Observation Pep Band

On February 4th 2012 I went to observe the Willow Creek/Harrison Band Pep Band in performance at a basketball game held at Willow Creek High School. Willow Creek and Harrison have a co-op band program directed by two teachers Mr. Bill Frank from Willow Creek and Ms. Sandy Mabbit from Harrison. The students from Willow Creek school traveled by a bus driven by Mr. Frank to the Harrison school. There were about six to eight students that rode the bus to the games. Once the Willow Creek students, arrived they unloaded all of their instruments and then set up the Harrison drum set. The basketball game was a double game with both the boys’ and the girls’ teams playing. There are members of the basketball teams, that when they are not playing basketball, come and play in the band. This helped to improve the sound and instrumentation of the band. The instrumentation for the game was as follows: two clarinets, two alto saxes, five trumpets (I played trumpet with them), one soprano sax that doubled the first trumpet, two trombones, one baritone, one bass guitar, one keyboard player and five drummers. Not all the students played in the band at the same time. During the girls game that was composed of mainly Willow Creek band students. This was because the games were running fast and the Harrison director and players had not arrived yet. There was a clarinet player and a drummer from the boys basketball team who came to play in the band after the first two songs. The Pep Band is only required to play during pregame. The songs that they performed for the girls game were: The Final Countdown, Impact Zone, Low Rider, Kick Start, On the Line, both schools’ fight songs, The Star Spangled Banner, and Iron Man for the girls’ starting line up. I conducted the Star Spangled Banner; marching band style. I did not really like that style because I like to cue the “BOOM CRASH” with the drummers as one of them was mouthed “Boom Crash”. The students from Willow Creek were required to stay in gym or in the concessions area, not outside or in the hall way. During the boys game the band played the following songs: Play that Funky Music, Animal, Dynamite, Louie Louie, Smoke on the Water, the fight songs, and Iron Man for the boys’ starting line up. The band sounded really good for such a small group.