Marching band

A marching band is a group of instrumental musicians who perform while marching, often for entertainment or competition. They are most popular in the United States, though not uncommon in other parts of the world. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Most marching bands wear a uniform, often of a military style, that includes an associated organization's colors, name or symbol. Most high school marching bands, and some college marching bands, are accompanied by a color guard, a group of performers who add a visual interpretation to the music through the use of props, most often flags, rifles, and sabers.

For other uses, see Marching band (disambiguation).

Marching bands are generally categorized by function, size, age, instrumentation, marching style, and type of show they perform. In addition to traditional parade performances, many marching bands also perform field shows at sporting events and marching band competitions. Increasingly, marching bands perform indoor concerts that implement many songs, traditions, and flair from outside performances. In some cases, at higher level competitions, bands will be placed into classes based on school size.

Marching: instead of a traditional high step, drum corps tend to march with a fluid glide step, also known as a roll step, to keep musicians' torsos completely still. Recently, corps and marching bands have been moving from the glide step to a more straight-leg style. This is a slightly different movement with a similar approach. The biggest difference being a crisp straight leg instead of a noticeable bend in the knee for glide step.

Auxiliaries: adaptation of the , rifle, baton and sabre units into auxiliaries, who march with the band and provide visual flair by spinning and tossing flags or mock weapons and using dance in the performance.

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Percussion: moving marching timpani and keyboard percussion into a stationary sideline percussion section, or "", which has since incorporated many different types of percussion instruments such as: tambourines, crash cymbals, suspended cymbals, bass drum and gong sets, chimes, EWI's (electronic woodwind instrument), and most keyboards.

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Competitions: marching band competitions are judged using criteria similar to criteria used in drum corps competitions, with emphasis on individual aspects of the band (captions for music performance, visual performance, percussion, guard (auxiliary), and general effect are standard).

The step involves bringing the foot up to the inside of the leg to the knee before coming down and forward. This is the style used by most bands from HBCUs.

ankle-knee

The involves lifting the knee until the thighs are parallel to the ground, and with toes pointed downward. When the leg is elevated to its maximum height, a ninety-degree angle exists between the torso and the thigh, as well as between the thigh and shin. The leg is then lowered, and this is repeated in an alternating fashion between the legs. This style is used by many schools in the Big Ten.

chair step

The extended high step, much like the chair step, involves the thigh being parallel to the ground and perpendicular to the body, but instead with the shin extended outward at a forty-five-degree angle from the body and with toes pointed downward. The leg is then driven quickly back to the ground while the other leg repeats in this fashion.

The "stop-at-the-top" is a style similar to the chair step and is currently used only at the . It involves bringing the leg up so that the thigh is at a 45-degree angle with the ground with the toes pointed as far down as possible. While the chair step is almost always used as merely a special decorative step, stop-at-the-top is the Wisconsin band's default marching style.

Marching band

flag

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ankle-knee

chair step

University of Wisconsin Marching Band

Royal Military College of Canada Bands

Simon Fraser University Pipe Band

Western Mustang Band

Lady Godiva Memorial Bnad

Marching arts

Tournament of Bands

List of college marching bands in the United States

List of marching bands

Western Band Association

Marching (sport)

Booster Club