Marching Band Clash

At Acton-Boxborough Regional High School, the performing arts are a major source of student engagement. They offer students the opportunity to express themselves, meet new people, and try new things. Our performing arts program consists of Proscenium Circus (Theater), Orchestra, and the Band. However, in order to be a part of the band, students must also fulfill a Marching Band requirement. This prevents many students that may have otherwise taken band from doing so. Is this requirement unfair, or is it simply necessary to maintain the intensity of AB’s music program? To answer this question, I interviewed both the ABRHS Band director George Arsenault and a student leader within the band to hear their opinions on the marching band requirement. I began by asking Mr. Arsenault to explain the difference between the marching and concert bands at ABRHS, to which he responded, “There is just one band. It’s not a marching band or a concert band, it’s just one band,” which I now believe to be the source of the band’s success as a whole. He explained that, when he arrived at ABRHS in 2018, he too wanted to change the structure of the band in order to allow more students to participate. To do this, he reduced the number of parades from three per year to only one and had the band perform only at home football games. After doing these things, he looked at potentially separating the marching and concert bands, but found that in separating the band, he risked compromising the closeness and cohesiveness of the band as a whole. Mr. Asenault said, “There’s a reason people are even interested in doing [band] and that’s because it’s good. And to be good, there are certain standards that we have to [uphold].” He stressed the importance of maintaining the joint-band structure and that the community aspect of the band was key to its success. He emphasized that in order to ensure the band continues to function as well as it does now, maintaining the band’s “outstanding community” is crucial. However, the director did agree that he is “Willing to be flexible [towards special cases], so long as they do not damage the community.”. After this interview, I walked over to the band room beside his office and met firsthand the community he spoke about. There were a handful of students practicing after school and helping each other with their music, so I asked a couple of them for their opinion on the marching band’s community. Among these students was the trumpet section leader, Oscar Lewis, who supported much of what his director had to say. Oscar agreed that “community is huge [part of marching band] because marching band is all about teamwork. If one person is stepping wrong or playing the wrong note, it really shows.” Oscar followed his statement up by commenting directly on the band’s community, saying that the community is so great because of “how everyone knows everyone…it’s really hard not to fit in within the band, which is really nice”. Seeing how essential community is to the cohesive whole of the marching band, and the amount of time it takes to create this community, it is no wonder that the marching band requires a large time commitment for its students. I originally went into my interview with Mr. Arsenault with a rather biased opinion, believing the marching band requirement was unnecessary. However, after hearing how much the band’s community relies on the closeness and cohesiveness created in the marching band, my opinion has changed. Truly, the existence of the marching band and concert bands as an inseparable entity is central to the success and community of the ABRHS performing arts program, and doing away with the marching band requirement would only work to compromise this community,