Central's band marches to a winning beat

Like athletes reviewing a play-by-play video of their most recent game, 40 Central High School band students listened intently to a judge's recorded critique of their last performance.

Like a coach who has told his players a hundred times to watch the outside pick, band director Neil Casey reminds his color guard to project to the audience.

"Did you hear that? The block rotation was distorted," said Casey, pausing the tape to discuss the judge's comments. "It's your individual responsibility to maintain those positions."

It's Monday. The 95 members of the Central Marching Tigers and their band directors have four days to fix the problems judges found in their previous performances before going live again in a Park Hills, Mo., competition.

After listening to the judge's critique, the members troop outside to run through their motions without instruments. Later, they'll go through the entire show playing music and marching.

They do this three days a week, from about 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Members of Central High School's Marching Tigers band at a recent competition. (Submitted photo)

"It's very demanding. You're constantly trying to improve, being judged and then improving more," said Brianna LeGrand, a Central senior and drum major in the band.

Marching band has all the hallmarks of the more popular high school extracurriculars: teamwork, skill, competition and a great deal of coordination and rhythm.

LeGrand describes it this way: "We put music in motion."

Unlike in past years, Central's band held auditions this year instead of allowing anyone to join.

LeGrand and fellow senior Aaron Thornsberry, who plays the mellaphone, say that decision has paid off with two first-place wins and a second-place win so far this fall.

Like LeGrand and Thornsberry, other members of the Marching Tigers also play in the school's concert band. But the two are totally different ballgames.

"With marching, you have to think about different things," said Thornsberry. "You worry about where you're at on the field and about the sound, breathing at the right time and playing in tune, because your heart rate is higher."

The band's season started with a two-week camp in June followed by the beginning of practices after school began in August. Competitions run from September through October.

"The band was out here when it was 110 degrees in June and didn't complain when there was only three-minute water breaks," said LeGrand. "And now it's getting cold and they're still out here marching."

cmiller@semissourian.com

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