Restrictions imposed by the pandemic this year created a unique challenge for music programs at schools across the country: What to do about a marching band that's unable to march.
While many athletic band programs simply chose not to operate during the pandemic, the University of Delaware Marching Band (UDMB) never considered that option, says Heidi Sarver, professor of music and director of athletic bands, and Jim Ancona, assistant professor of music and assistant director of marching band.
For one thing, Sarver and Ancona knew that if they didn’t capture high school musicians in their first year of college, they would never get them.
“Once they put down that instrument, they’ll never pick it up again,” Sarver says. “If we shut things down, we’d be looking at 50 people on the field next year,” as opposed to the average 300-member band.
More than that, though, Sarver and Ancona felt compelled to honor the traditions of UDMB and the role it plays in students’ lives. Fall marching band is a one-credit class for students in any major, and a program requirement for many instrumental music education majors, but being part of the Fightin’ Blue Hen family goes deeper than academics. For many students, it defines their college experience.
“It got me through this semester,” says Drew Hunt, a junior computer science major and a drum captain. “Without marching band, I wouldn’t feel that I belong at Delaware.”
Senior drum major and music education major Keith Blake agrees: “This program has given me so much. It made me who I am. I don’t know why everyone didn’t do it.”
For Sarver and Ancona, directing the band is “a labor of love,” Sarver says.
“In some ways it would have been a lot less headache to say, ‘No marching band,’ but this was about providing something for the students,” she says. “I don’t know if they know how important they are to us, and we didn’t want to lose touch with them.”
During the summer, Sarver and Ancona mapped out different configurations for a marching band – from fully in person, to an all-virtual experience. In August, when UD announced the hybrid structure for fall, they finalized a syllabus that included five areas of study: creating the pageantry arts; educational goals/topics for education majors; video projects; instructional sessions; and heath and wellbeing.
“We asked ourselves: How can we create an experience for our students that they will enjoy, without being as taxing as a regular marching band season?” Sarver says. “We threw every idea that we possibly could against the wall to see what would stick, and finally we decided to give them insight into what happens before they arrive for band camp.”