Marching band prepares for football season during band camp

The Pride of the Plains Marching Band holds band camp every year for incoming freshmen as well as returning band members to gear up for the upcoming season. Band Camps was held from Monday August 12-16th.  

“This is my fifth year,” said Lindsey Chambers, senior in music education. “We start with the basics and the fundamentals. We teach freshmen our style of marching which is way more relaxed than a lot of high schools, like the competitive bands, and we learn that we are here to cheer on the team and get the crowd really excited.” 

Band camp prepares band students for the upcoming year including football games, marching, and pregame performances. Band camp teaches them marching techniques and pregame performances for the upcoming football season. They also focus on the energy for football games.  

“We’ve started doing the basics of the pregame (show), so we’ve run through the entire thing without instruments,” said Violet Jackson, undeclared junior. “We’ve got all the marching down…” 

It helps freshmen learn PSU’s marching technique and choreography. It also gives them a chance to make friends before the season starts and learn the ropes of PSU’s band style. Band camp consisted of practices on the practice field, meetings in McCray, and practices in the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts. Band Camp runs throughout the day with different sessions in the morning, mid-day, and evenings.  

“The first night we had a music rehearsal and it was a bit intimidating for me because I’m used to thirty-five people in the band, not a hundred and fifty, and this morning we had marching rehearsal which was just fundamentals and pregame stuff,” said Hunter Jacobs, freshman in music education. 

Band camp provides students the chance to get together and hangout before school starts as well as learn new things. It also provides the returning band members a chance to refresh their memory and provides teaching opportunities.  

“My favorite part about band camp is catching up with friends you haven’t seen all year,” Jackson said. “Like literally once you’re done with band you see those people maybe once or twice around campus but that’s it.” 

Band members living in the dorms move in before Move-in Day in order to attend band camp. Moving in early gives them the opportunity to meet and bond with other band members before they start their performances.  

“For incoming freshmen, I think it’s really important because I feel like musicians already have that mutual interest and that bond so to get here early before other students and find people with interests just like them is really nice because you’re the only one’s here right now…” said Chambers. “… For returners it’s good teaching moments, a lot of us are music educators or in some sort of education field so we really love to teach and talk to them and it’s just something we’re all really passionate about so it’s cool to mesh together regardless of age,”