Drum majors Hannah Wagner, Brian Fassold and Kelsie Lange lead the Marching Jayhawks down the hill to Memorial Stadium. The three drum majors are responsible for setting up practices and acting as role models for the rest of the band.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The melodies rise above the people in the crowd as they walk past the Campanile down the hill to Memorial Stadium. The music continues during the first half, livening up timeouts. The crowd is thrilled by the halftime routines with themes such as Sunday morning cartoons and a Blood, Sweat and Tears medley. The sounds still echo the tune of “Home on the Range” after most of the crowd has left the game. The music is coming from the University of Kansas Marching Jayhawks.
“During that first game, coming down the hill, running onto the field from the tunnels and finding your place on the field; you realize 52,000 people are watching,” says Josh Maddux, Overland Park freshman. “It was breathtaking.”
Members of the trumpet section march past the Campanile down the hill toward Memorial Stadium on game day. The Marching Jayhawks have 285 members this year.
The Marching Jayhawks have been running onto the field in this same way since 1971. The program is filled not only with rich tradition, but continued spirit.
Teresa Mulinazzi Kempf, a 1991 graduate who played clarinet for three years in the marching band, lives in DeSoto and has held season tickets to football games since her graduation. She says that she still enjoys watching the pregame routine.
“It still sends chills down my spine when they walk down the hill before the game; everyone is watching you and it is very impressive,” Kepf says. “I love to see some of the same things we did like running from the stands onto the field. It is cool because we did that 20 years ago.”
Lee “Fritz” Whitman, a 1982 graduate who played tuba for six years in the marching band, started a tradition his freshman year — a song that is still sung today as part of the pregame routine, “Hog Calling.”
“It was always led by the tubas and one game we were singing barbershop quartet songs to kill time before the run-in and I just said, ‘Hey guys, follow me on this one,’” Whitman says. “It is a song I learned at a Boy Scout camp in Nebraska and it was a funny little song but everyone had a good time and enjoyed it.”
Whitman was sure the tradition would die out after he graduated, but is entertained that it is still a part of the pregame. Now the band gathers in a huddle under the bleachers before its run-in. The sousaphones are in a middle circle while the other instruments circle around. There are four verses and between verses a senior leads with an inspirational speech. The song finishes as the band says, “What kind of day is it? It’s a great day to be a Jayhawk!”
“The fun part is singing the song and getting the whole band together — it is amazing,” Whitman says. “It is funny to see it still going on because it is just a silly campfire song.”
Traditions like this stay strong in all parts of the band — Director of Athletic Bands David Clemmer took over his position in 2002 from Robert Foster, who started directing the band in 1971.
“Part of what is special about KU band is the traditions that have evolved over 100 years,” Foster says. “That in itself is impressive.”
During the past 100 years, the band has only had five directors, three of which have served for more than 30 years.
“Stability will build traditions,” Foster says. “You simply cannot build a program around a revolving door.”
And band members put in around 10 to 12 hours a week to keep these traditions alive.
“The kids work really hard,” Clemmer says. “They understand that there is a standard of excellence and they have to uphold that.”
The band practices in a parking lot across from the Dole Institute of Politics from 3:45 p.m. until 5:45 p.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the football season. They also have a Saturday morning pregame practice.
Hannah Wagner, Ames, Iowa, junior, is a drum major for the band this year. As a drum major she puts in even more time setting up practices and looks over everyone’s parts in the songs to see how the marching should coordinate with the music.
“I have no job during the season because it really is a full-time commitment, but it is definitely worth it in the end,” Wagner says. “We are all working toward the same goal and that is to represent the University on game day.”
Beyond the extra time commitment, the drum majors also have leadership responsibilities. They often act as role models to the freshmen and sophomores in the band.
“Our attitude is important because at a practice if we not excited and not working hard, then they see that,” says Brian Fassold, Olathe senior and drum major.
At their rehearsals every week, all 285 members of the band start new music, review the show for the upcoming week and always end with the pregame routine. Clemmer says it takes the band about three rehearsals to learn a new song, which is a big change for freshman Maddux.
“There was some difficulty learning the routines at first, but after being in marching band for four years it is easier to grasp the concepts and it was not overall hard,” Maddux says. “It is a pretty significant change from high school where we would play four songs a year to four songs a week; that has been the biggest part to get used to.”
Wagner agreed about the difficulties of learning new music and routines.
“The formations can be complicated to learn at times. We learned the same style of marching in high school, but you learn it a different way,” Wagner says. “The level of the music is also more difficult than at the high school level.”
Not only does the band learn new songs and new routines every week, but they must be memorized by game time. And it is not a simple process.
“It is great to see the band play because you know what they go through to learn the routines,” says Whitman, who returns for homecoming most years and plays with the alumni band. “You root for them and you want to be out there playing again.”
In the parking lot where the band practices, there is a full football field painted out with all the yard lines and hash marks. They have painted markings for where band members need to stand for different sequences, but also have a system using plastic chips that tells them where to go.
Each band member receives a drill sheet full of their specific step counts between positions and coordinates for each movement are timed out for them. During rehearsals, each of the members will go through their sheets and mark out their spots for the routine before even setting their marching to music.
“We do this so that they can walk onto the football field and do it without the markings using muscle memory and peripheral vision, where they can quickly correct their timing or spacing,” Clemmer says.
Though the traditional marches have not changed for many years, technology certainly has.
“For generations all of this was done by hand, but as computers became more popular, people started to create programs that could create band formations,” Foster says. “It is a much more efficient way to do it now.”
Clemmer now uses a program called Pyware, which is a graphical interface that divides the field into traditional steps. A traditional step is 22 ½ inches, which is equal to eight steps every five yards.
“Everyone gets a coordinate guide and as they memorize it, they start to get an idea of what the formation will look like,” Clemmer says. “The program is neat, though, because I can easily print out copies to send out or I can show them what the formations will look like.”
This change has made it easier for the band to be more creative with its formations.
“When you plot on a chart, which is a form of graph paper with each square being two steps, it is a lot more structured, but with the computer you are able to be a lot more free form,” Foster says.
The band uses core-style marching, which is adapted from drum and bugle corps and traditionally only include forwards and backwards movement. But the KU band moves in every direction possible. This is used in the traditional sunflower formation as well as many of the halftime shows.
“It is more about the motion than the pictures themselves,” Clemmer says. “It is how they move and flow, more like a kaleidoscope.”
The band’s end goal, though, is to entertain and add to the game atmosphere.
“We used to change the halftime shows almost every home game because the objective is entertainment; there was a long era where complaints came from concessions people because people would stay and watch the half-time shows,” Foster says. “People have to look forward to what is going to happen.”
The traditions will continue as the games do, and the spirit of the band will always be there.
“A lot more people care about the game and are not just there because they have to be there,” says Daniel Sill, Andover freshman. “They want to be there to cheer on the team; it is the pride of being a Jayhawk.”
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