i hated our high school marching band growing up. even though they are/were easily the best high school marching band in California (only losing state once in the past fifteen years) and brought some notoriety to the school (something to distract observers from noticing the gang violence and almost 50% drop out rate), the noise from their nightly practices disrupted my studies. you could hear the band practices up to five miles away.

we've been spending the last couple weeks working on our timing. we finally started practicing with a metronome and have seen decent improvement. i recently ran into clips of our high school marching band from the year i graduated. i don't understand how they keep time with so much going on. it's hard enough keeping time with three other members of a rock band in a small room. i can't imagine keeping time with 140+ other marching band members on a football field.