User:Mross300/East Kentwood High School Falcon Marching Band

The East Kentwood Falcon Marching Band has been a tradition at East Kentwood High School for many years. The Falcon marching band boasts one of the biggest high school marching bands and is also one of the best non-competition bands in the state.

Members
The band marches all students in the program from freshman to seniors. It is not an audition band so everyone gets experience in the bad. The Falcon Marching Band is the largest high school marching band in the state as every year it averages around three hundred students. In 2004 they had an unprecedented 350-member band.

Instrumentation
The Falcon Marching band consists of the normal marching brass, woodwinds, and percussion. The brass section consists of trombones, trumpets, susaphones, mellophones, and baritones. The woodwind section consists of flutes, clarinets, and both alto and tenor saxophones. The drum-line consists of a snare line, tenor drums or quints (due to the 5 drums), a bass drum line consisting of seven bass drums and a cymbal line.

Directors
The Falcon Marching Band is under the drection of Dr. James Sawyer and Mr. James Ross. Mr. Ross has been at EKHS for 11 years and Dr. Sawyer has been at EKHS for 10. Each of them takes one aspect of the band and focuses on it. Dr. Sawyer is the marching instructor as he had marched in collegiate marching bands and in drum and bugle corps. Mr. Ross is the music instructor and directs all music rehearsals for the band.

Drum majors and section leaders
Drum Majors are and section leaders are students who are selected by audition process. Drum Majors are the student directors of the band as they are the ones who conduct each song at half time. Section leaders are the leaders for the individual sections of the band. Although their audition process is a little less rigorous they are just as important to the success of the band. They are responsible for teaching their sections and keeping them focused during rehearsals.

Band Camp
The Falcon Marching Band has band camp for one week in the summer, usually in early August. They are there to teach new members what to do and to learn the half time show that they will be performing for the whole football season. Both Dr. Sawyer and Mr. Ross run the camp and they even bring in outside instructors to help each section on the field and they also run sectionals where they learn the music for the show.

Practices
Practices during the school year take place on Monday nights from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. They consist of anything from show run-throughs to music rehearsals and block drill. Rehearsals are mandatory and all absences have to be documented and you have to let either Mr. Ross or Dr. Sawyer know you are going to be absent.

Marching
When the Falcon Marching Band is marching in a parade or to Falcon Stadium for a game they march to a cadence called “cops”. A cadence is a series of drum beats that keep time and allow the band to keep in step. During the cadence each section has their own set of motions that they do to both make marching more comfortable and that look cool.

The East Kentwood Invitational
Each year the Falcon Marching band hosts an invitation in which bands throughout the state and even some in neighboring states attend. Each year they have upwards of 17 bands and for the 2010 invitational they had a record 19 bands in attendance. They pack the stands for the high school bands in attendance and even for guest performances by collegiate marching bands.