they really know for sure that's what they want us to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah. So, you know, we talked about posture on the previous podcast, how important that was. And now let's talk about kind of the set position, what we do with our instruments. And this is one of the hardest things, I think, to teach because we want it to look the same. And that makes it really hard because it has to be defined so well. And there's a really cool thing that I kind of base a lot of what I do on is that uh in order to learn this, you have to have grit. And grit is that predictor of success. Grit is being able to persevere through uh mindless repetitions so many times because you know the outcome is going to be good. And that's grit. And I think it's important to realize that there was a great TED talk on this, talking about this lady talked about how grit was the determining factor of success. Said it was more important than intelligence, it was more important than looks, it was more important than IQ. It was the ability to stick to something and do it over and over and over and fine-tune it's more important than having the intelligence of knowing how it's supposed to be done.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna uh champion what you just said in an kind of a we our friend Rusty Gray. We we did an episode with Rusty Gray, described to me that he was in an environment where he had some really highly intelligent and um uh he had a re his clientele was really always trying to be successful, yeah, and they were very smart. But part of the issue he found trying to teach them was those really smart young men and women who tried to find shortcuts because they were intelligent. Yeah, well, it would be so much easier if I just did this. And they would ask him, Mr. Craig, can't we just do it this way? No, that's not the right way to do it, but it's easier. I get it that it's easier, but it's not the right way, and long term we have to do things the right way, even if it's not the easy way. You know, there's an old movie, the cowboy way, it makes me laugh. That would be the easy way, but it's not the cowboy way.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

But uh I I kind of hear you saying that when everybody will uh gravitate to the easy, and the grit says, no, I'm gonna do it no matter how hard it is, I'm gonna do it the right way.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yeah, yeah. Cool, great concept. It's just repetition forever, okay. Um, so it's set position is how we hold our instruments, you know, when we're on the field, have our posture set. So now we put horns in their hands. Okay. So that's set position. So for me, for flutes and clarinet clarinets, you know, perpendicular to the ground, you know, so we don't lean the mouthpiece towards us or away from us.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

You're speaking of the instrument, it's perpendicular to the ground.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yeah, yeah. Flutes and clarinets are perpendicular to the ground. Um, and it's away from the body. And I like to call it beach ball arms. You know, it's like if you're holding a big old giant beach ball, you're gonna make your arms curved. And so we want the arms to be curved. We do I guess the another way to say it is just make sure that no part of the body touches the rib cages. You know, we have to have our our elbows have to be out, okay? They just have to be. Okay. And we have to make sure that, and I like to have it where the the left thumb of whether it's flute or clarinet is at eye level. And that gives them a nice reference point. And it can be anything you want it to be in your band. That's why it's in a word document, you know, the downloadable form is a word doc, because some people do it different ways, you know what I mean? Right. I'm just so if I'm holding my flute, my left thumb is gonna be eye level. That way the head joint's gonna be about four inches above my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Which is frankly higher than I would have anticipated. But I get it. I'm just learning.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of as things have moved through these the decades. You know, there was a time when it was like keep the top of the flute eye level or with your nose or whatever. But even that, it's like, you know, it's a it's a we want the instrument high enough to where it shows strength.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

And if the if the arms are like beach ball arms, if you've got them where they're curved, it just looks strong as you push the horn away from your body. If you hold the horn up against your body, it looks weak. If you hold the horn away from your body with extended arms, it looks strong. If you hold the horn more up in the air, it'll look stronger. And in fact, there's a great physical part of it too, is if you have the horn set up the way I've I've got it situated in this document, then when we go from set position, horns down, you know, to horns up, then if I'm playing. Yeah, it goes right there instead of having to go up and over.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Up and over, it just turns. It's like with the trumpet set just right, it's just like turning a doorknob, you just turn your wrist, and the mouthpiece goes to your face. Think about that. So it's not this where we're pulling.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

There is a method to the madness.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Yeah, there's method to the madness, okay. Um, so and you can fine-tune it all you you want to, but that that's kind of how I put in the document for saxophones and a lot of us march bass clarinets. Um, you know, we want it to be uh parallel to the ground. In other words, I have my saxophone left to right in front of my body. So it's parallel to the ground, not perpendicular. Okay, so it's parallel to the ground, okay, and we push it away from the belly. Sax players are the worst about it. They like to rest that thing on their tummy. You know what I mean? It says push it away from your stomach, you know, and and uh so just get it out there, you know, so that way it looks stronger for it. And then when they do their horns up, if they have it in the right place in front of their body, when they do the horns up, it's just a mouth just comes straight to their mouth. So they don't have to manipulate it up or down to do it. Um, so that that works for me, okay. For all of our bell front people, you know, the most important people in the band are the trumpets. So we need to make sure that they, you know, melophones, trumpets, any of that bell front stuff, even just ask them trombone. They just ask them, they'll tell you. And if they won't tell you, their mamas will tell you. Okay, so bell front, the bell is parallel to the ground, which makes the horn perpendicular to the ground. Right. If that makes sense, okay. And first valves at eye level. Okay, so I like to do it with melophones and trumpets. Their first valve is right there with your eyes. And I know a lot of times in the olden days, we would do it where the top of the mouthpiece was eye level. But um, but the problem is when you do that, when you hold the horn up, when you pull it up to playing position, you have to lift it to do like that. If you do it where it's the first valve, then all I have to do is turn my wrist. And we like to, when we teach, you know, we we talked in the previous one about, you know, the front of the brain, the back of the brain, et cetera, et cetera. Certain things in our life are already habits, right? So if we can align anything we're doing new with an old habit, we've got an advantage. So I can tell them said uh trumpets is like, you know, when you reach and you grab a doorknob, you turn it with your wrist, right? You've done that a million times in your lifetime. That's all you're gonna do with your trumpet, just turn the doorknob.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Turn the doorknob, and the mouthpiece will be where it's supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

We're adding to already to knowledge they already have as opposing to creating exceptions to the knowledge they already have.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yes, and even more important, the knowledge habit.

unknown 10:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

You understand what I mean. You're not reteaching them a whole new move. You're saying now you already know that move, turn your wrist.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah. So we just and we just say that we don't explain that to them the why we're doing it because uh it they won't care. They just won't. Um, but we know it. We know it's anything we can do to make it seem like you know, uh seem like it's it's it's this is how we taught it. But then we say it's just like turning a doorknob, so it goes back into the back part of their brain where it's just habit. And so they can they can access that really quickly and they don't have to think about it anymore. It's just turn a doorknob, you know, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

You know what? I'm gonna tell you something that it's it's a short one. We have a shop at at Tarpley here. We have our woodwind shop, one of our woodwind shops, has a doorknob on it. But there's something about that doorknob that if you don't turn it the correct way, it won't open. It won't go far enough to release. But it's the opposite of every other doorknob that I've taught myself to open in my life. So inevitably, you just try to do that, and I run into bang the door, go I have to turn it back the other way.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

It's like those dang old-fashioned USB things. I always put it in backwards first.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

But my my point being, I my my motor, my my hind brain automatically tries to open it the way I've opened every other doorknob in my life.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

That's right. And then your frontal cortex goes, you idiot, as it's smashed up against the door, and you got a bruise now. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's interesting. I find it it's kind of geeking out on it, but I find it interesting how our brain operates. Right. You know, how can utilize that to our advantage as we're working bands and just to live life, you know, kind of thing. And uh for those bell fronts, you know, first I guess we uh did all that trombones, the T-bones, the troublemakers of the band, okay? Uh the silverback gorillas. Um, so trombones, they have their bell parallel to the ground, which makes the horn perpendicular to the ground. And I like them to do their mouthpiece at eye level and just kind of brings it up high enough for it. And I guess we could go further than that, you know. Uh elbows away from the body. And again, beach ball arms. That's going to be a biggie, you know, and that's what you have to really correct a lot because they'll tend to keep their elbows down. They really will. We want the elbows out, we want the arms up to make it look really cool. Okay. And it looks strong, it just looks powerful. And so the whole thing of this, I think it's even on the top of my little uh document, you know, that's downloadable. So marching from a position of power, you know, right, is what I try to call it. You know, because we want just want everything to look powerful. With sousaphones, there's all kinds of various styles of sousaphones. So usually I just let those guys and gals just figure it out on their own for the most part. But the guidance I give them is uh in the horns up position. Uh sometimes and down, they can dip the bell a little bit, sometimes I'll pull it up. But I I like to have it to where, you know, their their right hand is on the valve casing, and I like them to go ahead and stick their thumb through that loop just for stability. I know it's not the proper pedagogy to how to play any instrument, but man, we're trying to hold that thing. Okay, and I like their left hand to hold the bits. I don't like it to be on the horn. I like it to where they actually hold the mouthpiece and bits. Uh for you know, it just looks uniform and it makes this elbow, the left elbow sticks out, which looks really cool when they do it. But also the fact, what always falls off a Susaphone?

SPEAKER_01 13:35

The bits in the neck, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Hang on to those things, guys. Hang on to them. You know, it's either that or the bell flies off when they they turn and either doing their hey song thing. Or people, you know, oh well, there goes $150 of repair, you know. So we'd always laugh. Uh Luke McMillan was my assistant band director for like 11 years, and we said there should be like a quiz show where it's like they would drop a certain instrument in the stands behind you and you had to tell what it was. And that's a sounds like about a 1985 Artley flute. Was it? No, it was like a mine heart, you know. But it's funny as if you've been in marching band long enough as a director, when you hear something hit the aluminum, it's like, oh man, that was a trombone.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

That was a melophone, you know. Uh so it's so hard. And then percussion sticks in front of the body parallel to the ground. Bass drums can hold a proper angle, but contact the rim with the butt of the palm of the hand. You know what I mean? Where they're kind of gauging where the drum is. And so that that's kind of uh throw that in there for the guys that uh don't have uh percussion texts that help them, which is a lot of us, you know what I mean. My first 13 to 15 years, I just had to make up things to figure it out. But you know, every percussion person is like a uh person rearranging their living room furniture. Every percussion teacher is gonna have an exact different way of doing it, and that's okay because as long as they get the kids to do it their way, life is good. So I just if when I was lucky enough to have a percussion person around, they just took care of that. You know, I didn't interfere with that at all because they knew more than I did. Okay. And so that kind of gets us in the set position. And we talk about the grit, you know, it's just like you know, we we kind of go to the parade rest or at ready, you know, is a the position I call it where the horn is like down in front of your body, go into set position at ready, set, at ready, set a thousand times over and over. Correct, define, make it accurate, make it make things have uh accuracy in how it looks. Okay. And that way what we're doing is we're shoving the frontal cortex stuff back into the hind brain, you know, right slowly but surely, where they're not they're not having to think about it anymore because they're not going, my bell should be parallel to the ground, which makes my horn perpendicular, and my first valve should be at eye level. You know, we we we want them to know that. We don't want them to think that when we yell set, you know. So uh just do it over and over again. And kids get a kick out of now. Here's here's a real trick to this neuroscience thing is the fact that if you can make a game out of it, they will be engaged longer. Make sense? You know, so if you just do it over and over again, like the beating shall continue till morale increases, that's not gonna work really well. You know what I mean? They'll just like, you know, I'm tired of this crap, you know. But if you go, uh, hey trumpets, if we can go from at ready to set, if you can do it 15 times in a row, um, then uh I'm gonna let you uh or the first section we can do it 15 times in a row with no one messing up. I'm gonna bring donuts tomorrow for you for your section. Just something that's simple. Or you can give them dum dum pops or whatever at the end of the rehearsal. You know what I mean? Just some little stupid treat, because it's not the treat that entices them, it's the game. It's the game. And if they mess up once, you gotta start over. So maybe have the drum majors run it with them, you know. So if you can somehow make a game out of it, please do. I know it sounds real like elementary schoolish, but I think we all like games, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

You know what's crazy though? You say that I I remember some of that. That even something as simple as you get to leave 30 seconds before everybody else. Yeah. To go inside. I mean, you know, we do that between freshmen and as far as class. Yeah. Or section against section. All right, trumpets, you did it right. You guys go ahead. The rest of us will see you when we get in there.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

That's right. So it wasn't the 30 seconds, it was the attention that we had the bragging rights, right? You know, kind of thing. So if you can do that, uh I highly suggest that. And uh um, and kids will come up with all kinds of cool stuff for that. Okay. Um, horns in up position, flute parallel to the ground with the right elbow up. It's probably the most obvious bad horn position in any marching band with the lightest instrument because it's the hardest to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Well, it's the hardest to do correct. I mean, uh I'm not a flute player, but man, you give me a flute and tell me to hold that thing up that way for a certain amount of time. Give me my trumpet, man. It's in front of my body. I balance it with both hands.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

And my back can do it.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, that flute, and my all respect to them. That that's you know, that's the light horn. Yeah, try to hold your trumpet to the side like this for 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

It's almost like the military, they talk about holding their rifle out. Yeah. It doesn't seem like it's that hard, but after 30 seconds, your scre your muscles are screaming. It gets heavy pretty quick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Yeah, it's heavy pretty quick. Um, clarinets, normal concert position is what I like with the chin up, 45 degree angle. You know, nothing fantastic with that. But the clarinets are the worst about dipping that chin down. And anytime we do a slide, they're the worst about doing the uh the hunter version, like shooting a rifle. You know what I mean? They they they turn their shoulders where their shoulders are supposed to be lined up with the front sideline, parallel to the front sideline. They're the cheaters in the band because they can they can play their horn and turn to the side and they can slide, where like a trumpet player can't really do that very well. A trombone certainly can't because a slide won't move, you know. But you got to watch out for your clarinets there. They'll take advantage of the fact they're clarinetes.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

That's where they'll cheat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah, they'll cheat on you right there. Um alto saxon bass clarinet, kind of same sort of thing, like concert position, but I like the horn centered on the body. You know, I know saxophone, like jazz band, a lot of times. They like to cross it to the side or whatever. I like it in the front. Even in my jazz band, I like my altos to have it. Even our my beginning altos, I don't do the alto to the side. I know that's that's gonna be controversial, you know, because there's two types of people in the world, you know, kind of moment. So we'll just leave it at that. For tenor sacks and berry sacks, it is to the side, but you've got to make sure it's far enough away from the leg that it doesn't bounce on the leg. Okay, Susaphone, right hand on valve, right hand on valves, like we talked about before, left hand secure on the bits and mouthpiece portion of the horn. Okay. And then we talk about trail position. And that's one that just gets, I mean, anytime a band goes into trail position, like if they're doing a platform run or you flutter step, um, when they go into trail, that's where all of a sudden you hear all the judges start talking. If you're up there judging, everyone starts talking because that's when the mistakes start to pop out. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

So if you a favor, define what trail position is.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

And for those of us that don't think some people call a briefcase. Uh it's when the horns to the side of the body and we're actually sealed. Yeah. Okay. So we're not holding it in front of us. We're not having an up position. It's not in set position, it's beside our body. Okay. And I like to call it just trail position. And the other, in the old days, we called it a uh pistol, because it's like on your hip.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Well, you could say such things.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Yeah, we don't say those things anymore, and uh rightfully so, you know. So that we do we just we've ignored that now. And you know, for the longest time we called that a like a flutter step, and we're gonna talk about how we kind of do that later on, the process of doing it. But the the new word for that is platform run. I thought I'd up your vocabulary there, Derek.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Look at you staying up with everything. I am. I learned that never heard that term.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Eric Rath at Canyon, where they were working on some stuff, and he goes, Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna platform run right here. So, what are we doing? He goes, Oh, that's what we call the flutter step now. Okay, all right, I'm with you now. I'm with you now. It's it's a platform run. Okay. Um, so you know, the the flute or clarinet, it's this is interesting to me because I'm a band geek, but you know, some bands do it where it's parallel. And you would think that'd be the easiest thing to do, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_01 21:45

You know, parallel to the ground.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Parallel to the ground. But you know what? That's one of the hardest things to clean because the kids can't see the horn. Right. So I kind of like to think of it in terms of keep it at an angle. Like if I have my clarinet and It's in my right hand. When I put my clarinet down next to my hip, my hand will be at a certain natural 45 degree. Same thing with trumpet. It'll be a natural 45 degree. I think that's easier to clean.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

So your mouthpiece and barrel are elevated relative to the bell.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Yes. Yes. So and it's and when there's any discrepancies, it's not quite as visually obvious. But you know, parallel is like a straight line. Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Which is kind of hard to maintain.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

There's no such thing as a straight line. There's only a line. Right. An unstraight line is not a line. So you know, it's either parallel or not parallel. But if it's like 45 degrees, 46 degrees, 50 degrees, 35 degrees, you might get by with some crap. You know what I mean? It's like, but if it's all parallel and you're looking across the field and you're watching the band, it's like, uh, this kid's this kid's way out of whack on this one. You know, so they'll pick at you more. So I'm just gonna say this is a band director.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

The human brain is also much quicker to pick up uh discrepancies in a 90-degree angle, arm to instrument, yeah, than it would be to go, is that 40, 30? They're all relatively the same.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Yeah, yeah. So I think 45. You know what I mean? If you if you have if you had the horn directly like a clarinet, directly up and down, or directly parallel halfway in between.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Right. I guess what I'm saying is adjudicator though isn't going to as quickly notice to reinforce your point. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If it's not exactly 45, because that's hard to differentiate between body types and everything else that's going on.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yeah, especially when the bodies are moving.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Because you've also managed to um disguise the instrument if you have a dark-colored uniform. Yeah. It's kind of harder to, but if it's supposed to be parallel to the ground, it's pretty easy to go, hey, that's not parallel to the ground.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

And think about this physical concept too. When the horns are parallel to the ground and the bodies are moving, the horns are drawing a line. Right. You know, so you you see the streamline. You know what I mean? Where they're all at an angle, you don't see the streamline. So it just uh you can you can sneak by with some stuff on that, you know. Right. Um okay. And so that kind of takes care of those guys with our uh saxophones and bass clarinets. Obviously, they're attached with neck straps, so they can't just whip that horn out to the side kind of thing. I I tend to have them just, you know, saxophone just keep it parallel in front of their body, you know. And sometimes they can put it to the side. Bands do it different ways. I find the easiest thing to do, especially if you have a younger band, just have them go back to set. And that's gonna be their that's gonna be their platform run position. And that way it goes back to another habit. Okay.

unknown 24:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Trombones and left hand, you know, parallel to the ground if you if you dare, you know, and uh I've done that for years, but uh that's harder on trombone because the instrument's longer. So you make that decision as a band director. It just has to look the same. Bell fronts, same thing. Okay. Um, so right hand and a loose fist. Um, one thing to do in that flutter run, which is the next portion we're getting to, is we got the horn to the side and trail. And that doesn't mean we have to do a platform run. Yeah, it could just be the end of a tune and we just go to whatever. We just go to trail, lean forward a little bit, maybe uh step forward, pull the shoulders back, kind of, you know, as a performance kind of choreo movement or whatever. That's perfectly fine. Um, but a lot of times we do it because we're gonna do a platform run. And we sure as we're trying to do a platform run.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

As I listen to you, trail position is probably more conducive to a choreo movement, if it's a lean or if it's a bow or if it's a yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

And it and cool, and historically, it was probably the first choreo movement the bands did. Think about that. You know, because that's probably the first one that they did, you know, uh uh as we develop this situation we're in. Okay. Susaphones, like normal.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

I'm still left and developed the situation we're in.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yeah, the situation where as as these things, yeah. It's kind of like a I joke with uh high school students because you know, if they're having trouble in history class, I said I always tell them said, uh, you know, it is harder for you uh for y'all because you have 50 more years of history to learn than I did in high school. You know, Afghanistan hadn't even happened yet.

unknown 26:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

You know, Korean War in Vietnam was about it for me, you know. So sportsing bands the same way, it keeps progressing, and I love the progression of it, but it is the situation we're in, is that there's more to know. Right. There's more to know on this. Okay, in the process of teaching the flutter step or the platform run, do it. You you've just got to do it. Because I've seen bands try to do some sort of platform run, and that's usually one of the most common questions directors have when I go clinic the band is uh, I can't make this look right. What can we do to make this look right? So let's step through this real quick because this might be the most important thing to a lot of directors out of this entire podcast. Um, platform is first, which is the platform is like from the tip of your big toe to the back of the ball of your foot. That's the platform. Like if we're staying in our kitchen and want to get to the top shelf, we go onto our platforms. You know what I mean? We not our tippy toes, but our platforms, okay? And then, you know, at first, you know, we would tell them we don't do it with any music going on or anything. We just practice this going like from yard line to yard line. And we just tell them so just go forward and just have your horn in trail position, pull your shoulders back, and just make sure that you take unmetronomical steps. So not trying to keep metered, just kind of take fast, quick steps. And the key to it is make sure there's small steps and they're quick steps. Where it looks uncoordinated is when you try to take big steps. Okay. Right. And it looks uncoordinated too when you try to do it metronomically. You know what I mean? Like left, right, left, right, left. Then it looks like we're trying to march in step. But uh in a platform run, we're not trying to march in step. We're trying to move our feet. Um asymmetrical, is that the word? Ametronomical. Well, we're gonna make up words, we're gonna George Bush this thing before we're done. Okay. Um, and then I try to do it where it's like smaller steps, smaller steps, smaller steps, smaller steps, triplet subdivisions, keywords to use, small and fast steps with good posture. You must work on keeping their upper body and arms and equipment still because they will try to move the horn that's in trail, and they'll try to move whatever arm's not attached to the horn. And I've seen directors, very smart directors, have done one of two things. Um, that's actually three things you can do. One's the hardest is I keep the other arm still. Easily said, hard to do. Um, what I would like to do with my band is I'd have them, you know, they're wearing bibbers. So I'd have them with a, if the trumpets have the instrument in the right hand, let's just say that's in the right hand, then their left hand, I haven't pinched the bibbers between their thumb and their first finger. And that way they have something to hang on to, and it keeps their hand from moving around or whatever. And I've seen bands do it to where, like, let's say the trumpets in the left hand, and then they'll do their right hand up against their chest, kind of like an old centurion Roman salute. And uh, you know, so they do that, and that way it has something to do with your hand, and your hand's against your chest, therefore it's not going to wiggle around. And when this hand's in place, it kind of keeps the horn more still, too. I don't know why, because I tried it and it was like, hey, that really does work, because this hand's up here instead of both hands to the side. But if you have both hands to the side as they're doing this, I like to equate it to like if I'm coming out of the grocery store and I've got like 10 bags in one hand and 10 plastic bags in the other hand, I'm trying to get to my car. You know, I'm not too stupid to use the cart, you know. So I'm going that. What I do is I pull the weight away from my body, don't I?

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

I don't want it against my body and I'm hitting those bags. Same thing with this, it's pretend like you're carrying 50-pound weights. If nothing else, like those kettle balls, you know, like you use in the gym. If you had a 50-pound one in each hand, you would not put it against your body. You would hold it out away from your body and you'd balance yourself in between them. That's what you need to do if you want your free hand to not be attached to anything. You just got to keep it away from your body. So you've got three choices, or one of three choices to make right there.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Let me let me ask you this because and you may have said it and I was too busy processing. It's not necessarily going to be in time, these steps.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

It can't be in time, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:42

But should they be in step with each other?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

No.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

So not everybody's going to be hitting left right at the same time, even though they've altered. Is it more of a you're going from this point to that point? Here's the amount of time you have to get there and I make it happen. Yeah. But they don't necessarily have to do it as a section.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Okay. I just want to make sure I clarify that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Yeah. So they they just get over there. They just get over there. And you you can count out loud to 16 for them, but we don't want them to go on left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, trying to because that's there's no way they'll get it done. It's it's literally impossible to do. So we do the platform run, especially when we're staging a certain uh like a woodwind feature, something like that. Right. And also it's a it's a grade out if they can't do the drill set. I was gonna leave that the quiet part, but no, no, it's it's it's you know, there's times all clinic abandon and it's like we just can't get that where it looks right. Let's just platform run.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Just get over there, you know. And if they do all their body posture right and they do all that other stuff right, it will look correct on the field. And it can't, as long as the posture's right and the hands are still and they're in position and the horn is still and the feet are not trying to be metronomical, then it's gonna be correct. It's gonna be correct. Right. So use that to your advantage, you know. And cool. Some bands really use it to their advantage, where I think they might make take four or five steps the whole show. The rest of it's always platform run, stage play, platform run, stage play, platform run, stage play. It is what it is, you know. So use that to your advantage, man. Um, you know, with body warm-ups to kind of get ready for this, you know, every time, you know, to get that core strength going again, kind of to cycle learn that, you know, do some stretches, you know, with the band. Um legs, lower body, shallow squats, kind of getting into plies, easy jog to the goalpost and back. Just try to get the blood flowing. Um, use music picked by the drum majors. I like that to create energy. So whenever you're doing your physical training, we gotta, it's not necessarily a game, but we can uh we can make it to where it works really well with the kids where they can hear music that they want to hear. And the drum majors, if you can trust your drum majors to make sure there's not any bad words or whatever, you know, they can they can pick music to do. Um, but something as simple as a weird little game, you know, because we'll do like planks on the ground. And then what we'll do is we'll lay down on the ground and then I'll have them uh arch their pull their hands in front of them up off the the deck and their belly's still on the deck, on the ground, and they'll pull up their feet on the back, and I call it the Superman position. So the the the way we hold it is we all sing bum bum bum bum bum bum bum ba bum bum ba dum. Then we relax, we go ready, go bum pa. It's just stupid enough that they'll do it. If you say hold your uh a reverse plank, whatever it's called in reality, hold it for 15 seconds. They're like, oh, this is stupid, but they'll all send a sequel thing. Right. Okay. Um, so Jack, kind of keep that going. Um, you know, you just got to go through all these different things. You know, chin is elevated about 20 degrees. I like to have like 80% of the weight of the body on the platforms of the feet. And that's kind of controversial too, because I know a lot of teachers that say it should be exactly 50-50 when we're standing in posture. I kind of like that little bit of a forward lean to the band. You know, you can do exercises with that, lift the heel all the way up off the ground with the platforms down on the ground and let the heels descend until the heels just barely touch the ground, and then say, I want 80% of your weight on the front part of your foot when you're standing at attention. I don't want you to be on your heels. You know, and again, as a director, you got to make that decision. Then we talk about, you know, horns up, you know, however you want to do it, if it's a command, which is like really outdated. I don't think there should be a drum major giving a command. Horns up, horns up. Yeah, those days are gone, you know. That's and rightfully so, because I was, you know, it's just it's just different. It's hard to be aesthetic and emote when someone's going tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet. You know, here's our ballad. It's kind of hard to do. But I like to do it where like a metronome has four clicks, the horn starts to move on click five, locks on click six each time. And this this will blow people's minds. But with my beginning brass classes, that's how we started our beginning band lines.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

They learned it from the get-go.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

They did. So their horns are in their lap, and it's like click, click, click, click, five, six, go tell it, roadie, go tell that roadie. You know, then they play, and they just thought it was just a game, but little did they know I was training them to be freshmen. And then their freshmen year. Remember in Beginner Band Brass how we did that every single day? Because I did the beginner brass classes. Oh, four metronome clicks, horn. Oh, yeah, yeah, we got that. So guess what? Frontal cortex, hide blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Um, I like to talk about the power triangle, it helps with core body strength because a lot of times we, if we don't have horns in our hands, we'll put our one hand over the other and do it in a fist. And that's okay. I mean, you're going to build some strength, but if you force your kids without equipment to put their fingertips together, it engages a whole nother set of muscles when they march. Because now they have to balance their body. When they're doing this, they're using their arms to make their body contort.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

If they're doing this, some resistance to push against. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Yeah. It's like when I work out on uh the step platforms, I always put my hands behind my head and interlace my fingers like I'm being arrested. So I step up, step down, step up, step down, step up. Because it's easy with my hands down next to my side because I can use my arms to natural balance, all kinds of things to balance my body. Kind of like a uh person who walks the wire, you know, kind of guide marks. Yeah, they they use the big pole to help guide them. You know what I mean? We use our arms the same way, but if I put my arms behind my back, and you can do that in marching band too. You could have them march and have their hands behind their head, you know, anything to engage different muscles, okay? Um, and a big important thing, you've heard me preach this before, is uh, you know, use a field metronome. You know, don't leave anything to chance, don't use a uh a block that you're hitting on because you'll do it different, and you need to be thinking of other things. You know, just use a field metronome. And it's and I know I'm spending other people's money, but you can, I've seen guys and ladies that have field metronomes that are better than most home Yamaha sound systems. And I've seen them where it's just an old bass amp with a transmitter pack slapped on it, you know, or or better yet, a kid, you know, they'll be the I call them the metronome jockey. You know, you're gonna be the metronome jockey. Go back there and run the metronome, you know. So they just sit there and they just run the metronome. And then I usually have a drum major trade out. One gives commands, one's the metronome jock, you know. So they they go do that. But please use a field metronome because it it engages that habit of they realize that the uh the pulse comes from behind them. If you're yelling counts from in front of them, you're setting them up for failure when you do drill and music and you put everything together.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Just sound physics, the delay and everything else.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Yeah, it's all the delay stuff. And uh, you know, we talked about grit, and I I want to kind of kind of the closing thoughts on my part of the podcast. Nick Saban, uh, he talks about discipline and undisciplined people. Um, you know, disciplined people do not like undisciplined people. Undisciplined people do dumb things, disciplined people do smart things. Okay. And uh so you've got to make sure you have this talk with your band. Everything we talk about is in fundamentals is how do you have the discipline to execute and do the things you need to do consistently over and over and over? That's just from uh making a habit and being persistent as a band director of uh talking about these things and making them do the fundamentals every day. Will they be perfect? No, but they'll get better every single day. Do not teach the fundamentals in summer band, then ignore them for two months and then scream bloody murder the two weeks before contest because their foot position is not correct.

unknown 39:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

You're the one that failed, not the kids. Okay, so and again, if you don't have time for fundamentals, make your show easier, rewrite some parts, um, take parts of the show out. Um I don't this is just me personally, and I've judged a lot of marching bands over the years. I don't think I've I know I've never taken a band and said, this show is too easy, therefore I'm gonna put down a second division. This show is really easy, so this needs the most you can make is a three. That doesn't exist. It's how clean the show is at the region level. How clean the show is. Now, when you get to Aryan State, you're comparing band to band. But you know, we're comparing to a standard. So if the band does everything correct and uniform, that's a first division band.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Right. There's no degree of difficulty at the region level.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Yeah, yeah, there's no credit given for that. Now, bands of American, U.S. bands in those competitions, there is because they're that's like an area thing. They're comparing band to band. So there is a degree of difficulty that's factored in when you judge those groups, but not for us in Texas and uh most states are the same way. You know, Texas is a little unusual. Of course, we like to be unusual, don't we?

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Okay, you're gonna say proudly unusual.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

Proudly unusual. Okay. Um, one thing that we all have to overcome is that uh am I gonna do what I feel like doing right now, or am I gonna do what's better for the group right now?

SPEAKER_01 41:05

And so you have preaching that to the kids, you know, that's back to that Saban concept.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Yeah, yeah. You do you you might not want to do this right now, but you need to do it for the sake of the group. And you want to do it.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

I'm telling you, you build more chemistry, not necessarily chemistry, but trusting each other by going through the the hard, necessary, gritty things that you have to do because you know you can count on the person next to you. They were there with you when you did all that hard stuff.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Yeah. So you don't have to hope they'll do it. And they need to understand that the they don't need to feel bad about this, but the normal state of being for a person is average. That's why it's normal. I agree. You know that everyone resorts back to average. So the people with grit kind of push beyond that average and make it better. So it's because it's probably the most dry thing in the world is going through how do we hold our horns at set? How do we hold our horns in that position? How do we breathe? How do we maintain posture? How do we do a platform run? Those things, frontal cortex-wise, loading our front trunk, those things are not fun. I'm sorry, they're just not. You know, it's like doing my scales on trumpet. I don't consider that fun. I'd rather play Autumn Leaves on Trumpet. You know, I mean, I don't want to play my scales again, but I still do every day. You know, so we have to have that grit to make it happen. And, you know, we have to be better than average. And uh, if we can be better than average, then it's a great life lesson, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 42:35

Yep, absolutely. Because you're nicer than me. I think the average state is mediocre or the normal state is mediocre, and we all revert to the easiest amount of effort to almost accomplish what somebody asked us to do. Yeah, it's not natural for us anymore to say, I am going to be excellent. I am going to be gritty, I am going to do the things that separate me from mediocre, separate me from average. So, man, great thought. Great, great thought to end this with today. So appreciate you, my friend. You bet. It's been fun. And I'm guessing we've got more of the same next time, more great information to help you win. Oh, excuse me, be successful at Marching Band.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

We shall make it work.