Monday, September 01, 2008
MMB on youtube
Thanks to the magic of the intertubes, portions of the MMB's Saturday offerings are now online.
Pregame:
Note: The band began taking the field before Carl told them to. No big deal, but an odd occurrence nonetheless; this is usually timed perfectly.
Halftime:
Additional thoughts undoubtedly in WTI form later this week.
(Anyone know how to embed the higher quality version of these videos?)
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9 comments:
Anyone notice that Carl didn't announce the size of the band? Is this a permanent change, or just a one game mistake?
Yes -- this is a permanent change. 235 has been an inaccurate number for a long time (evidently it doesn't reflect drumline or the changing number of twirlers) but Carl has stuck with it out of tradition. I'd rather have him announce the exact number than say nothing at all, but the decision has been made.
eh, that's no different than the guys in the press box completely making up/approximating the last 3 numbers in the attendance figures that they announce during each game. But yes, number sounds cooler than no number, so it seems silly that someone in the staff would even make a big enough deal about it to make a change.
Speaking of attendance, Michigan did draw more fans than Penn State last week, so it was the largest crowd watching a football game last weekend.
A couple years ago I learned how they estimate attendance: They have a few people in the press box look around and estimate how many empty seats there are. They average that number and subtract it from tickets sold + media passes. It's an average of estimates. I felt completely cheated when I found this out.
I was told that the bar-code scanners were going to make the attendance estimates a thing of the past, they would just look at the numbers going into the database and boom, there's your attendance.
Still, there are worse ways of coming up with the number.
I don't want to get into the "when I was in the band" routine....but, well, I'm going to. Dr. Revelli used to say if someone told him the band looked good after the game, he'd be insulted. They had to SOUND good. After two games, the sound is still missing.
For the first time since graduating 15 years ago, I had seats at the 50 yard line under the press box for Utah. And I still couldnt hear the band. They absolutely need to find that amazing Michigan Band sound. Also, now twice in two years has a major mistake happened in pregame. I think we all remember the EMU game last year. Now the band comes out early from the tunnel?
I still love and respect this organization. But I'm starting to think that the work ethic of the Michigan Band has fallen off. I hope they prove me wrong next time I'm in town this season.
Mark: sboerma@umich.edu
As for the sound thing...I'm starting to think that it is not so much "players not playing as loud" as it is the arrangement of the music. I was listening to some old '80 shows and back then the band sounded HUGE. I also noticed that there was maybe three voices in the arrangement (any old people know more about this). Bass, melody and counter-melody. I think Boerma uses four to five voices, spreading the sound out and making it sound weak.
Another thing to keep in mind is that "back in the day" the band used sheet music on the field. Today the band memorizes the music, and trust me on this one, not everyone memorizes all the notes leading to less people playing at any one time.
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