Game Day with the "All-American" Marching Band
Whenever Purdue has a home football game, the "All-American" Marching Band is guaranteed to have a long day ahead. On a normal game day, with kickoff at 12:00, the band meets at Hull field (the AAMB practice field) at 7:30 for uniform inspection. After everyone is inspected, the band begins an hour long music and marching rehearsal. They run through the half-time show for that day's game a few times, practice the music, and often times do a run through of the band's Pre-game show. After the rehearsal is over, the band lines up and marches a half mile back to Purdue's Elliott Hall of Music where the members of the band tailgate. Parents and friends bring an array of foods for the band members to eat at the tailgate and to carry with them to the game. Around 9:30 the band lines up once again and marches to Mackey Arena for the 211 Session, almost another half mile away. The 211 session is a pep rally held two hours and 11 minutes before every home football game that features the AAMB along with speeches from members of the team and Purdue's head football coach. After the 211 Session is over, the band has some down time before having to line up again. At about 11:00 the band lines up near Mackey arena and marches around to the North Side of Ross Ade Stadium to perform a short concert, then marches around to the South side to enter the stadium and take their seats. This round trip is almost a mile. Once the bands arrive in their seats, they don't have much time before they must head down to the field and prepare for the Pre-game show. At 11:40 the band steps off onto the field to perform their traditional pre-game show, all of which is from memory. The band then returns to the stands where they play music in between downs and during time-outs. During half-time the band goes down to the field once again and performs their halftime show, a different show at every game. The band then continues to play in the stands for the remainder of the game. Once the game is over, the band members take the field once again and perform a post-game concert on the field consisting of fight songs, music from that day's halftime show, and other band favorites. Once they finish performing on the field, the band lines up, once again, to march over a half of a mile, to Slayter Center of Performing Arts for one last concert. At Slayter center, the band performs music from that day's halftime show, fight songs, The Purdue Hymn, along with other music. After the band is done playing, they perform the Drum Major Breakdown, one of the band's many traditions. Once the Drum Major Breakdown is completed around 4:30, the band members are free to go after a long, nine hour day of marching.
The AAMB At Special Events
The "All-American" Marching Band has been all around the country and around the world. They have performed in New York City, Washington DC, Canada, South America, Europe, Iceland, Greenland, Japan, China, Singapore, along with many other locations in the U.S. One of their major recent accomplishments was leading the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2010. The band was chosen as one of the 10 bands from 300 applicants and was the first band from the Big Ten to be invited to march in the parade. In the time leading up to the parade the band and its directors had a lot of work to do. Before the band could secure the spot, the band had to submit an application along with a large press kit that emphasized why the "All-American" Marching Band should be the band to be chosen. This included information about the history of the band, videos of past performances, along with letters of recommendation from directors of other bands in the Big Ten. Once they had been chosen, the directors had to submit drill charts of the show that they were going to perform on the performance stage in front of the Macy's store. Once the show was approved, the work started. The band had to practice everything to perfection because, in a situation like this, there is no room for error. For many rehearsals, the only thing that the band worked on was detailing this show. On the big day about 3.5 million people saw the band in the streets and approximately 50 million others watched from home on television. This was an experience for the "All-American" Marching Band on an international stage that could not be replicated anywhere else.
To the Future!
The "All-American" Marching Band has a rich history of greatness and, with any hope, it will have the same success in the future. To learn about the band's recent history and to get an insight into the future plans for the band, we talked to the current director of the "All-American" Marching Band. Here are Professor Gephart's answers to questions that we had.
Q: What has been your main goal since becoming director of the band in 2006?
A: When taking over the band in 2006, my main focus was to improve the playing of the "All-American" Marching Band. We set out in that process to do consistent playing rehearsals every week. We also set out a process of teaching the students how to breathe more effectively; how to be more detail oriented in their playing. Also, we increased the responisbilities of our student leadership team in the area of musicianship. So part of the audition process to become a student leader now involves a music audition.
Q: What do you think the future goals of the band will be?
A: I think the future goals are going to be to continue commitment to excellence, I want to go back to basics of marching fundamentals and make sure that we continue working on our marching all season. Also, I want to be innovative in the way we approach electronics using sampling and other electronics in our half time shows in a really neat way in a way that embraces old traditions but also brings in the new.
Q: How do you plan to keep the shows fresh and entertaining as the years go on?
A: The goal is for us to use electronics and sampling so that the shows do have an element of freshness. I think that our fans can tell that we've gone back to the basics, doing a lot more animations and pictures than we have done in a long time. The Purdue fans aren't interested in seeing us do intricate drill design on the field, so that cant be a priority to us. We've got do what we can to entertain our fans.
Q:Why were you interested in becoming director of Purdue Bands?
A: First of all, I grew up close to Purdue so this is kinda my home and I grew up watching the Purdue bands. This is a dream come true for me to be the director of this particular band. Also, I always wanted to be a college band director because I like working with college-age students. I really enjoy the fact that at Purdue we don't have any music majors. So, our students can think outside of the box, they're not afraid to try different things. When I was in college at Indiana University, a percentage of our band was made up of music majors who were doing the band because they were forced to do it, and that's not exactly what I like at all. In fact, that's what I like about Purdue, that we don't have that kind of element in our band.
Q: Do you think that the job is what you expected it to be coming in to it?
A: I think that is has probably turned ouit to be much better in a lot of respects. I have enjoyed watching the band progress, especially musically. I also would tell you that it takes far more time out of my life than I ever thought it would, especially since I also conduct the wind ensemble.
Q: What are some of your favorite band traditions?
A: There are lots of them. Probably my most favorite is the senior show, the seniors hitting the drum on senior day, that's one of my favorite traditions. I love the drum major breakdown at the end of the day. I also like, of course, the obvious favorites, our solo twirler positions, the big bass drum, block P, and the floating Purdue formation; all those things that we do. But, I also like some of the behind the scenes traditions that folks don't know about that aren't terribly public. For example, this whole senior show preparation by our seniors, it's not out in the public. So some of those kind of things, but the one thing I'll tell you is that this past year at band camp we had our student leaders list traditions on the blackboard and in about 5 minutes we came up with over 50 traditions that are a part of this band program.
Q: What differentiates Purdue's Marching band from other college marching bands?
A: Well, the number one is embracing tradition. most college marching bands don't have the same depth of tradition that the Purdue band has. The other thing is that, because we don't have any music majors in our band, we don't have a group of students leaving Purdue and going out and teaching and spreading what we do at Purdue in the public schools and so forth. So the fact that we have a reputation that goes beyond that speaks pretty highly of our band; that we don't need all these professional music educators talking about our programs. It kind of speaks for itself.
Q: What are some of your favorite show ideas for the future?
A: I want to do a Snow White spoof show, I want to do a goldilocks and the three bears spoof show, I want to do a Robin Williams tribute show, We did a show called dancing with the band part one eight years ago and I'd like to do dancing with the band part three coming up in the near future. Also, you know I love coming up with new ideas as the year programs as things happen during the year; responding to what happens so we can use new and fresh material.
Q: What has been your main goal since becoming director of the band in 2006?
A: When taking over the band in 2006, my main focus was to improve the playing of the "All-American" Marching Band. We set out in that process to do consistent playing rehearsals every week. We also set out a process of teaching the students how to breathe more effectively; how to be more detail oriented in their playing. Also, we increased the responisbilities of our student leadership team in the area of musicianship. So part of the audition process to become a student leader now involves a music audition.
Q: What do you think the future goals of the band will be?
A: I think the future goals are going to be to continue commitment to excellence, I want to go back to basics of marching fundamentals and make sure that we continue working on our marching all season. Also, I want to be innovative in the way we approach electronics using sampling and other electronics in our half time shows in a really neat way in a way that embraces old traditions but also brings in the new.
Q: How do you plan to keep the shows fresh and entertaining as the years go on?
A: The goal is for us to use electronics and sampling so that the shows do have an element of freshness. I think that our fans can tell that we've gone back to the basics, doing a lot more animations and pictures than we have done in a long time. The Purdue fans aren't interested in seeing us do intricate drill design on the field, so that cant be a priority to us. We've got do what we can to entertain our fans.
Q:Why were you interested in becoming director of Purdue Bands?
A: First of all, I grew up close to Purdue so this is kinda my home and I grew up watching the Purdue bands. This is a dream come true for me to be the director of this particular band. Also, I always wanted to be a college band director because I like working with college-age students. I really enjoy the fact that at Purdue we don't have any music majors. So, our students can think outside of the box, they're not afraid to try different things. When I was in college at Indiana University, a percentage of our band was made up of music majors who were doing the band because they were forced to do it, and that's not exactly what I like at all. In fact, that's what I like about Purdue, that we don't have that kind of element in our band.
Q: Do you think that the job is what you expected it to be coming in to it?
A: I think that is has probably turned ouit to be much better in a lot of respects. I have enjoyed watching the band progress, especially musically. I also would tell you that it takes far more time out of my life than I ever thought it would, especially since I also conduct the wind ensemble.
Q: What are some of your favorite band traditions?
A: There are lots of them. Probably my most favorite is the senior show, the seniors hitting the drum on senior day, that's one of my favorite traditions. I love the drum major breakdown at the end of the day. I also like, of course, the obvious favorites, our solo twirler positions, the big bass drum, block P, and the floating Purdue formation; all those things that we do. But, I also like some of the behind the scenes traditions that folks don't know about that aren't terribly public. For example, this whole senior show preparation by our seniors, it's not out in the public. So some of those kind of things, but the one thing I'll tell you is that this past year at band camp we had our student leaders list traditions on the blackboard and in about 5 minutes we came up with over 50 traditions that are a part of this band program.
Q: What differentiates Purdue's Marching band from other college marching bands?
A: Well, the number one is embracing tradition. most college marching bands don't have the same depth of tradition that the Purdue band has. The other thing is that, because we don't have any music majors in our band, we don't have a group of students leaving Purdue and going out and teaching and spreading what we do at Purdue in the public schools and so forth. So the fact that we have a reputation that goes beyond that speaks pretty highly of our band; that we don't need all these professional music educators talking about our programs. It kind of speaks for itself.
Q: What are some of your favorite show ideas for the future?
A: I want to do a Snow White spoof show, I want to do a goldilocks and the three bears spoof show, I want to do a Robin Williams tribute show, We did a show called dancing with the band part one eight years ago and I'd like to do dancing with the band part three coming up in the near future. Also, you know I love coming up with new ideas as the year programs as things happen during the year; responding to what happens so we can use new and fresh material.