1)   Forward

2)   Why, What, Where and How

1.       Why your child must be in band

2.       Qualifications for Band Parents

3.       Why YOU Really Really Really Should be a Band Parent

4.       How to Become a Band Parent

3)   Initiation: Your First Band Parents' Organization Meeting

1.       Introduction to the BPO

2.       The Year's Band Schedule

3.       Band Expen$e$

4.       The Marching Show

5.       The Marching Band Officers

6.       The Band Hall

7.       After the Meeting

4)    BPO Committees

1.        Chaperone Committee

2.        Pit Crew and Loading Crew Committee

3.        Recording Committee

4.        Fund Rai$ing Committee

5.        Telephone Committee

6.        Community Relations Committee

7.        Newsletter Committee

8.        Publicity Committee

9.        Trip Committee

10.      Uniform Committee

5)   Band Parenting and You

1.       Rating Band Parents

6)    Band Activities

1.       Football Games

2.       Marching Contests

3.       Concert Contests

4.       Concerts

5.       Parades

6.       All-City-Region-Area-State Band Auditions and Concerts

7.       Solo and Ensemble Contests

7)    Band Parenting on a Budget

1.       It’s Actually Better Not to Have Too Much Money

2.       Helpful Hints

8)    Things You Want to Know About

1.       The Purchase and Maintenance of Musical Instruments

2.       What to Do if Your Band Member Wants to Pursue a Career in Music

3.       How to Spot a Really Dedicated High School Band Director

4.       How to Spot a Really Good High School Band Director

5.       What to Do About a Troublesome School Administration

9)    Things You Don't Want to Know About

1.       Chronic Persistent Band Parent Syndrome

2.       Band Parent Burn-out

10)  Coda - Other Band Parent Ailments

 Appendix A

Band parenting hardly existed when we who are now band parents were in high school. The concept of band parenting, even the word itself, had not developed. Parents of band members attended one meeting a year and paid a dollar. The band director and band members did everything else. Parents were just a source of a small amount of additional money for the band program.

The brobdingnagian growth of band activities in the last three decades forced a reinvention of band parenting. Other school booster clubs just raise a little money and show the colors at games. Modern band parenting is life's total commitment experience. Band parents have deep involvement in all aspects of high school band management during band season (June 1st to May 31st inclusive). Band parenting becomes the motive underlying existence, especially during the marching season. As a new band parent you are about to embark on your greatest adventure.

You can find additional help in your local community. If your child plays the flute, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, oboe, or alto saxophone you may wish to seek additional information about how to cope from an experienced band parent. If your child plays the tenor saxophone, the bassoon, the baritone saxophone, the euphonium or the French horn you may wish to seek additional information about how to cope from a bank loan officer. If your child plays the drums, the tuba or the piccolo you may wish to seek additional information about how to cope from an audiologist or a mental health professional.

As you strive, sparing no effort or expense, to be the best possible band parent pause occasionally to try to relax and have fun. As important as band is it may still be possible, at least theoretically, to overdo your commitment and burn out. Don't let this be an excuse for reducing your efforts. As the Head Director of the Milliard Filmore Senior High School Marching Muskrat Band so wisely observed, "We've never lost a band parent yet. Well, there were those few on the band trip two years ago but the most satisfactory explanation is that they were abducted by space aliens."

Call me Ishmael. (Well, it worked for Herman Melville.) Call me a band parent. Band parents have more important things to think about than chasing a great white whale. Now that you are or are about to be a band parent there is much you will want to know so straight to the matter! Firstly you must understand the cosmic importance of the band experience to your child and by extension the importance of band parenting.

1.  Why your child must be in band

The reasons why your child(ren) must be in band are so numerous that they would fill a book (or a Website). If this Website does well expect to see that other website really soon!. In the mean time a few of the reasons are:

1. Band is real neat. A bold statement, perhaps, but band can live up to it.

2. So you can be a band parent. Yes.

3. Your child will learn to pay attention and follow directions. Failure to pay attention on the marching field can mean being trampled by a phalanx of quick-marching sousaphones. Band members must listen to directions and keep their minds focused just to survive.

4. Your child will learn music not played on MTV. Too many young people are unaware of great art, good art or any art not in the 'Top 40'. Band will widen the scope of your child's appreciation.

5. Your child will not play pool (billiards). Playing pool is the first step on the sorry road that leads to bowling, mah jong, pin ball or even card games! Do you want your child to succumb to the questionable pleasures of cribbage? Well, of course not. "Now I know all you folks are the right kind of parents. Ask yourselves, "How can any pool table ever hope to compete with a gold trombone?"". Band is the answer.

6. It will keep your child off the streets (parades excepted) and away from almost everywhere else as well. Band members are too busy to get into trouble. After marching practice and other band commitments plus enough studying to stay eligible there's barely time left for eating and sleeping.

2.  Qualifications for Band Parents

Its so simple. You need to be the parent (or grandparent, or god-parent, or foster parent, or step-parent, or adoptive parent, or great grandparent, or even "just like a parent") of a band member. You also qualify if you are a legal guardian, court appointed surrogate, trustee in chancery, Big Brother/Big Sister or close aunt or uncle of a band member (or Regent of a band member of royal blood who is heir presumptive or better). Band Parents' Organizations properly use the widest possible definition of "parent". They say, It takes a whole village to raise a child.. All the adults in that village should be band parents!

There are people who take on many of the responsibilities of band parents without being band member parents in any way at all. The best book on these phenomena is Johann Quincey Finsterblat's 'Band Director's Spouse!- It's More than a Marriage, Its Helping to Run the Band!', available from Band Parents Publishing Company.

New band parents often wonder if they have the training and skills to be proper band parents. Band parents require wills of iron, the wisdom of Solomon, the endurance of a marathon runner, nerves of steel, the diplomacy of an ambassador, the strength of Hercules, the patience of Job, the self denial of a saint, the determination of the Little Engine That Could, plus the skills of a master mechanic, a registered nurse, a darn good carpenter, a school janitor, a Savile Row tailor, a licensed psychologist, a political campaign fund raiser and a boot camp master sergeant.

That may seem a tall order but DESPAIR NOT FOR THERE IS HOPE!

Not every band parent needs to possess all of these virtues in full. When the BPO needs wisdom two band parents, each of whom has half the wisdom of Solomon, can form a committee. Three out-of-shape couch potato band parents can move a tympani as well as one in-shape jogger band parent. Science has proved (in studies conducted by the Band Parents' Research Institute of Elkhart, Indiana) that good band parents are made, not born. Your most important qualification for band parenting is your willingness to show up. They'll teach you everything else.

3.  Why YOU Really Really Really Should be a Band Parent

By now it will already be clear that students should be in band and that every parent can be a band parent. (If this isn't clear please go back and re-read the beginning of this page five or six times.) It is likewise true that you really should be a band parent. It is your destiny. You can no more avoid it than death, taxes and fast food commercials.

Some people still resist. A few of these are the same people who have made reruns of "My Mother the Car" so popular. They are beyond helping. The rest will advance spurious arguments in defense of their position. Seemingly compelling at first glance these arguments are easily refuted by a thorough understanding of band. Some common arguments against becoming a band parent are refuted here.

I take care of my child. I don't have to worry about the rest of the band.

• This shows a basic lack of understanding of how a band works. Bands are only as good as their weakest section. Your band member could have the finest instrument, the most expensive lessons, go to the best summer band camps and still never have any chance of winning at competition if the rest of the band is neglected. A few good players do not a good band make. In a good band every player must be good. To take care of your band member you have to help take care of the whole band.

Its not fair that I should have to help band members whose parents watch "My Mother the Car".

• Its not fair, but that's the way it is. Blame it on Jerry Van Dyke.

The school district should take care of everything the band needs.

• It would be nice. Usually they just pay for the basics like band director's salaries and such. If they don't even do that then run for the school board. You might change things for the better. There are people in every community who do not understand the importance of band. You will have to fight them for every penny. For that matter there are people in every community who do not seem to understand the importance of reading. Some of these are parents. "My Mother the Car" has much to answer for.

I don't have enough money for band parenting.

• No one does. Band always needs more money. If people waited until there was enough money for band there would be no bands. Be a good band parent with whatever money you have.

I am very busy and do not have time for band parenting.

• A person who has no time for band parenting has no time for life.

4.  How to Become a Band Parent

Just follow this simple four step program.

1. - Acquire a child.

2. - Check "Yes" on school form asking if your child wants to be in band.

3. - Congratulations! You are now a band parent.

4. - Repeat Steps 1-3 as often as you like.

It is easy. Still, becoming a band parent is a gradual process. Many people do not entirely realize what is happening. Enlightenment comes as they sit in a band hall furiously rearranging busy business schedules to avoid conflicts with marching contests the existence of which they were happily unaware of an hour before. The road to band parenting begins when your child is in fifth or sixth grade. A letter comes about joining beginner band. At first it is no big deal. You spend some money for an instrument (OK, over $500.00 but "it will last them through high school, maybe college!". And ketchup is a vegetable. Never mind, you can sell it and recoup some of its cost when you upgrade or if your child ever does the unthinkable and quits band.) and a little more money for lessons. You go to one band parent meeting a year (if that). Seventh and eight grades come and go at the same easy pace, the occasional parade and concert, no major effort.

It is as eighth grade is winding down that the stormy petrel of band parenting appears: a form letter from the high school band director(s). This poorly reproduced missive will change your life more than any other single piece of paper you will ever see. After cheery greetings and congratulations on finishing Junior High School is the notice of a two to three week fishes' mandatory marching band camp immediately after school lets out.

(Etymological note: 'Fish' is the au courant term for freshmen. Its many advantages include being one syllable shorter, gender non-specific and suggestive to sophomores of clever artistic caricatures. (Etymological note on etymological note: "Au courant" is from the French and means "up-to-date". Why not just write "up-to-date" instead of "au courant"? That wouldn't be au courant.) )

Just a month after band camp before school even starts will be three weeks (sometimes more) of more than mandatory full marching band practice. (It has been reported that a band director once actually excused a bassoonist from summer marching practice. The bassoonist was one of an unfortunate group of tourists taken hostage in Quebec by heavily armed Francophone terrorists bitterly opposed to the increasing use of margarine instead of butter in Omelet aux fin herbes. Experienced band parents doubt this story. No band director would consider that a sufficient excuse.)

While you are juggling your summer plans around marching practice the letter will arrive from your Band Parents Organization (BPO). This will invite, or rather, command your presence at the next BPO Meeting. You are about to become a really and truly, honest to goodness, four-star, nickel-plated, genuine with signature, dyed-in-the-wool, fully-fledged BAND PARENT!

3.  Initiation  - Your First Band Parents' Meeting

Over the next several years you will spend more time at the high school band hall than at any other place. Your first trip there will be intimidating. Be forewarned! BPO officers can smell fear and exploit it. You must remain calm, at least outwardly. Avoid audible cries of dismay and overt whimpering. These will attract attention to you and you may leave the meeting as chair of several BPO Committees.

1.  Introduction to the BPO
The BPO Officers elected at the end of the last school year will run the meeting. Their willingness to accept election is a legitimate reason to doubt their sanity. Keep an eye on them and keep your distance. This form of mental aberration is highly contagious. The BPO President will briefly (which is a relative term) outline the BPO's structure and plans for the year. The typical BPO has more committees than the U.S. Congress and a budget sufficient for a moderately large first world nation. Its treasurer's report and fund raising activities will rival that of major multi- national corporations.

2.  The Year's Band Schedule
The head band director, with messianic flair and three part harmony, will outline the year's schedule, a bewildering list of rehearsals, concerts, contests, auditions, competitions, due dates and special events. During band season direct hands-on band parent involvement is required about every two days except during the marching season. Then it is needed much more frequently. By the time of this first meeting you will already be at least two weeks behind. (Powerful computer scheduling programs are available that can help you manage your time during band season. Very dedicated band parents take sabbaticals from all other activities for the duration.)

It is vitally important to copy down the entire schedule. Your young band member will forget to tell you about activities. Never, never forget that however well they play their horns, however nice they look in their uniforms, however grown-up they may appear, all band members are adolescents. At best they will remember to tell you when it is much too late to do you any good.

3.  Band Expen$e$
Running any band is expensive. Running a good band is very expensive. Running a top rank band is probably beyond the means of the merely well off.

Taxpayers being what they are it was decided long ago that schools would be funded at a level just sufficient to accomplish the basic education of talented well motivated students. For anything more you are on your own. In order that your child's band program be at least adequate there are certain band related expenses which you must pay to supplement what the school provides which typically is limited to:

Costs the band parent will pay indirectly by paying school taxes:

Directors' Salaries

Bus Transportation

Band Hall Upkeep

The director will outline the various other costs associated with the band program. These include but are in no way limited to:

• Costs the band parent will pay which are required by or are essential to the band program:

band T- shirts (~$12.00 each, minimum one for band member and one for each parent and sibling)	marching shoes (~$30.00)	marching socks (~$5.00)
uniform bags (~$20.00)	water jugs (~$7.00)	flip folders (~$6.00)
annual trip fees (~$300.00-1700.00)	assessment fees (~$80.00)	uniform dry cleaning fees (~$15.00)
instrument fees (~$50.00)	accompanist fees (~$20.00)	lunches on band trips ($6.00 per trip), etc.

 

• Costs the band parent will pay by spending time fund raising:

new school instruments	clinicians	arrangers
choreographers, etc.
Typical minimum fund raising profit needed is $200.00 per band member per year.

In addition to these you may wish to pay for further enrichment of your own band member's band experience.

• Costs the band parent will pay which are not actually required by the band program but are certainly encouraged by it:

instrument and accessories valve oil, reeds, mutes, etc. (averages ~$150.00 per year)	repairs (~$200.00 per year)	lessons ($10.00 per week)
band jacket (~$150.00)	band sweatshirts minimum one for each parent & sibling(~$18.00 each)	sheet music ($100.00 per year)
photo buttons (~$5.00 per parent)	contest photos (~$20.00 per contest)	contest recordings (~$28.00 per event)

Not including school taxes one student being four years in a band program means an average out of pocket expense of $5800.00.

(Of course the above does not include university summer band camps ($200.00 per summer), travel/meal/lodging expenses for yourself at out-of-town performances, medical expenses for marching injuries, your own band photos and videotapes, pay you are docked for skipping work to attend band events and fund raising purchases you make from people in exchange for their buying your band stuff.)

This may seem like a lot of money. It is a lot of money. It is a whole lot of money. It is probably more than your total school tax bill for the same period. Those taxpayers knew what they were about when they decided to limit school funding for the band. You are a band parent. You will find this money somewhere.

Here are a few suggestions to help you find the money. Begin by setting aside about 2-3 month's after-tax income for band expenses each year. Reduce your lifestyle accordingly. With careful darning and patching clothes can be made to last an extra several years. There is hardly anything that can go wrong with your car that can't be fixed with a little duck tape and some old wire.

Eating is one big expense which does not lend itself to too much reduction. (Please keep any comments about the author's waistline to yourselves. Thank you.) If you are faint from malnourishment you can't do your best at band parenting. Less expensive culinary choices are available. An insightful guide to very low cost eating is "Real Cheap Cooking with Scrounged Ingredients: Swamp-Yankee Recipes of the Depression" a book which does much to explain the fondness we who grew up among the bogs of Massachusetts' south shore have for wild parsnips boiled with cranberries. Yum.

It often makes sense to move into smaller, cheaper living quarters since your band member will be home only rarely. A second job can be helpful if its schedule does not conflict with band activities. Older band members can get part time work after school if its schedule does not conflict with band activities. Now is a good time to sell off any old pieces of property that you don't really need.

These ideas may see you through. The author strongly advises parents of more than one band member to review the bankruptcy laws.

You may dwell momentarily on the high cost in money and time of band parenting. Put such thoughts aside. Money and time are small sacrifices for the good of the band program and the good the band program will do for your band member. In any case they are nothing compared to the enormous physical and mental stress to which you will be subjected while band parenting.

4.  The Marching Show
The Director will describe the year's marching contest show. Your interest will increase as you realize that you will see it in whole or in part over 67 times during the next five months.

If you have not seen a marching show recently prepare yourself to be amazed, astounded, affected, absorbed, agitated, amused, agog, anabatic and just generally describable by adjectives beginning with the letter "A". Thirty years ago bands just marched down the field and then played a couple of standard marches while standing at attention. Modern marching shows are esthetically significant works of art.

A good marching show rivals Ringling Bros. in spectacle, the Olympics in athletic prowess, a symphony concert in musical quality and grand opera in intellectual depth. Instead of marches high school bands now commission original music by Pulitzer Prize winning composers. Instead of military style parade marching bands use Broadway quality choreography by Tony winning choreographers. Instead of drill teams 200 member dance companies complement the performance with routines derived in ballet and jazz styles by their own staff of dancing masters.

One can not overstate the importance of marching bands in our national artistic life. Recently, Sir Peter Thrall resigned a life appointment as director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London and refused a peerage to become full time artistic assistant to the East Sprongdale (Indiana) High School Marching Band. Sir Peter stated, "The most vital expression in the performing arts today is on the marching fields of America.".

5.  The Marching Band Officers
Finally the director will introduce the marching band officers. Marching or Field Officers are not elected. They are appointed by the directors following auditions.

Officers are role models to other band members. They are required to put in the extra effort to achieve superior scores at solo contests, high grade point averages in classwork and be exemplary school citizens in every way. They must work many many extra hours on band activities in addition to all the time which must be spent on band anyway. This includes summer vacation, weekends and many late evenings. Most of this work is menial and mind-numbingly tedious. Needless to say competition to become an officer is intense.

The Head Drum Major
Dressed in wrinkled jeans and T-shirt yet radiating the confidence and authority of General George S. Patton the Head Drum Major is the student conductor of the marching show. Usually a senior, All-Area (or even All-State), a National Merit Finalist, etc. the Head Drum Major's driving will to succeed can seem overwhelming in a small room like a band hall. The great heroes and heroines of history must have been like this in youth.

The Assistant Drum Major(s)
A marching field is so wide that communication with the whole of a large band requires additional student conductors spaced along the sidelines. The first and second runners-up for Drum Major (who were usually only a fraction of a point behind) are the Assistant Drum Majors. In addition to their field duties they serve the task of keeping the pressure on the Head Drum Major.

Keyboard Captain
Responsible for coordinating and rehearsing the Pit players. Since most of the directors' attention must focus on marchers Keyboard Captains must whip the Pit into shape to a considerable extent on their own. Savvy Loading and Pit Crew band parents understand this semi- independence and establish a strong direct working relationship with the Keyboard Captain.

Percussion Captain
Responsible for the marching drums and cymbals. Drummers are never shy personalities. Percussion Captains are often completely over-the-top. On their arrival the band hall noise level increases 5 dB before they get anywhere near a drum. A strong percussion clinician is needed to channel the Percussion Captain's energy.

Section Field Officers
Each section has one or more field officers who help to prepare and rehearse the show, insure that uniforms are complete, help maintain order on the band buses and just generally keep the fish in line both literally and figuratively. They are also a valuable source of information for band parents with questions.

4.  The Band Hall
A well regulated band hall is a place where music, youth, pedagogy, dedication, fellowship, success, failure, apprehension, boredom and excitement blend into something which resembles chaos but isn't so well organized. Take a few minutes before or after the band parents' meeting to explore the band hall.

Just being in that tuba-sized acoustic space is comforting to the soul. Trophies of past triumphs and failures ("Participant") festoon walls crowded by photographs formal and funny, hand lettered posters proffering wise counsel, sign-up sheets/schedules portending a busy semester, scholarship audition announcements offering hope, scrawled examples of student wit and on the floor (despite a valiant late afternoon clean up effort) littered examples of student neatness.

Seeing a band hall on Band Parents' night is mere archeology. Afternoons band halls are cacophonous with practicing, lessons, prop making, goofing off, sectionals, meetings and students curled up in corners doing homework (math if they are lucky) oblivious to the noise or perhaps comfortable in it. It is a place of being and belonging, banal in its familiarity, cluttered for convenience, architecturally undistinguished, acoustically questionable, overdue for renovation, unappreciated by its occupants, cursed for its temperature, suspected for its costliness and important beyond knowing.

5.  After the Meeting
After the formal meeting you can talk with other band parents and refresh yourself with cola and cookies. More importantly you can sign up for various BPO committees. As you might imagine there are myrad opportunities for band parents to help the band. There will be a mad dash to sign up for those committees that seem to promise little work, require a minimum of specialized training or be very interesting. It is a good idea to wear high quality running shoes and perhaps light body armor to give yourself every advantage in the race for desirable assignments.

4.  BPO Committees

You have to be on several BPO Committees. What is the point otherwise? Select those committees that fit your skills, your personality and your bank account.

1.  Chaperone Committee
Riding for hours in a crowded un-air-conditioned, bumping, jerking school bus with 40 band members after an exhausting 18 hour day defies description. You must experience it for yourself.

Chaperoning is one of the most important band parent skills. A large marching band is a community. Chaperones are its constables and social workers. You will learn much that you can use later as a military drill instructor, maximum security prison guard or wild animal trainer.

Before becoming a chaperone you must be investigated and approved by your local police department. Band parents with the foresight to have felony convictions involving crimes of moral turpitude can not be chaperones. If you are an unlucky law-abiding band parent who isn't sure just what the heck "turpitude" means then resign yourself to an intimate familiarity with school buses.

The power and authority of band chaperones is an extension of the power and authority of the band directors. Chaperones enforce the band directors' will when the directors are not personally present. Most school districts require a minimum ratio of chaperones to band members of about 1:20. Well-run band chaperone committees strive for a ratio closer to 1:1. It is common practice to put the band members on the buses and then fill up all empty seats with chaperones. Extra chaperones follow in a caravan of cars, SUV's and minivans.

The chaperone's duties are many. You will take the roll as the buses board, insure that band members have all their uniform and equipment, attempt to maintain quiet proper behavior on the bus (heaven help you on the return trip if they win), see that the bus is clean after the trip (i.e. you will clean the bus), get water to thirsty band members after they perform, escort them to and from the toilets, provide first aid to the ill or injured, seek medical care for the seriously ill or injured, get clean loaner socks to and dirty loaner socks back from the sockless (and launder dirty loaner socks) and clean the band's seating area after the event. Additionally on overnight trips you will patrol hotel hallways at night, try to stop those band members who usually make complete fools of themselves from making complete fools of themselves, wake up band members in the morning and escort band members to restaurants in which innocent members of the general public are also trying to eat.

You need to know about band buses. Band buses are just ordinary school buses used to transport the band. To make school buses inexpensive for school districts to buy the Federal Government has exempted them from the safety and anti-pollution rules that apply to cars. They have no seat belts, no catalytic converters, no head rests, flimsy side walls and only two narrow doors. Forget air bags or crash padding. The non-pollution-controlled exhaust from a bus smells terrible and you don't want to think about what it is doing to your lungs.

School buses were designed to take small children on short trips. Comfort was ignored (small children don't vote in school board elections). There is no air conditioning or sound proofing. The non-contoured seats are rock hard and sized for 7 year olds. The windows are hard to open when its hot and hard to close when it rains. The suspension and shock absorbing systems are rudimentary. The brakes squeal loudly. Apparently no one is in a hurry to get to school because these buses have a top speed of 45 mph (downgrade with a stiff wind behind). Consequently it takes a very long time to take the band anywhere. Bands with sufficient funds charter comfortable coach buses for long trips. This is a powerful incentive for chaperone band parents to help in fund raising.

The novice chaperone must carefully review all the rules for chaperones and band members. If rigorously enforced these will keep band member behavior from becoming more than mildly intolerable at least some of the time. Some band rules are so weird that the incidents that inspired them must have been incredible. Enforce these rules very strictly so that whatever it was doesn't happen to you.

Especially enforce the rule against singing on the band bus. The importance of this rule may not immediately be apparent. Group singing of such adolescent classics as "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" was once widely accepted on band buses. Diversity of vocal culture prevents this today. Everyone wants to sing different songs. Think of the nightmare of a bus in which some are singing "Rap" while others sing "Country" and others "Heavy Metal" while one budding baritone in the back belts out the "Kindertotenlieder". If that baritone has a loud voice with plenty of projection the whole bus will soon be so depressed that they won't be able to perform. Instead of singing have the students review the multiplication tables instead. If they know the multiplication tables cold then have them work out the cube roots of the first 50 prime numbers to 5 places. No fair using calculators!

Chaperones must occasionally deal with band members who violate the rules set down by the band directors. This will happen about 27 times an hour. It is important to distinguish between minor offenses such as talking too loudly on a band bus and major offenses such as throwing a soda bottle out of a band bus window.

Deal with minor offenses by a cautionary glance or word. For major offenses impose the ultimate sanction. Bring the miscreant to the attention of the band director.

By a little known exemption in the Constitution band directors are not bound by Due Process or the Bill of Rights when dealing with errant band members. Protections against double jeopardy and self- incrimination do not apply. Consequently offending band members usually confess their misdeeds and accept whatever punishment (de-littering the practice field, polishing the tympani) the director imposes. Repeat offenders may face the most dreaded band punishment: tidying the band hall after every football game for the rest of their high school careers. (In 1967 a Federal Appeals court ruled that this constituted "cruel and unusual punishment" and should not be allowed. The Supreme Court overturned this in a 9-0 ruling. The Justices stated that while they were all for human rights, they were not about to extend them to trombone players.)

2.  Pit Crew and Loading Crew Committee
The duties of the Pit Crew and Loading Crew are similar. The Loading Crew handles pit equipment and the band truck at the school. The Pit Crew handles them at the stadium. Both work closely with the student loading crew and the pit band members. Membership usually overlaps to a considerable extent since some people just can't get enough of manhandling marimbas.

Every band trip you will lug everything the band needs out of the band hall, put all of it on the truck, take it all off the truck at the performance site, put part of it (empty cases, etc.) back on the truck, move the rest of it into place for performance, make emergency repairs to much of it, take it back to the truck after the performance, take what you left on the truck off the truck, then put all of it back on the truck, back at the band hall take it all off the truck and lug it back inside. (If it threatens to rain you will take it on and off the truck several more times.)

Several Pit Crew members will enjoy additional involvement driving the truck, navigating the truck, cleaning the truck and, if unlucky, repairing the truck.

"Move the rest of it into place for performance" means lugging it onto an outdoor marching field at a contest or, more frequently, a football game. You'll carry, roll or drag the equipment several hundred yards over uneven, often soggy, ground.

Band equipment, especially the large percussion instruments, were designed to move over smooth indoor floors. Field lugging can challenge the most determined of band parents. At football games you must move it past, around or through football players, coaches, mascots, cheerleaders, officials, the other side's band and all of their equipment. But numbers are on your side. Few obstacles on earth can resist the onslaught of fifty determined band parents resplendent in T-shirts and photo pins.

3.  Recording Committee
Remember those nerds in your high school's Audio-Visual Club? They grew up and did what nerds do. They went to fancy colleges, earned fancy degrees, got fancy jobs paying fancy salaries and bought thousands of dollars worth of fancy video equipment. Now they or others like them form your band's Recording Committee.

It is often a sub-committee of the Chaperone or Loading Crew Committee. They record band performances and rehearsals for the band directors. If you are very nice to them they may let you make copies for yourself.

4.  Fund Rai$ing Committee
Money. Band programs need it. They need a whole huge quantity of it! The Fund Raising Committee must see that they get it.

Band parents use almost every legal method of obtaining money from selling bric-a-brac door to door to sponsoring entertainment extravaganzas like a 20 elephant five-ring circus.

Begging- It's simple, cheap to set up and works to a surprising extent. Ask all the band parents for an annual band fee. If they have given themselves they will be all the more ready to ask others to do the same. Try local businesses, fraternal and sororal organizations and local government. At worst they will say no. Every now and again they will give something. You can't lose.

Selling- A tried and true technique pioneered by Girl Scouts with cookies. Success depends on entrepreneurial flair. It helps to sell something people want. This is not always possible. A legion of groups from little league soccer teams to the Sons of Saint Antrobus are trying to raise money. Good items are hard to find. Even public spirited band lovers will buy only so many Columbus Day toast holders. (The author himself only has twelve.) Selling has a dangerous side effect. Sell too much or too often and your friends and co-workers will shun you and you will be a pariah.

Car Washes- Cars continuously get dirty. This is a good funding source used by just about every organization at some time. Select band members car washers carefully. As mentioned they are teenagers.

A certain natural destructiveness seems to be genetically programmed into teenagers. An examination of the low brass instruments in any band hall will make this apparent. Its original purpose was probably to make parents happy when their children finally moved out on their own. You don't want damage done to people's cars. People are very protective of their cars. Screen band member car washers to find those few with a light touch and tendency toward neatness. Stand the rest of them near the street with signs to attract customers. Make sure they understand that blocking traffic is an offense.

Sponsoring Events- A big bang approach to make a lot of money all at once from a spectacular event. You need entertainers who will give you a cut of the box office in exchange for your sponsorship. Try medium name (i.e., somewhat famous) entertainers, circuses, carnivals, etc. Its amazing what people will pay to see. Study the life of P.T. Barnum for inspiration.

Sponsor Band Contests- Why just be in them? Sponsor your own! Money is to be had. Participating bands pay participant fees. The audience pays admission fees. Everyone buys food and drink. The trick is to get judges, proctors, parking attendants and so on to donate their time. But what else are band parents for?

Judges are hardest. It is nifty to have judges with a bit of reputation for something to do with bands. Don't use the fellows who judged livestock at last year's county fair. The band directors probably know someone who owes them a favor.

Hold Dinners- People eat regularly and frequently. Use this to the band's advantage. Sell food, indeed complete dinners. Be sure to sell the dinners for more than the cost to prepare and package them. This is very important. Miscalculate and the band could lose money. It is likewise important to offer food that people want to eat. Chopped kale quiche with fresh tripe dinners are usually not successful even though they are very inexpensive on a per plate basis.

5.  Telephone Committee
A miracle of modern telecommunications, the Telephone Committee is the vital electronic link among band parents. It works on a system that expands like a tree (called a telephone tree). The Committee chair receives urgent information from the BPO board and then calls a number of committee members, say seven, each of whom then calls seven more band parents each of whom calls seven more until every band parent is contacted.

This is how it works:

1. The BPO President calls an urgent emergency meeting to deal with an harmonium crisis.

2. The president calls the Telephone Committee chair. She is not home but her teenaged son takes the message. He fails to write it down and forgets to tell his mother.

3. The next morning the BPO President learns from some band parents that they did not get the message.

4. The BPO President calls the Telephone Committee chair again this time reaches her answering machine which is more reliable than her son and records the message.

5. Eight hours later the Telephone Committee chair comes home from work, listens to the message and calls the next seven committee members only four of whom are home.

6. The Telephone Committee chair spends the next three hours calling the twenty-one band parents on the call lists of the three committee members she could not reach but succeeds in reaching only twelve.

7. Then she again calls the three committee members she could not reach reaching two of them. They then call their seven band parents who get the message for a second time.

8. And so forth and so on........................

9. After everyone has hung up 63% of band parents eventually got the message, 22% got it two or more times, 18% got it after the meeting was over and 37% never received it at all.

6.  Community Relations Committee
Your band is part of your community. It is important to have good relations and friendly feeling between the two. The band and BPO should seek out avenues of community involvement. This can be done in a casual way. A formal exchange of ambassadors is usually not required.

7.  Newsletter Committee
Knowledge is power. You want every band parent to be knowledgeable about the band program. This will empower them to come help or at least send money. There will always be some band parents who can not attend BPO meetings. Someone has to work on Tuesday nights. This is the why and wherefore of the Newsletter Committee. It distills the important information about band activities (and as much unimportant information as will fit) onto a few closely typed pages and sends it via post to every band member's parents.

Simple. Yet there are difficulties. First Class mail is expensive. Often bands send newsletters at the cheaper presorted bulk mail rate. The commitment of the Postal Service to the speedy delivery of such mail could be questioned by reasonable people acting reasonably.

The alternatives are not good. Carrier pigeons have limited weight capacity. Direct delivery by band parent volunteers is cumbersome. Most band parents do not have FAX machines. Air drops deliver many copies to non-band parents and litter the landscape. So stick with the mails. Just be sure to mail very early. Newsletters for December meetings should be posted no later than August 31st.

Once the newsletter is delivered will band parents read it? It might be mistaken for junk mail. Easily. This is where the Telephone Committee is invaluable. After the newsletter mailing have them call each band parent to remind them to read the newsletter.

8.  Publicity Committee
If you have a double-plus-good band program you want people to know about it. They might give you some money. They might not, but it is certain that they won't if they don't know about it.

In most schools the band is the single largest organization on campus. It should receive the lion's share of school related publicity. The sad truth is that a championship high school band involving 300 students gets less newspaper coverage than a 20 man junior varsity lacrosse team with a losing record. This can lead to unwarranted levels of support for sports programs by the school board and the public.

Excessive support for sports means less support for the band. So large is the imbalance between sports coverage and band coverage that one could conclude that newspapers recruit their staffs solely from ex-high school jocks. This is probably not the case. Still it would not hurt to encourage some band members toward careers in journalism.

The BPO Publicity Committee's job is to get your band the recognition it deserves. Just telling the press about the wonderful band things going on will not work. No newspaper wants to print good news. Newspapers are only happy when they can report that everybody else is miserable. You must present the band program to the press in ways the press will find interesting.

Dare to be Different. The usual round of band fund raising and performance may be important but it just isn't news. Try something really new and different. For example the band could march a full-size (down to the 32 foot stop) bellows-blown pipe organ.

Dare to be Devious. Send a letter to the newspaper decrying the lack of band coverage. Include a full summary of band activities which the newspaper has overlooked. Have other band parents spontaneously write similar letters. Now comes the devious part. Write a letter over an assumed (but plausible) name taking issue with your own letters. This creates controversy. Newspapers love controversy. Keep writing increasingly strident letters on both sides of the issue. Continue to include as much real information about the band as possible. Soon the paper will send a reporter to investigate this growing controversy. Hire actors to represent the anti-band side. This can go on for years. Even if the newspaper discovers how you have tricked them it just means one more article about how you did it. Remember, 'There is no bad publicity.'

Dare to be Daring. Concerns for legal liability prevent specific recommendations. Note that the author is not pointing out that headlines like the following would be irresistible to any newspaper-

"High School Band Goes Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel"

"Local Band Performs at Summit of Mt. Everest"

"Marching Band Marches to the South Pole"

"Magician Makes High School Band Disappear"

"Wing-walking Band Marches on Airborne Boeing 767"

9.  Trip Committee
At least once a year bands pay homage to their nomadic marching origins by taking a trip. You may have read of the great journeys of Marco Polo to China, Christopher Columbus to America, Lewis and Clark to the Louisiana Territory and Roald Amundsen to the South Pole. None of those remotely compares for daring or adventure with taking a high school band halfway across the state to a contest.

The Trip Committee is responsible for planning the trip, making arrangements, collecting money and being the target of complaints when things go wrong. That last bit is the easy part.

A trip involving several hundred band members and auxiliaries presents challenges which even the most seasoned of travelers among band parents might not suspect. Finding an hotel with 200 vacancies on the night you need them can be difficult. Finding an hotel with 200 vacancies on the night you need them who will take several hundred band members and auxiliaries will be even harder. Once you do find such an hotel you will have to try to negotiate a price within your budget. If you can't you must start the search all over again.

Restaurants pose similar problems. The number of restaurants that can seat 400 people is surprisingly small. The number of restaurants that can seat 400 people and serve them in a reasonably short period of time is even smaller. The number of these that can feed 400 people for a price within your budget is much smaller still. The number of those within walking distance of a place that 10 band buses can park is pretty darn close to zero. A trip involving just one night out of town will require at least three such restaurants located close to your route of travel.

Travel will usually be by bus. Chartering 10 buses is actually rather easy. You must be sure the bus company clearly understands your intended use for the buses. They should select their drivers carefully. Driving a bus is one thing. Driving a bus full of band members is something else.

Sometimes bands travel so far that travel must be by air.

There are two options. You can charter aircraft for the trip or you can book the band on scheduled commercial flights. Chartering is more complicated but you have more control. There are no non-band passengers to inconvenience. You can set your own schedule. You can make special arrangements for outsize baggage more easily. Commercial flights are simpler. Just buy the needed number of tickets.

In either case a fall back plan in case of canceled flights or weather delays is essential. You don't want the directors and chaperones to be stuck with several hundred hungry, bored, tired band members for hours on end at an airport. In that case listening to the complaints would not be the easy part.

Contingency plans are a good idea for all components of the trip. Having a large amount of money along in the form of travelers checks in the possession of the band director or charge cards with very high credit limits in the possession of directors and/or chaperones is the best contingency measure.

Information packets for parents are important. They should include complete information on itinerary and schedule. They should be delivered to parents by a more reliable means than band members.

All sorts of emergencies occur when this many people are involved. One lucky Trip Committee member should be designated the At Home Contact Person. Parents will be able to call the contact for updated information or to alert them to problems ("My chronically ill band member left home without her medicine and will be comatose within the hour!") or sudden changes of plan ("My band member son has a very rare blood type and is urgently needed to save a life.") The band directors or chaperone in chief should check in with the contact at every opportunity but at least hourly.

Once the preparations are in good order you need to collect the money. If the school or band parents are picking up the cost this will be easy. If band members are paying individually this will not be easy. Some  people will pay up in advance. You will come to love those people. Others will pay up after one or two reminders. The rest must be hounded relentlessly and still will not pay up until just before the cancellation date, if then.

The good thing about being on the Trip Committee is that you get to stay home. Its the chaperones who actually have to make the trip with the band.

10.  Uniform Committee
Bands wear uniforms. Sure you know that. But did you ever think about how those uniforms get on those band members? At the beginning of every school year a band has a uniform room full of uniforms unassigned to band members. The band parent uniform committee must fit each and every member with a uniform.

First you sort all the uniform parts (jackets, pants, hats, etc.) by size. Then you sort all the band members by size. You may think that band members returning from last year could just use the same uniform again this year. That overlooks the rapid grow rates experienced by band-aged persons.

Once everyone and every thing is sorted starting with the biggest or smallest have everyone try on uniforms. As soon as a piece fits assign it to the band member. Once that member is completely fitted and go on to the next. If you have a good large committee this process will only take a week.

Periodically band uniforms must be dry cleaned. This period can be made as long as possible by making sure students only wear the uniforms when necessary. Have them put the uniforms on just before a performance. Have them take them off immediately afterward. Have them wear something decent underneath.

5.  Band Parenting and You 

Band Parenting is first and foremost about perfecting your child's band experience. But that does not mean that it can't provide a degree of personal fulfillment for you.

Rating Band Parents
For classification purposes the commitment and involvement of individual band parents are measured on the closed-ended Revelli Scale with numerical rankings from 1 to 7. The Sousa Scale that was the standard for several decades is obsolete. Its range was too limited for modern band parenting. Old Sousa Scale rankings can not be converted to Revelli Scale rankings. It is therefore not easy to compare band parents from different eras. This is the cause of a simmering intramural feud over eligibility at the Band Parents' Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C. (the home town of John Philip Sousa).

You want to achieve a personal Revelli Ranking of 3.5 or better. RS Rankings:

1. Nominal- Only band parents in the biological sense (if that). Don't join BPO or come to concerts or contests.

2. Marginal- Pays the BPO membership fee then never attends meetings or comes to concerts or contests.

3. Casual- Attends many band events and some BPO meetings. Makes video tapes of band but never watches them.

4. Serious- Attends every BPO meeting, most band concerts and contests. Shows marching band videos to visiting relatives.

5. Committed- Visits band hall 4-5 times a week. Uses vacation days to attend almost every band event. Donation to band is largest charitable contribution listed on tax return. Shows band videos to business associates.

6. Fanatic- Accepts demotion at job to have more time for band. Moves to home closer to band hall. Attends all band events. Shows band videos to strangers who come to door selling magazines. Lists band as beneficiary on life insurance policy.

7. Ideal- Quits job to focus on helping band. Sells house and takes small apartment next to school. Lives on band pizza and band fund raiser novelty food items. Wardrobe consists of 15 band T-shirts and a pair of blue jeans. Gives band videos as Christmas gifts. Decorates home with band newspaper clippings. Accepts position of BPO President for Life.

* - All instances of BPO were originally written by the author as BPO - Band Parent's Association

6.  Band Activities

In ancient Greece great truths were revealed by the oracle at Delphi. In modern America great truths are revealed by bumper stickers. The bumper stickers tell us that 'Band is not a spectator sport!".  Bands go places and do things. As a band parent you will go right along with them as close ground battlefield support.

1.  Football Games
Most marching show performances are at football games. Bands were added to football games in the 19th century when people discovered just how boring it is to watch football. Constant band music entertains the fans so they never notice that most of the time nothing much happens down on the field. The long half-time period when nothing at all happens down on the field gamewise is filled by band marching shows. These are much more interesting than the game. Today there are more band fans than football fans in the stands at most high school games. Without bands, football would have disappeared decades ago.

There are two types of football games, home football games and away football games. Home games are played in your local stadium often located conveniently adjacent to the high school but in any case not very far from it. They require much less work than away games which are held at the stadium of the opposing team. That stadium may be hours away by band bus. If you have a choice, which you won't, volunteer as a chaperone for home games.

At the game once everything is moved into place you will sit next to the band in the stands. They will warm up, semper troppo forte, for about twenty minutes and then play two or three pieces just to pass the time. These will demonstrate the quiet restraint and melodic invention for which football game music is justly not known. Then they'll play the school 'alma mater' song and the school fight song. The national anthem will be sung with gusto by a poorly but loudly amplified high school songster who desperately wants to be in another key than that in which the band is playing. You will be functionally deaf before the game starts.

During the game the band will play music to highlight each of these important events: a kick-off, a touch down, a point after, a field goal, a first down, a recovered fumble, the end of a quarter, a completed pass, a long ground carry, a short ground carry, a loss on ground carry, a time out for a measurement, any other time out, a penalty against the other team, a penalty against their own team, an injured player's being walked off the field, an incomplete pass and whenever the director feels music is appropriate which is close to always if they are any good at all. During a half in which the teams play for twenty-four minutes the bands will play for forty.

Delegations of band members from both bands will trade visits. This custom serves a function similar to a mutual exchange of hostages during wartime. Concern for the safety of the delegates keeps both bands on their best behavior. Delegation members are introduced to the cheers of those band members with whom they share some important attribute such as playing trumpet, being a senior or breathing oxygen.

Half-time is the bands' time! They perform their marching contest shows plus whatever else they can squeeze in. Both bands march facing the Home stands unless there are more people in the Visitor stands. The visiting band marches first. It is a friendly half-time tradition for the football fans to try to make enough noise to drown out the bands. After the visiting band finishes the home band is in its glory. Proudly taking the field they will perform to the delight of their community and the wonder of visitors.

Usually.

Sometimes a home band after watching a superior visiting band in a show of much higher quality will be reluctant to take the field. An extreme example occurred in West Koindexter City, Minnesota in 1987. The 42 piece W. K.C. High School Marching Marmosets Band became so unnerved following the half-time performance of the visiting 350 piece reigning State Champion East Islongton High School Marching Mavens that it declined to take the field and voted to convert itself into a stamp collecting society. (As such it remains successful to this day.)

2.  Marching Contests
Marching Contests are one of the two venues in which high school bands compete (for Concert Contests, see below). Band parents have a lot to do, in a menial way, with marching contests.

Marching band contests are not direct head to head competitions. The bands do not take the field all at once and by force of sound attempt to conquer each other. Marching contests are classy affairs appealing to cultured and discerning ladies and gentlemen of refinement. The bands politely perform their shows one after another before a panel of distinguished judges. No interference of any kind is tolerated among the bands whose members are expected at all times to display the highest standard of quiet good sportsmanship. As a band parent you get to enforce these standards of quiet good sportsmanship on 250 over-stimulated, over-tired, over-excited adolescents all of whom are carrying expensive high quality noisemakers.

When you get that many people that close together (a marching contest can feature 35-45 bands) some problems will occur. One must pity the unfortunate 50 piece marching wind ensemble whose contest performance is drowned out by a 350 piece monster band warming up in the parking lot. A shortage of parking space for buses, trucks and the cars of thousands of band parents is always a problem.

Each band has 5 minutes, timed to the second, to move everything onto the field and prepare to start their show. Once they begin they have 10 minutes, timed to the second, to perform the show and get off the field, completely off the field. If just one band foot is still on the field at 10 minutes and 1 second the band will be disqualified. Take care! Tardy band parent feet count toward disqualification. If you help with the pit or props make gosh double darn sure that your feet are off the field in time. Otherwise your only recourse, in the very unlikely event that you survive the immediate wrath of hundreds of band members and parents, will be to change your name, flee the country and continue your miserable existence in a distant deserted wasteland (the more remote and northern parts of remote northern Siberia come to mind).

Marching contest judges are very demanding. Years of competition have raised standards far beyond those thought possible when you were in high school. The better bands play like the Berlin Philharmonic while marching like the Bolshoi Ballet. The best bands do better. Judges rate bands using various scoring systems all designed to give your band a lower score than it deserves. Sometimes each band receives a score or set of scores but no winner is announced. Sometimes winners are chosen by ranking the bands by numerical score. The top band(s) advance to the next level of competition, if any. Bands are scored separately on musical performance, marching and auxiliaries. At any given contest they will invariably give the most weight to whichever of these three in which your band is weakest.

At contests band parents have an additional duty beyond those discussed previously. They form a claque whose job is to applaud and cheer loudly at any point in the show when a musical mistake is likely. They drown it out so the judges do not hear it. Do this subtlety. Drum majors should not turn around to cue the claque. Nor should band directors cue the claque from the stands. Rather have musically trained band parents (there are always a few, they may try to hide it, but ferret them out) memorize the difficult parts of the score and let the rest of the claque follow their subtle lead. Right after the performance when the judges are writing down the scores the band parent claque should go hog wild with approval- clapping, cheering, shouting, whistling. stomping, jumping, screaming, etc. Regular attendance at football games is good training. It may not influence the judges but it couldn't hurt.

A little more about judging-  If your band advances to higher levels of competition, the judging will seem to become more irrational.  At the very top level it will seem to make no sense at all.  This is how things must be according to sound mathematical principles. Really.  The judges aren't being lazy or biased.  They are caught in a situation beyond their control. 

3.  Concert Contests
Concert contests are just like marching contests except there is no marching, the bands perform indoors, the musical performance is all that matters, there are no props or auxiliaries and there is usually hardly anyone in the audience. Concert contests are nothing like marching contests.

For the contest each band carefully prepares several pieces of music from a contest sponsor approved list which is years out of date and neglects much very fine music. Contests usually require bands to sight read at least one composition which has to be obscure enough not to be known by all the competing bands/directors while at the same time being familiar to the judges.

4.  Concerts
Several times a year your band(s) will give concerts. These are usually held in the school auditorium or gymnasium. These are usually free of charge. These are usually poorly attended. Very poorly attended. Even some band parents fail to show up.

That some band parents fail to show up is just plain weird since they have spent on average about $1000.00 each per concert!

It is one of the sad realities of the late 20th Century (offsetting such good things as microwave popcorn and the Home Shopping Network) that it is very difficult to get people away from their televisions and computers. Live performances even of very good quality and at very low prices are a hard sell.

The 'on-line society' is increasing out of touch with reality. The newest generation is performance illiterate. Elementary school children attending their first band concert stare open mouthed at the stage in complete disbelief that they can actually hear instruments that are not electronically amplified. Upon hearing a diminuendo for the first time many children panic afraid that their ears are failing. After all, the music never gets quieter on rock videos. There is no simple solution but if we band parents are not part of the solution then we will surely be part of the precipitate.

5.  Parades
Parades take us back to the very beginnings of the modern wind band. The earliest marching wind instrument groups were in the armies of Northern Europe in the 17th century. These small bands of oboes, fifes, bassoons, serpents and drums played music to help the soldiers march in step at a fast pace. Soon valveless horns and bugles were added. The first concert use of military wind bands was by Georg F. Handel in his "Music for the Royal Fireworks" in the mid-eighteenth century. The fife and drum corps of the American Revolution are part of this tradition.

Following the addition of valves to brasswinds in the 1830's military bands developed quickly. By the American Civil War every regiment had a band with an instrumentation we would recognize today. The band played whenever the regiment was on the march.

Following the Civil War ex-army bandsmen formed professional and veterans' organization bands for entertainment purposes (John Philip Sousa's father was a Civil War Bandsman). The marching band tradition continued strong in Holiday Parades, Circus Parades, Political Parades, Festival Parades and even Commercial Parades (of which Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is one of the last).

About this time marching bands were first included in school sporting events starting a parallel tradition that has grown into the modern marching show. Today almost all the professional marching bands are gone (a very few remain as at Disneyland.) and the Veterans' Bands after a 30 year revival following World War II have now faded. (The author has fond memories of marching with American Legion Bands in the late 1960's. Even then their numbers were dwindling and they filled up the ranks with high school students. They paid $5.00 a parade which was good money. On July 4th you could easily make $20-25 rushing from town to town changing uniforms in the car.) Only military and school bands carry on the tradition of parade marching.

Local parades are easy events for band parents. There is no equipment to lug and the bus ride is short or non-existent. Band Parents get to stand along the road with all the other spectators and just watch the parade go by.

Since professional bands are no longer with us every year high schools bands are invited to march in distant big-time parades such as the Tournament of Roses or Macy's. It would be just your luck to be involved with one of the those. Additional money will be needed get the band to/from the parade site. If airfare is involved tens of thousands of dollars will be needed. Band members require round-the-clock chaperones during the trip. Instead of spending Thanksgiving Day (New Year's Day, etc.) in the quiet comfort of your living and dining rooms you will be herding over-tired excited band members through unfamiliar territory on minimal sleep and several gallons of coffee/diet cola. Quality Time.

6.  All-City-District-Region-Area-State Band Auditions and Concerts
In addition to competing as a group band members have opportunities to compete as individuals. The most common of these is auditioning for an All-Something Band.

The idea behind an All-Something Band is to identify the better players from many schools and form them into a really good band for a special performance under a famous (and sometimes also good) conductor playing better music than usual. This gives the best players another way to succeed. Unfortunately it gives everyone else another way to fail. At the All-State level the competition is so stiff that at most schools no one makes it at all. Even the very very best players fail right along with everyone else fostering that spirit of camaraderie and good fellowship which only shared failure can inspire.

The road to All-Something Bands runs through the dreaded ordeal of audition. Each candidate prepares solos carefully selected for complete lack of musical interest and disproportionate difficulty to play for a panel of judges who will try to choose the best amongst them. In order to reduce bias large panels of 4 to 6 judges are used. They sit behind a screen not seeing or being seen by the candidates. Students are identified by letter which is bad news if one of the judges has an unreasoning dislike of the letter "D".

Many judges are needed plus proctors, score keepers, officials, etc.. Ideally each judge would be an accomplished performer on the instrument being judged. The reality is that to fill up the panels it is necessary to use not only professionals, band directors and private lesson teachers but also college students, band parents and people who just stopped by to ask for directions.

Even at lower levels competition can be tough and the audition process grueling. It is not unusual for 150 flute players to sign up for just 10 available slots. If the judges are lucky about 1/3 of these will drop out before the audition. Hearing the remaining 100 will take an entire day and the call backs most of the evening. Some students will arrive at the audition site first thing in the morning but will not be heard at all until early evening by which time the judges are bleary eared and jaded.

An explanation of the scoring method will be useful. Being of a fair and logical turn of mind you would never in a million years figure it out for yourself. In the first round each judge marks each performance of each selection (typically 2 or 3 selections are played) "yes" or "no" to determine who will be called back for the second round. Each judge then makes a final overall "yes/no" decision for each candidate and then all vote on each candidate. Any candidate who gets a majority of "yes" votes is called back for the second round. The desire is to eliminate students. Anyone who gets even one "no" vote will not be called back. If a student muffs the beginning of the first selection they are dead. Even if they play the remainder of the audition like a member of the Chicago Symphony they can't recover.

In the second round the judges assign numerical scores (on a scale of 0 to 500!) to each performance of each selection. Each judge then ranks each player and breaks any tie scores. To break tie scores the judge must decide between/among two or more players heard several hours apart whose performances are forgotten. The judges will rely on their written notes which might typically read "very good", "really good" and "truly good". The rankings of all the judges are then listed together and the highest and lowest are discarded. The remaining scores are averaged and ranked to determine the final scores. Any ties at this stage are broken by adding back in the high and low scores that were previously discarded. If after that a tie still remains the judges must break the tie in a mutually agreeable way. Flipping a coin retains its traditional popularity. This system eliminates bias by preventing the judges from understanding it sufficiently well to even attempt to finagle a particular result.

Students are often puzzled when notoriously mediocre players rank above good players. The system does a good job of separating the best players from the worst players. The vast middle of good players might as well hold a lottery. Judging artistic performance is subjective. Judging a large number of players of similar abilities is hopeless. At a single audition much can go wrong (or right). You shouldn't read too much into the results. (Trying to be really fair the audition process for the Boston Symphony Orchestra involves repeated hearings of the top candidates over a period of months with different judges and attention paid to circadian rhythms, the phases of the moon and the barometric pressure. The BSO still so doubts the process that winners are given a one year contract so that the orchestra can make sure they will work out in real life before they sign them permanently. Conductor Pierre Monteux, after a couple of glasses of a good French red wine, was fond of telling of the Paris Conservatory violin competition when he was a student. The only student who ultimately went on to a successful solo career was the one who came in fourth and received no prize (Monteux had come in first.).

As in consumer magazines audition rankings should carry a disclaimer that differences of 3 to 5 chairs are usually not meaningful. But life is not fair and "Band is Life".

This issue is overworked at this point. That is apparent. You now know that that is apparent. But stopping here will mean leaving out an A-1 First Class anecdote about the futility of trying to judge young artists. So here it is. It has the incidental advantage of being true. Probably true. This is taken from the autobiographies of the famous actors involved. They may have exaggerated. Still the stories seem to ring truly with late adolescent angst at rejection.

When students both Lord Olivier and Sir Alec Guiness (as they since became) were told by their acting teachers that they should quit, that they lacked talent and that no matter how hard they worked they would never be successful actors.

If your band member is selected for an All-Something Band you will attend the All-Something Band Concert (You could refuse to go but that would only make relations between you and your band member more difficult than usual and who needs a moody teenager about the house? That is more moody than usual.)

If you are lucky the concert will be held in your high school auditorium but it is very much more likely that it will be held halfway across the state. That is not so bad if you live in Rhode Island but it can a bit of an inconvenience for band parents in Texas or Alaska.

After dealing with problems of transport and navigation to get to the concert you must run the gauntlet of Official All-Something Band Concert Vendors. You will be offered Official All-Something T-shirts (with your band member's name on them), Official All-Something group photos (with your band member's face in them), the Official All-Something wall plaque (with your band member's name on it), Official All-Something Video Recordings (featuring your band member) and Official All-Something CD/cassette audio recordings (also featuring your band member). These once in a lifetime mementos should set you back no more than $200 and they will gather dust for years to come.

The concert itself will be uneventful. Lack of rehearsal time will have discouraged the famous conductor- clinician from selecting really unusual or difficult music.

7.  Solo and Ensemble Contests
In addition to All-Something Band auditions many schools offer the chance for band members to compete solo or in small ensembles in Solo and Ensemble Contests. These fill what would otherwise be a three week long competitionless void in mid-winter. Students prepare solos which they themselves can select from an approved list. These they perform for a judge who rates them on a scale of 1 (good) to 5 (not good at all). That's it. Sometimes students earning a First Division ranking (1) get a small medal.

7.  Band Parenting on a Limited Budget

Some people have suggested, none too politely, that the section on Band Expen$e$ is too discouraging. The inference is that it may actually stop some parents who do not have a lot of money (currently the fastest growing segment of the population) from becoming band parents. That was not the intention. It is not exaggerated. But perhaps dollar signs with large numbers after them are just inherently distressing. Do not get the wrong idea. You can be a great band parent without (much) money. Sure money is nice. Bill Gates, the Sultan of Brunei and the Queen of England aren't trying to get rid of theirs. But money isn't everything. Band is everything.

1.  Its Actually Better Not to Have Too Much Money
Study the lives of great American musicians. You will discover that most of them grew up poor. Rich people don't become great musicians. They are too busy eating expensive foods, taking expensive trips and shopping in expensive stores. They have no time for music practice. Have you ever seen a Kennedy with a trombone, a Rockefeller with a clarinet, a Vanderbilt with a saxophone, a Du Pont with a drum? No! It was poor students who built our American musical life. They had the time to practice. The future of American music depends on poor students continuing to studying music. You can't depend on rich people for something this important.

This is a good place for an upbeat true-life anecdote. Serge Koussevitsky ,the legendary conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, (A group so identified with "old money" that at one time you had to prove your ancestors came over on the Mayflower just to buy a ticket.) as a boy in Russia was poor, not American style poor, really poor, cabbage water and potatoes poor! But he had musical talent. He studied, he scrimped and eventually he made his way to St. Petersburg to audition for a scholarship to the conservatory.

Poor boys can't afford to travel first class. The Russian railway system was never known for on-time performance even in first class. Koussevitsky's journey took much longer than he had planned. By the time he got to St. Petersburg all the scholarships had already been awarded except one for the double bass (more properly known in bands as the "string bass" as opposed to the tuba which is the only true bass). Koussey (The nickname Boston musicians called him. It may have been an affectionate term. Some of the adjectives with which they prefaced it could lead you to suspect otherwise.) had never played a double bass but that double bass scholarship was all that was left. He passed the scholarship audition on the strength of general musicianship and became a double bassist.

He practiced, a lot. Eventually he became Europe's leading double bassist. He used that as a springboard to conducting. He went on to become the music director of a world class orchestra and never drank cabbage water again. (Have you ever noticed that no matter what their nationality famous orchestra conductors always seem to have long impressive names like Serge Koussevitsky (Russia), Dimitri Mitropolous (Greece), Arturo Toscanini (Italy), Wilhelm Furtwaengler (Germany), Otto Klemperer (Germany), Christoph Eschenbach (Germany), Herbert von Karajan (Austria), Leopold Stokowski (England, believe it or not), or Stanislav Skrowaczewski (USA)? Where are all the conductors just named Smith?)

Your student can have a good band experience and you can be a good band parent without spending a lot. You don't even have to like boiled cranberries.

2.  Helpful Hints
You don't need to own an instrument. Your student just needs to have the use of an instrument. Your child can play one of the big costly instruments. These are so incredibly expensive that schools loan them to students. Even wealthy parents blanch at the cost of owning them. Consider tuba, euphonium, baritone saxophone, tuba, bass clarinet, percussion, tuba, etc. All of the great tuba players grew up poor. It was poverty that caused them select tuba in the first place. Don't fear that these instruments may hold your child back compared to "melody" instruments like trumpets or flutes. Nothing could be further from the truth. If your child has a little talent and the will to practice then the choice of instrument matters not one bit.

That pesky section on Band Expen$e$ notwithstanding band necessities do not need to cost very much. Some of them you can put to non-band use. Band socks, T-shirts, even shoes can be worn on non-band days saving you the cost of regular socks, T-shirts and shoes. Music can be borrowed. Instead of owning your own tuner your student can just use their ears. That's what they're supposed to do anyway. A functional metronome can be made from a piece of string and a small weight. Some band luxuries do cost a lot. Band Expen$e$ can not be denied completely. Heavy participation in band fundraising can provide for whichever of these your band member thinks are most important.

It may take time. If they have their heart set on a band jacket it may take a year to earn the money selling pickled kumquats door-to-door. But they will get the jacket in the end. When the author......... (Do you know that it is really a very strange practice to refer to oneself in the third person. It is as if there were something improper about telling a story about oneself. You try to disguise the fact by writing it as if it was about someone else. But that's getting things all backwards. A few paragraphs ago I told a story from Koussevitsky's life without bothering to get permission from his estate. I gave no thought as to whether his family would have wanted that story told. It was not my story. I had no real right to tell it. I just did it. Now I am telling a story from my life. Its my story. Telling it can't bother anybody else. Yet I hide behind the third person as if it were somehow wrong. I suppose it is a question of literary style. OK, I guess I'll bow to peer pressure and do it in the third person. You all know that I am the author anyway.)

When the author was in high school he wanted to have his very own tuba. What fifteen year-old doesn't? He wanted a tuba more than anything else he could think of and he had a considerable imagination and thought of all sorts of things. His parents had no money for tubas. Eating came first. Cranberries may be cheap but they aren't free. So he found an after school job working for minimum wage in a delicatessen. Do you have any idea how much pastrami you have to slice at minimum wage to pay for a tuba? Tons and tons and tons and tons. Do you know how boring it is to hand slice pastrami, back and forth, back and forth, hour after hour, day after day, night after night, week after week, weekends and summers too? Mind bogglingly boring. Do you know how disagreeable many of the people are who buy pastrami? Surprisingly disagreeable considering that it was very good pastrami.  Much better than you can get now. He stuck with it. Finally he got his tuba. If pastrami can get you a tuba then anything is possible.

Private lessons ,though not essential, are nice to have. Your child doesn't actually have to take private lessons to be in most school bands. But they should. They really really should. Some schools pay for lessons but if you could afford to live in one of those districts you could have skipped this chapter. There are alternatives. You may be able to get cheap lessons from local college students or even talented high school upperclasspersons. Any good band director will manage somehow to provide lessons for a hard working serious student. There may be an appropriately trained band parent willing to help out. Or you could try to arrange for group lessons. There is usually a way.

Now what about band parenting on a budget? The fee to join most BPO's is nominal, about $3.00. Sure they will ask for more. Let them ask. For the rest, just show up.

8.  Things You Want to Know About

Raising children in this modern world is a challenge. Band parents should prepare themselves to address a host of extra challenges not faced by others. These are the things for which Dr. Spock and Dear Abby have not prepared you.

1.  The Purchase and Maintenance of Musical Instruments

You purchased your child's first instrument 3 or 4 years ago. Since they were just beginners you probably bought whatever brand of inexpensive student instrument was available locally. Now that your band member is in high school it is time to upgrade to a decent instrument. Student instruments are all right but they are designed first to be rugged and cheap and second to be good musical instruments. Your child deserves better. Your child's band deserves better.

For reasons which if they were ever revealed would probably expose a serious ethical vacuum at the heart of the consumers movement, no wide circulation consumer magazine has ever printed an article on the purchase of band instruments. This omission explains why so many young flautists are walking around with flutes that have "gizmo" keys the purpose of which no one seems to know and with which professional flutists have done without all these years to no apparent ill effect.

First you should review the price ranges available and consider what you can afford. The price range for popular smaller instruments (flutes, trumpets, clarinets, trombones) starts at about $400.00 and goes up (and up and up) from there. The best production clarinets and flutes cost about $17,000.00 and custom built instruments are considerably more expensive. Middle size instruments (French horns, alto and tenor saxophones, euphoniums) start at about $2500.00 and go up just like the small instruments only faster. Less popular and complicated or medium large instruments (bassoons, oboes, baritone saxophones) start at about $3500.00 and go guess where. Large instruments (tubas) start at about $4000.00 and go up to about $20,000.00 for production instruments. Custom made tubas are available. Don't ask. You can't afford them. No one can.

That's quite a range of prices to consider. To make matters worse higher prices do not always mean higher quality. Despite decades of production experience there is an enormous variation in quality even among individual instruments of exactly the same make and model. You will find this purchase much easier if you are an accomplished player of the instrument you want to buy and can test instruments yourself. If you aren't it is too late to start lessons now. Seek the assistance of a local professional player. But Beware! Use a professional player who does not have a business relationship with a particular instrument maker or retailer.

2.  What to Do if Your Band Member Wants to Pursue a Career in Music

After careful investigation the best possible advice is:  IF YOU LOVE YOUR CHILD, STOP THEM !!

A good way to do this is to take them to see "Mr. Holland's Opus". In this so-called "feel good" movie a bad clarinet player rises to the state governorship while a talented musician has to give up performing and composing and turn to music education just to scratch out a meager living. In the finale he is laid off when the entire school arts program is jettisoned by a penny-pinching school board. (That is supposed to be a happy ending. Seriously folks. The film's producers say it has a happy ending!)

If that doesn't discourage them then you should know that there are three general areas of specialization in music; Performance, Education, and Composition. All of these are rotten ways to have to make a living.

Performance- In the beginning of the 21st Century the only well-paid full-time employment for instrumentalists is in the few remaining major symphony orchestras. (And they are going fast! As this was being written (for the first time) the San Diego Symphony went bankrupt. Not a Chrysler type bankruptcy where they borrow money from the government and reorganize ad infinitum, an old fashioned bankruptcy where they shut down forever throwing everybody out of work.) Your child has a better chance of playing professional sports on a major league team. There are more teams than orchestras and athletes have short careers. Sports positions open up frequently. A chair in a major orchestra may open up only once in 45 years.

Your child should seriously consider a career in performance only if they are the best player on their instrument that their band director has ever met and they were first chair All-State and they love practicing 8 hours a day and no other life is conceivable to them and even then they probably will not make it and this was meant to be upbeat.

The odds are against them. For example, every year approximately 30-40 tuba players who were first-chair All-Staters plus about 400 others who were also All-Staters graduate from music colleges. In a typical year only 2 or 3 full-time tuba playing positions open up in orchestras. That adds up to a lot of unemployed tuba players.

There is just one other possibility for full-time performance employment. It is not very well paid. It is not for independent minded free-spirited types. It is not for people with a strong preference in home location. It is the military bands. Even these are much harder to get into than previously due to downsizing of the armed forces. Still, if your child really wants to perform for a living this is the best chance. If they keep their noses clean and work hard and they can retire after 20-30 years having achieved the exalted rank of corporal. But they should be aware, in the event of general armed conflict military band members get shifted into some pretty unpleasant jobs such as battlefield stretcher bearer.

The alternative to steady orchestra or military employment is to freelance. Freelance musicians have no regular musical employment. They pick up whatever individual playing jobs (gigs) they can find. One day they may work as a substitute in a major orchestra, the next day they may work in some cheap club, the next day (and the next and the next) they may not work at all (except perhaps at McDonald's). Freelancing is an attractive option for persons who want to go through life not knowing where their next meal is coming from and who enjoy frequent evictions. A handful of freelance performers do make it big. Most of these are studio musicians (in Los Angles or New York) who play for TV commercials. Their success keeps hope alive for the others. But even for great star soloists freelancing is an iffy venture. The great (we're talking world class here) cellist Gregor Piatigorsky at the height of his fame did an American tour earning large fees every night only to discover that expenses, commissions and taxes reduced his profit almost to nothing. Famous rock groups have been known to lose money on sold-out concerts.

For "non-solo" instrumentalists it is especially bad. Great tuba players must teach full time to be sure of a steady income. Which makes a pretty fair segue to -

Music Education- Your child's chances of finding a music job are greatest in music education. (In many areas of the country. In areas where school enrollments are stable or shrinking, forget it.) Music Education is a glorious opportunity for them to earn advanced degrees in order to qualify for underpaid jobs with mediocre benefits, long hours, high stress and a better than average chance of being sued. Strangely Music Education programs in colleges are full. Your child will have to compete very hard just to get a place in a good music education training program.

By now it will come as no surprise to you that in many schools the band directors are former All-Staters, have prestigious advanced degrees from prestigious major music colleges and have prestigious national reputations. The schools could never attract a similarly credentialed science or math teacher. Even mediocre scientists and engineers can find work for two to three times what they would make teaching. Your child probably wants to go into music because the best teacher they ever had was in band.

Its ironic, that's what it is, ironic. Our society does not much reward musicians (except for a handful of superstars). Many fine musicians turn to teaching and train more good musicians who then can't find jobs (and turn to teaching and train more good musicians who then can't find jobs and well, you get the idea.....) On the other hand scientists and engineers are very well paid. They do not go into teaching. There is a shortage of good science and math teachers even though there is an ever growing demand for good science and math graduates. Perhaps you should sue. (Sue whom or for what is not entirely clear. The newspapers say there are plenty of under-employed lawyers. Find one and be creative!)

The chances of getting a full-time college teaching position in music are no better than that of getting a full-time performing position. Former members of major orchestras can be found teaching in junior colleges. More and more of the big universities save money by using poorly paid part-time music faculty.

Composition- There are American composers who actually make a living composing. For example there is movie music composer John Williams, and there's John Williams and what about John Williams? Of course if he made that much money composing why did he spend all those years as conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra?

Even the most famous composers like Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Charles Ives, needed other jobs in order to eat regularly. (Copland taught and conducted, Bernstein conducted, taught and talked and Ives was an insurance executive. Band Parent Factoid: In Ives' lifetime his writings on the theory of life insurance were read by more people than heard his music.

Bela Bartok composed his "Concerto for Orchestra", one of the most performed pieces of mid-twentieth century music, for a commission of only $1000.00 (about $10,000 today). Walt Disney only had to pay Igor Stravinsky $1000.00 (about $10,000 today) to use "The Rite of Spring" in the movie "Fantasia". The actor who provided the voice of Mickey Mouse got more and he only had three lines.

Even for successful popular music composers it is tough going. There is an occasional Andrew Lloyd Webber and some performers are successful composers of music they perform themselves (such as Loretta Lynn or Bob Dylan). But few of even the most famous popular composers could earn their living just by composing. Meredith Wilson didn't have his first hit, "The Music Man", until he was 55 years old. Rogers and Hammerstein probably made more money producing shows (including other peoples') than they did from writing their own. Lennon and McCartney could have made a lot of money from their songs but they lost the copyrights (For some reason they belong to Michael Jackson. The Beatles' wealth derived from their recordings. Even then the Beatles' music remained popular for decades. Most chart hits have a shelf life of just a few months.)

Depressing. Its just too gosh double darn bad that music is so wonderful because earning a living as a professional musician is the pits. In the words of an anonymous Boston Symphony horn player, "Better to be a plumber.".

3.  How to Spot a Really Dedicated High School Band Director

While all High School Band directors seem to have a dedication to their jobs bordering on zealotry some are more dedicated than others. There are certain subtle signs by which the most dedicated directors can be identified. By examining a director's preferences in literature, art, entertainment, politics, etc. you can spot the truly dedicated and work toward hiring them for or retaining them in your child's band program.

1-Politics: Hasn't voted in the last 10 years since that would require taking too much time off during the marching season. In election years finds out who won the US presidential contest in mid-December.

2-Religion: Prays thrice daily whilst bowing toward Elkhart, Indiana.

3-Hobbies: Plays in a band director's reading band on Sundays. Sleeps occasionally except during marching season.

4-Literature: Last book read was Philip Farkas', The Art of Brass Playing.

5-Cinema: Last movie seen was the one whose soundtrack is basis for this year's marching contest show. Plans to see "Mr. Holland's Opus" now that it is out on video.

6-Memory: Knows full name (and instrument) of every one of 300 band members. Can't recall the first name of any of their own nephews or nieces.

7-Vacations: Attends State Bandmasters' Convention

8-Television: Watches The Weather Channel during the marching season

9-Cars: Drives old pick-up truck whose bed is severely scratched from years of transporting tympani and tubas.

10-Art: Home is decorated with "Golden Age" era advertising posters from the C.G. Conn Company

4.  How to Spot a Really Good High School Band Director

Dedication is all very well. However a bad but dedicated band director is worse than a bad but undedicated director. At least the undedicated bad director will do less damage.

Goodness is harder to spot than dedication. Success is often mistaken for it. Some people succeed without being any good at all. At that great famous expensive scientific university called M.I.T. (technological advancement would slow to a crawl if they had to say "The Massachusetts Institute of Technology" every time) many of the professors while eminent in their fields of expertise are terrible teachers. Yet MIT has a reputation for turning out well educated graduates. How do they do it? Simple. MIT maintains hopelessly high entrance standards and is just so very picky about which students it lets in. (Recent quote from the MIT Admission Office on the new SAT exam scoring- "Well we certainly won't be as impressed by double 800's anymore, but then we never were we get so many of them.") Those students can learn with bad teachers. They'd do just dandy with no teachers.

Do not measure the quality of band directors just by how many contests their bands win. They may have lucked into a school containing large numbers of highly motivated talented students all of whom's parents are wealthy musicians. Or they may have adopted policy's which insure winning at the expense of the music education of the majority of the kids. You are too clever to be fooled. The mere fact that you have found this website proves that you are a band parent to be reckoned with. Let us review how to spot the really good band director.

1-Actually likes music. This may seem obvious but many band directors don't. Love of music is at the core of the being of the good band director. They like to listen to it, perform it, study it and/or write it. They go to concerts having nothing to do with their jobs. They perform themselves whenever the opportunity and their schedule permits.

2-Actually likes working with teenagers (singly and in large/small groups): As the parent of at least one teenager you may wonder how anyone could like working with them. That's a fair observation made no less so by the fact that most teenagers can't understand how anyone could like working with parents. Yet there are apparently completely sane persons who do like to work with teenagers. Do not bother trying to understand them. Just make note of those band director's who happen to be one of them if you should ever encounter such a one.

3-Actually likes working with unmotivated and/or just ordinarily talented teenagers: As discussed above any director can get results out of highly motivated prodigies. The good band director gets results from almost every student. (Yes, "almost". Even the best teachers do not succeed with every student. Its something to do with limits defined by the Second Law of Thermodynamics under whose unyielding tyranny we all must live.)

4-Are actually liked by teenagers: Obvious, but beware directors who are liked by teenagers because they are wimp-like push-overs.

5-Are actually liked by teenagers they force both to behave and to perform better than the teenagers themselves ever before thought necessary: This is the biggie. Some directors can demand efforts above and beyond the call of duty while retaining the respect and even the love of their students. They are the ones you want.

5.  What to Do About a Troublesome School Administration
Most school administrations adequately support their band program. At worst they underfund the band no more than they underfund mathematics, the sciences, languages or history. Only football can always be certain of a fully funded budget. But what do you do when your administration doesn't support the band program?

First make sure the administration is the problem. If the district is in receivership and funding decisions are being made by bankruptcy court beating on administrators will do no good. If the district is spending $30 million dollars on new gymnasiums while reducing the band's budget 10% then marshal your resources and take action.

Do not hesitate to take on offending administrators. Though outwardly brave many school administrators harbor at least some fear of parents and most harbor more than some fear of parent's lawyers. (You don't actually have to have a lawyer. Just look as if you do.)

Choose a spokesperson carefully. A band parent who has spent the last ten years chairing a group vocally opposed to higher school taxes will not have the moral authority needed to shame administrators into increasing the band's funding.

Choose your administrator targets carefully. There is no point wasting time on a sympathetic principal when the actual decision maker is the assistant superintendent. That accomplishes nothing and may lose you a valuable ally. Search until you have identified the real culprit be it principal, superintendent or one or more of the school board members.

Attack, attack, attack and attack again. This is no time for halfway measures. The offenders are either craven or subject to enormous pressure from the other direction. If craven then no mercy is warranted. If not then you must apply enough pressure to push them back the other way.

Avoid ad hominem attacks. The administrators have already been called every bad name in the book by somebody or other. It is unlikely you will be able to come up with a new one. If you do they probably won't know what it means. It really takes the sting out of an epithet when you have to stand there explaining its definition. It would be just your luck that the administrator is an etymologist who will dispute its meaning thus derailing the whole affair for three hours whilst the two of you animatedly debate the original Anglo-Saxon word for "goat". Happens all the time. (And its "gat" not "geit"! Look it up!)

9.  Things You Don't Want to Know About

To every Yin there is a Yang. To every Gog there is a Magog. Even as the Force had a dark side so does band. The real stories about why bands no longer use sarrousophones, the interval relationship among augmented fourths, diminished fifths and tritones, why professionals use fifth valves on tubas and just what a bombardon is anyway are far too ghastly to relate. Fear not, they are not included here. (People who have incautiously learned too much about sarrousophones often require years of psychological counseling.) But as a responsible adult band parent there are things that you should know about whether you want to or not.

Chronic Persistent Band Parent Syndrome  -  CPBPS

For some persons, a very small number to be sure, band parenting appears to be addictive. Doctors call this Chronic Persistent Band Parent Syndrome, CPBPS. The physiological and psychological reasons for this are not well understood by medical science. The dangers can be great. In some severe cases afflicted band parents in the terminal phase of this disorder have actually given up good jobs to become band directors themselves.

It is difficult to predict which band parents won't be able to stop. CPBPS clinics have opened in many metropolitan areas. In flashy radio and television advertisements these clinics claim to be able to pre-diagnose and treat CPBPS but their success rates are questionable.

To further obscure this issue the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has refused to give CPBPS priority. The Bandmaster's Association has repeatedly stated that CPBPS doesn't exist and even if it does exist they deny that that would be a problem.

The CPBPS Working Group of The Band Parents' Institute has published a list of 10 warning signs of incipient CPBPS. Take this short quiz to determine if you are at risk.

1) Do you visit the band hall more than 5 times a week (7 during marching season)?

2) Is your cash contribution to the BPO the largest single charitable contribution listed on your Schedule A Form?

3) Are you constantly greeted by name in stores and restaurants, etc. by band members you do not recognize?

4) Have you been honored with an honorary membership in the local bandmaster's association?

5) Have you been mistakenly identified as a band director by strangers to the school.

6) Have you become the frequent object of jokes inspired by the movie "Mr. Holland's Opus"?

7) Do you get junk mail from Selmer, UMI, Leblanc, Getzen, Blessing, Boosey & Hawkes, etc.? Do you get mail addressed "To the Band Director" at your home address?

8) Did you spend more on your children's band instruments than on their orthodontics?

9) Do you know the difference between a euphonium and a baritone horn? Between a single and a double French horn? Between an oboe and an English horn?

10) Were you given this list of questions by a concerned friend or relative?

2.  Band Parent Burnout

If you or a loved one answers "yes" to three or more of these questions then seek professional treatment immediately or as soon after marching season as possible.

10.  Coda - Other Band Parent Ailments

Well that's about it except for the appendices and who bothers to read appendices? If you've read this far good for you! That's more than the editor did but then "brobdingnagian" had to be explained to him. You would think that an editor would have a proper dictionary at hand. You might even be excused for imagining that someone who is in the business of editing the written word would understand a reference to one of the towering achievements of English literature in the first place. What a yahoo.

Sorry. Irritation got the upper hand. A good band parent can't let that happen. Irritation goes with the job. The Band Parents' Institute has identified 143 types of irritations endemic to Band Parenting and many more no doubt remain undiscovered.

Space does not permit a detailed consideration of how to deal with every type of band parent irritation. OK. That's not true. There is plenty of space. It's laziness, pure and simple. Only the more interesting irritations will be covered. You will soon experience all the others anyway.

1-Band Member Behavior Irritation (BMBI)

Since Band Parents are parents of band members they live in a constant state of (at the best) near irritation with band member behavior. For some this acts like a vaccine which inoculates them from being further irritated by other band members. For most this acts as a sensitizer making them especially susceptible to BMBI. BMBI is insidious because it takes so many forms, almost as many forms as there are ways for band members to behave. Chaperone band parents are most affected because part of their duties is to pay attention to band member behavior and if necessary inspire the band member(s) to change it.

The most effective way to deal with BMBI is to get far away from band members to an environment of pleasant good cheer. There is a charming outdoor bistro in Salzburg, Austria that suits this purpose perfectly.

2-Contest Judging Irritation (CJI)

A not always rational but entirely understandable irritation caused by contest judges who score based on the performance they saw and stubbornly refuse to realize how hard the band members and directors have worked for the last four months. Deal with it by complaining for several hours to other band parents and then going out for a nice dinner. Repeat as needed.

3-Fellow Band Parent Irritation (FBPI)

This occurs when band parents do not exactly agree on purposes, plans, budget, schedules, etc. which is all of the time to a greater or lesser degree. But its not our fault. We have been negatively influenced by years of observing the behavior of the Congress from whom we learned how not to get along (and from whom we learned how to place the blame for this on someone else like the Congress).

Deal with this by realizing that if you complain too much they may elect you as the next BPO President (or worse, Treasurer). If that still does not calm you then you probably deserve what you get which will be to be elected the next BPO President (or worse, Treasurer). Just don't say you weren't warned. If you already are BPO President, (or worse, Treasurer) deal with it by finding some unwary soul or rather some public spirited individual to replace you in office.

4-Football Fan Behavior Irritation (FFBI)

A common chronic irritation caused by football fans who make a lot of noise during the bands' half-time performance. There is no known way to eliminate the cause of this irritation. Deal with it by hoping the team is eliminated as a play-off contender so that the season will be as short as possible.