I'm going to apologize up front for the length of this meandering essay. I assure you, it could have been much worse. And it goes without saying, it is just my opinion. If you don't like it, well, whatever......
Summer is really coming to a close. The days are getting shorter, the nights a little cooler, but only a little since it’s been so hot lately. And, more significantly, the smell of football is in the air. For people like me, it’s the smell of marching band that is in the air. Thirty years ago (eek!) was the first time I tried out for the Ohio State University Marching Band. The ‘The’ hadn’t been added to the name yet, it was only the 3rd year of Dr. Jon Woods’ tenure as its director, the percussion section used duos, and marching was still the most important part of the band.
I made it my first time trying-out and I participated for five seasons, which included time as a squad leader and as one of students who led music rehearsals during the summer sessions that preceded tryouts. If I recall, trios were introduced during my time there, and a ‘new’ uniform that added a red stripe on the sleeves and the hat; a move that started the break away from our military roots. We were not happy about the red stripe, but we were tickled to have new uniforms that weren’t all military wool and patched together and still falling apart. A local car dealership funded the deal and we stood on the field for a picture with the dealership name spelled on the field. The boom of college football on TV began while I was a student, too. In my first year, in 1986, all the games began at 1:00pm, with, possibly, the exception of the televised Michigan game. By my last year in 1990, all the games were televised with a myriad of starting times. Watching for the TV time-out guy was still a thing, and we learned how to do that.
This history is important because it is somewhat of an explanation as to how the OSUMB and THE university arrived where it is now. And it’s about money, “streamlining”, publicity…in short, the corporate machine that it is now. Unfortunately, the OSUMB has been dragged along with that machine.
The relationship with OSUMB’s alumni has changed over the years, too, and really, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. Recently, TBDBITL Alumni Club (which may or may not exist anymore, I’m not sure) signed a deal with tOSU to agree to move under the umbrella of The Ohio State University Alumni Association. The OSUAA used to be its own entity, separate from tOSU, but a few years ago, was absorbed by tOSU as a means to “manage” it more completely. I use quotes because no one really wants to give an honest answer as to why that happened. Slowly, the OSUAA has been gathering all its alumni club eggs to keep them securely under the OSUAA hen that is really The Ohio State University (remember, they are one now) and each group must sign an agreement that they will use the sterilized logos agreed-upon (read: provided) and agree not to criticize the university, among other stipulations. To summarize: be under the thumb of the university. Many OSUMB alumni were quite unhappy about it, but I’m sure TBDBITL (the organization that was founded 50 years ago) felt like they didn’t have a choice. The TBDBITL Alumni Band has been putting on reunions since 1966. It has raised tons of awareness of the quality and traditions of the OSUMB, let alone the millions of dollars for the OSUMB that includes many sets of new instruments (and I’m talking for EVERYONE, not just tubas or percussion), new berets for new members, dinners and lunches, countless other items that I’m probably unaware of, but most importantly, scholarships.
The relationship of the OSUMB alumni and the “regular band”, or as the older alumni like to call them, the “Junior Band”, just to piss them off, is off-and-on tenuous. The college students don’t like having “big brother” looking over their shoulder to keep them in check or to criticize their quality or methods and as far as I know, there is no other college band that has this looming giant watching them at all times. What we didn’t , and now they don’t, realize is that is what keeps them always the best. It keeps the quality and the traditions and the renewal that other bands don’t get.
Sometimes.
During my recollection of the 80s (which I’m sure is limited), my impression of the alumni band was that they just wanted to come back and keep marching in the band ( the five year limit was instituted in the 70s) and show us they could do it better than us. Those 70s guys were still craaaaazy in the 80s, and a lot of them disliked the “new” director Woods. At the time, the reunion in the stadium and a few concerts is all that existed of the Alumi Club. I remember current members yelling “cut the cord” to the old guys (they were younger then than I am now!). But that has changed over the years. The relationship has changed to one that has an undertone of disdain and disrespect. Certainly, not all the current members feel that way, but the group mentality sometimes rules out the words that individually come from the mouths of the babes. And I observe that it is more a Jekyll and Hyde kind of relationship. When I hear “cut the cord” now from the current members, it sounds like they are saying ‘butt out of our business’. I say this because much of the current staff is OSUMB alumni. No one tells Dr. Chris Hoch to cut the cord. No one tells Ed & Karen Crockett or Wes Clark to cut the cord, and no one says to cut the cord when they are receiving a meal or a gift in person, but I know what the mumblings are when in the group. Those great staff members are even more attached than a majority of the alumni. That sentiment is stronger of the recent OSUMB alumni to the older members, those that have been out just a few years and have no desire to participate in TBDBITL Alumni Club, except to maybe march ONE MORE TIME! for the reunion in Ohio Stadium and the chance for a free ticket into the game and a moment of notoriety on the field. Those younger alums have little desire to help with the concerts and fundraising activities of TBDBITL.
My guess is that those members, the current band and the younger alumni, have no idea what challenges the band had before the mid-90s, and therefore have no appreciation for what the TBDBITL Alumni Club became in the 90s and what they have provided in the 15 years since. I’m sure they have been told, and I’m not here to preach to them, mother-like, to thank and appreciate their elders and all that. I’m not their mother. But I wonder if they really want the alumni to truly cut the cord. The University Board has just chopped and chopped the reputations of the college band and the alumni band. tOSU has damaged its relationship between the bands and themselves and now, with this latest extortion, many alumni, including myself, are getting the message that we are unwanted with the exception of our “charity” dollars. The university allows the OSUMB to play less and less at games favoring pre-recorded crap that discourages school spirit and collegiate atmosphere, demands they play “required” pep bands forgetting that they are still college students who take classes and have other demands (not unlike the football team-remember the history that I outlined above?), and expect a new and perfect show every new home game. The OSUMB staff has taken on the ‘innovation’ philosophy to keep the organization always on the leading edge, forgetting, IN MY OPINION, that the amazing simplicity the OSUMB always had was its innovation. Having kids carry around a bizillion toms and bass drums is NOT innovation. Having three trombone parts, added with bass trombones, is not improving the OSUMB sound. The innovation was the arrangers’ ability to write music for the OSUMB that was clear, quality, AND entertaining, instead of complex and muddy. With appropriate music, the drill could be learned and executed in a week’s time and look great without the struggle and stress that the students must now endure. There was always struggle and stress to learn a show in a week, but it is inconceivable now. Add to that the staff’s challenge of creating a quality product with students who come from high schools whose programs only consisted of students learning one show in three months. (This is a big part of the addition of mellophones instead of Eb alto horns, that almost no one now uses, which I totally get.) Those students don’t have the musical experience to do what the OSUMB does, but thanks to the created reputation of the Ohio State corporation and demands for a winning football team, the internet, AND the TBDBITL Alumi Band putting bands in the public and playing volunteered gigs all over central Ohio and beyond, kids still seek out the OSUMB, and thankfully so.
Of course there is no one occurrence that has contributed to this tough place the OSUMB now has to live. And the current students don’t know it as anything else; for them it’s always been that way. But, students, think before you say “cut the cord” now.
When I was in the band (HA!), there were no new instruments except to replace broken horns and drums that could no longer be patched. Our horns were so green and black in some places that they just couldn’t be shined any longer. The only practice instruments at the time were some extra percussion. Script Ohio Club didn’t yet exist and it has since raised so much money that band can now afford multiple sets of instruments for practice and games. My husband said his uniform had at least 13 patches holding it together and the OSUMB had true seamstresses on staff to keep the uniforms wearable. And we had to have them cleaned ourselves. If it was really soiled, we’d have to get it to the cleaners by Monday so it would be back in time to wear for the next game. We bought all our own acccessories: new shoes, socks, gloves, shirts, tie, beret, plumes…and I don’t remember what else. And of course, it all had to be spotless for tough inspections. I was fortunate to receive a scholarship during my first two years in band as a music education major in the marching band. I believe it totaled to $1000. The HyperActive Band group of alumni hadn’t raised many thousands of dollars yet, for continued scholarships yet for students. I worked a part time job when I could (as most of us did) but not at all during football season. Between school and band, none of us had any money to buy food, let alone feed ourselves on football Saturday because we weren’t provided food at all. We’d bring snacks for the coolers that we took out to the stadium before the game, and hopefully had a few bucks for the hot dog before skull session. We were on a quarterly schedule, so tryouts were about 10 days before school started in September, and we were learning the first show for the second football game. The first game was frequently courtesy the previous years’ band, known as the volunteer game. An OSUMB alumni thought it would be a nice idea to give band members some opportunities for meals since tryouts meant kids had to be at the university before food service began before school started. I’m amazed that some alumni have been treated off-handedly by rude college students who expect this without appreciation, kind of a “give me my food and get out of here” attitude.
Seriously, I could go on and on, but I’m beating a dead horse. If OSUMB wants us to cut the cord, I’m all for it now. I never wanted to hang on simply because I wanted to march again and again, (though I know I could out-march half those young whipper-snappers, bwahahaha) but because I learned that it’s our job to hold on to and teach what traditions are and how they can be preserved for true innovation. Keep paying it forward, so to speak. No one else is doing that. THAT is what innovation is! Surely some improvements are better than not, but not all changes are better. When the product and process truly is better and made easier for the students, then it is better and keeping OSUMB as a unit, as a family, and not divided up to be conquered is better than the ‘me is most special’ philosophy found in the ‘butt out of my band’ attitude. If it is divided and conquered, then it will be just another college band. Not the special place I grew up. Not a place that is safe, and learning was for learning’s sake, and kids are taught about being good people. I learned about the giving required to be on a team. I learned that the self is not always as important as the group. Everyone in the band was ONE unit, one group, one united front of music and entertainment. I went in to the group as a teenager, and came out as an adult who learned a lot about work, ethics, music, health, and responsibility. It’s a long complicated story, clearly, but I’m just about done caring because I’m being told to butt out. Cut the cord.
