It’s March, and we’ve just finished up the last of football season, and the last roar and clang of the college marching bands are still swirling around the insanely huge university stadiums around the country. When I wear one of my other editorial hats, covering the broadcast audio of sports on radio and television, all of the audio mixers who have worked both NFL and NCAA games tell me that the marching band at the college games is what truly sets them apart. And as more high school athletes make the jump right into the major leagues for the NFL and NBA, the lines between academic and commercial sports get thinner and thinner. Thus, the marching band takes on even more significance.
What’s less well-known is the synergy between college marching bands and local MI retailers. The University of West Florida football team, the Argos, seemed to have it all: the team, barely two years in existence, made it to the 2017 NCAA Division II Championship game. It even had a fight song, a legacy from the school’s other sports teams. What they didn’t have was a marching band to perform it across the gridirons during the college football season.
That’s when a few local Pensacola MI retailers stepped up to help. Schmidt’s Music is the area’s band & orchestra-only store, and for nearly 40 years the main vendor for area schools’ marching bands, as well as their main instrument-repair source and a locale for band clinics. “If it blows air, it comes here first,” jokes store owner Dave Schmidt, whose store has nary a guitar or drum other than a marching snare. “We’ve been pushing for UWF to get a marching band for some time. It’d be good for the community and good for us. Anything we can do for them, we do.”
As reported by the local newspaper, MI retailer Blues Angel Music also committed support, both in the form of evidentiary data to show what some of the ancillary costs, such as uniforms, might be; studies that show that marching bands can help schools with recruitment; and support from Blues Angel Music Foundation, the company’s charitable arm, which has in the past helped support area public schools with financial support and instruments.
An Athletic Band
That support is helping propel the school’s plans for a marching band forward. Two years ago, it established the UWF Athletic Band, an orchestra that serenades the school’s teams from the grandstand, attired in polo shirts instead of military brocade. But, Dr. Sheila Dunn, the chair of UTF’s music department, told MMR that this is an evolutionary step towards
a proper marching band, which they expect to field in 2022. “We’ve had to navigate a lot of resources, but we started with 56 orchestra members in the first year so the passion for it is there,” she says, noting that achievement despite the school’s more-then-50-percent STEM-enrolled student body. “We’re very grateful to the local music retailers for being here and being behind us.” Dr. Dunn says having several retailers in the area helps with bids for instruments, as costs have been one of the major hurdles that establishing a marching band has faced. But as it edges closer to achieving that goal, it also promises those shops that their support is well placed; the size of school marching bands are typically one percent of the overall student population, so UWF’s 13,000 students means that the marching band, when it comes into full flower, will comprise some 130 members, each of whom needs and instrument or two, as well as accessories and maintenance services.
The symbiotic relationship between MI retail and education is well-documented, and how colleges and stores can help each other through their marching band programs is a great example of how that manifests itself. So use the month of March to keep those schools and their marching bands in mind.
