Lifestyle

Pride of Collierville: Behind the Scenes

Addison Brady, Lifestyle Editor
January 24, 2023

Collierville High School’s Band, better known as the Pride of Collierville (POC), is a community of determined, caring people working hard to give CHS a good name. Throughout the year, the band has a competition season in which POC rehearses their marching show, and a concert band season in which the three bands, Wind Symphony, Symphonic Band, and Concert Band individually rehearse their songs for concert. Each season has its own feats to accomplish and incredible performances to show.

Marching Season

On October 21, POC performed Ghost Train in front of a large crowd in the Lucas Oil Stadium. They made it to the prelims and shied just 0.6 points away from finals. They placed 17^th overall out of the 84 total best bands from the country. On October 28 they headed out again to compete at Jacksonville regionals. There, they made finals and placed 7th out of 27 bands. The band program had never achieved such high rankings and band members were ecstatic to have done it. To reach these heights, POC had a lot of work to put in.

Marching Season began long before school did. With summer workouts and camps, POC was working hard before most people might wake up in the morning. Why did they need to begin their season so early? Well, a band depends on individual performance; each person must be completely in time and in sync with the music and everyone around them. Every player has a card showing their dots: exactly where the player needs to be on the field and when. It is the directors’ jobs to teach the music, make the visuals (the fun movements the band does), and run the show until everybody makes it to their dot correctly. That means constantly running it again and again until every person has their feet, playing, and visuals in time, and their shoulders and instruments projecting up and facing the audience through it all. With around 150+ players, this is no easy feat for the band directors, staff, and members.

The band kicked off their season with optional summer workouts to help prepare the players for the strenuous competition season ahead. Next came Pride Camp: a short, three-day camp during the day where freshmen could determine what instrument they want to play, and returners could pick theirs’ back up.

Next up was Band Camp, a 2-3 week-long period of around eight-hour days. For percussionist, camp ran for three weeks. Wind players didn’t start band camp until a week later. Percussion’s first week was from 7:30 A.M. to 2:00 P.M., and 1:00 P.M. to 8:30 P.M. the last two weeks. For winds, it was 7:30 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. the first week and full ensemble (whole band) was 1:00 P.M. to 8:30 the last week.

In the first week, percussion was focused on learning the music and working-out to ramp up endurance for marching. Front Ensemble (pit) not only needed to learn the music they also needed to teach the freshmen how to hold four mallets which is critical to perfecting the fast and difficult music. Battery (drumline) learned the music and their dots along with teaching the freshmen how to march and play. As the backbone of the band, they had their work cut out for them.

For the next two weeks the band warmed up together then split into percussion and winds. Each section of Winds also had to learn the music and teach the freshmen. At the end of each day, the full ensemble ran the sections of the show they’d learned that day and then put everything together. Following the end of band camp, was a week of 5:30 to 8:30 rehearsals.

When school started, the schedule shifted to Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 3:00-6:00 after school and “mini-camps” for around eight hours on Saturday. During football season, the band performed stand tunes in the bleachers along with performing their competition show at half-time. The rest of their time was spent preparing for competitions against other high schools.

The Color Guard had also been practicing and perfecting their routines over the summer and into the school year. The flags, the rifles, the dancing all add to the success of the show. They work just as hard as the band and contribute just as much.

When it came time to perform their show, Ghost Train, at Indianapolis (Indy) and Jacksonville, POC was more than ready.

The Pride of Collierville is more than a halftime show, it’s a team of directors, volunteers, band staff, helpers, parents, and students all putting in enormous amounts of effort to make the program great. Each rehearsal holds excitement and joking around but when it’s time to work, everybody contributes. A marching band is a huge time commitment and team effort, but beyond being a team, the band members are friends. Upperclassmen create amazing bonds with freshmen and bring them closer to band and music while freshmen create tighter friendships with the people they started with and the new people they meet. Players will always have someone in their corner; everybody is there for everybody.

Playing fun stand tunes in the bleachers and performing with their friends, POC is one to watch. After Jacksonville, the band chanted their motto one last time. And with that, competition season was over.

Concert Season

Next came preparations for winter band auditions. Winter band is split up into two primary bands: Wind Symphony, directed by Mr. Richardson, and Symphonic Band, directed by Mrs. Burgess. The audition pieces were fragments of the All-West music along with scales and sight-reading.

Wind Symphony is considered more difficult, but that doesn’t make Symphonic the underdog. Depending on a player’s chair placement, (the rank in their section), they may have more difficult parts for the song than others. With 3-4 songs to learn, the bands can be heard working hard each day to make them performance ready.

Along with Wind and Symphonic is the Jazz Band. It has tryouts like every other band, but very few spots and only a select group of instruments are allowed to audition including trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, trombone, piano, a bass instrument, and drums. Jazz band had its own separate rehearsals. At this season’s winter concert, Jazz Band was heard playing outside the auditorium as a crowd filed in to watch.

The band was also seen marching the Christmas Parade: the last marching event of the year.

This current quarter of concert, (spring band) adds a new band to the mix: Concert Band, a new opportunity for those not in Wind or Symphonic. Band members auditioned again and, just like last quarter, scores were posted, and each member was assigned into a band. Concert Band, directed by the newest director Mr. Burgess, Wind, and Symphonic have all begun preparing for their next concert. Some players are also working on the music for CHS’s next theatre production, Anastasia.

On top of everything, CHS’s band members auditioned for All-West on Saturday, January 14 at different times throughout the day. Some were auditioning at 7:00 while others had auditions late in the afternoon. Collierville band had around 70 people make it into All-West; another big accomplishment.

Band is a place where people can channel their passion for music through the instruments they play. It takes hard work and extreme dedication, but the outcome is 100% worth it to most members. They don’t stop working but still find time to have fun with each other.

Coming from a person who was in it, being part of a community like that is incredibly gratifying. If you look sad or stressed, you’ll have people you’ve never spoken to ask if you’re okay. Upperclassmen are always there to help and teach but are just as much your friend as they are your mentors. The competitions are more fun than they are work, (although there’s plenty of that too), and the people are amazing to be experiencing them with. The music is fun to play and there’s no feeling like performing the show you put so much time and effort into. Below are videos of this year’s performance of Ghost Train and individual instrument perspectives. (Not all instruments have a video. There’s no video for Indy or Jacksonville)

Ghost Train Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_vup5-DdPI

Arlington Competition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaeboL5QGxc

Tournament of Champions:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeWrCTUxFU8

Bartlett Competition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWXQorQrCxY

Marimba Cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsZJf8Cf5yE

Snare Cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np26nOyZESY

Rack Cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5-62DlBzpA

Tenor Saxophone Solo Cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLA6UskgBIw

Trumpet Cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjdocdWjrPE

Low Brass Feature Cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMtZyueKW7E

Baritone Cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEfUleYU5xs

Drum Major Cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igqwKZDl5GA