During these initial stages of the planning game, many bands make mistakes that end up haunting them and hurting their programs for an entire season.  To help you be at the top of your game, we’ve asked designer Michael Gray to give us input on his top-five list of things you should avoid before your students ever play a single note or march a step. We asked Michael “what are the top five design mistakes people make early on in their planning process? ”

#1 No clear understanding of the overview: Ask yourself, “What am I trying to say, and how do all of my choices support that statement?”

#2 Lack of musical and visual environment.

#3 Lack of aesthetic sense: This covers anything from wrong color choices to designing for the floor vs the field.

#4 Replication vs Origination: If it’s been done, it was probably better. Use your own mind.

#5 Take a realistic inventory: Ask yourself, “What physical and mental tools do my kids possess, and are my choices compatible with their talent?”

Michael Gray’s career in Marching Band, Drum Corps, and Winter Guard spans over three decades.  He has been visual coordinator, guard instructor and program designer for many award-winning programs including his current position as Program Coordinator for the Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps and the Visual Coordinator for BOA Grand National Finalist, Wando HS.  Michael is a perennial favorite at the BOA Summer Symposium and has lectured, judged and consulted throughout the world at every level, including his latest venture which will take him to Thailand.

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There are many misconceptions regarding copyright law that can get you into trouble if you are not careful.  The modern field show has become a wealth of opportunity for attorneys who are making a mint catching band programs with their proverbial pants down on copyright.  In the age of internet searches, finding offenders is not difficult.  Do an internet search for “the music of John Williams, marching band,” or any other composer, and you can pretty easily find band programs who have opened themselves and their school districts up to litigation that can result in fines in the thousands and thousands of dollars.

Therefore, the most dangerous misconceptions are that:

(1) You won’t get caught.  You will get caught, and you are breaking the law. It doesn’t matter how small or rural or unknown your school is.  Unlike many competitions, the fines for copyright infringement are not based on the size of your program.  They will come after you, and it will often not be a gentle experience. It’s not worth it.

(2) I will get my copyright permission down the road. The best intention of having your copyright ducks in a row AFTER you’ve gotten your show written will not protect you from the fact that you have broken the law.  Years ago, most people did things backwards all over the country.  You call your arranger, get the show written, and as long as you have your copyright permission before you go to a BOA show, you’re good.  WRONG.  ”Permission to Arrange” must be granted (will fully executed documentation) before your arranger begins work on your show.  The creation of an arrangement before the documentation is fully executed is a breach of US Copyright Law.  If you haven’t gotten completed permission, and the local paper does a band camp article about your band, mentioning the music you played for which you do not yet have permission to create an arrangement, a simple internet search will reveal that, and you can be subject to substantial fines.

(3) Getting Permission to Arrange is all I need. Many people think that once they pay for permission to arrange, they are free to use the music however they want.  They are not.  Permission to Arrange is just that–permission to create the arrangement.  If you want to post a video of your band playing this music or a recording of your band playing this same music, you must secure additional synchronization rights. There are large fines associated with posting videos or recordings of copyrighted material, even though permission to arrange may have been obtained.

(4) Buying a published chart and changing the percussion book or rewriting parts is OK. Again, WRONG.  If you change an existing piece of copyrighted music–even a published arrangement–in any way, you still are required to obtain Permission to Arrange.

(5) Paying for an arrangement makes it our property. The publisher and copyright holder will always retain ownership.  You are only granted permission to created and perform an arrangement for the contracted period of time–not indefinitely.  In fact, many agreements now ask that you destroy all of the arrangement (including the notation files, etc) at the completion of the contract.  Permission to Arrange is usually temporary, and your rights to that arrangement end with the contract.  If you want to play that music again later, you must start the process over.

RULE OF THUMB: If you want to use copyrighted material in your show or perform a new arrangement, contact the publisher and fully disclose every way in which you plan to use, upload, record, change, or copy the music.  They will tell you what your obligations are.  It is ALWAYS better to be on the right side of the law!!  Our Copyright Policy is HERE.

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Ever get your guard costumes half way through your season?  Not have your flags for the first three shows?  Ben Hipp at Algy Costumes shows you how to avoid not having what you need by planning ahead and meeting company deadlines that so often are the reason students are not costumed in time or don’t have their equipment.  Ben literally fits and sizes and outfits thousands of students every year throughout the Carolinas, and he has some great advice about how to make sure your kids step off the bus at their first show ready to go!

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It’s that time again!  State concert festivals are behind us, and we’re enjoying the last moments of another winter guard season.  As we all enter the last half of the final semester of this school year, everyone’s thoughts are turning to next year’s marching band show.  As you begin to create and develop your next show-stopping concept, remember that preparation is the most important first step to a successful season!

The school year is winding down all too quickly when it comes to making plans for the next year, and as you’re finalizing your music and staging, remember that it’s time to begin putting together your color guard designs as well.  Making your color guard or dance team look its best takes time.  It’s not an overnight miracle; it’s a process.  Know your designer(s) and seamstress as well as your production companies.  Being familiar with all of their requirements and expectations will allow you to produce your award winning designs.  Save yourself all that undue and unnecessary stress by knowing your timelines and deadlines.

If you’re having custom costumes created for your team, start early.  You will need time for your designer to create a sketch, get fabric swatches to you, provide pricing options, perfect sizing and fit and create patterns.  You will also need time to pay deposits to assure timely deliveries of costumes and equipment.  Remember, however, that that doesn’t include time for revisions if you require them!  Be prepared to provide your designer with as much concise, yet helpful information as you can.  How many students do you need to costume?  Do you have males and females or females only?  What’s your show’s theme, music or concept?  Do your costumes need to incorporate your school colors?  Don’t forget to provide a picture of your band proper if the costumes need to coordinate with the band uniforms!

If you know what you want when you come to the table, GREAT!  Communicate your vision with as many pictures as possible.  If you don’t know what you want, don’t worry.  Be flexible and open-minded to suggestions.  You’re now relying on someone else to create a custom look for you.  You’re using their vision, not one that you’ve communicated to them.  Help them out with inspirational pictures from fashion magazines and/or images relating to your concept.  Just be careful…make sure that your budget supports what you’re asking for.  Make sure you get fabric swatches.  Do not wait for your flags and costumes to arrive before heading to the local paint store to purchase paint for your props. I’m sure the prop moms and dads will thank you in the long run!

Another major component of creating a custom costume is budget.  I know we all have champagne dreams for our students, but in reality, many of us are operating on a beer budget…or less.  Be prepared for the question, “What is your budget?”  Let’s just be honest, it’s a waste of everyone’s time to have your designer sketch a costume for a $175/member budget when you really only have $125/member.  $50.00 is a huge difference in fabrics, cuts, etc.  Many companies offer lots of budget-friendly options and those options can expound indefinitely as long as you’re flexible.

A final key to custom creation is communication.  Who do the designers need to contact if they have a question?  If you need to communicate with multiple staff members once you receive a design, make sure you allow time for that to happen on your end as well.  If you’re coordinating with a visual designer and a color guard designer then, you need to be prepared for both of them to have time to digest your design as it relates to the whole picture and give them time to respond to you with their constructive criticism.

If your costume company provides such services as free fittings, take them up on it! Let a professional take care of the fitting for you.  They know the ins and outs of the cut and fabrics you’re using more than you might imagine.  It’s one less headache you have to worry about later. Most importantly, everyone wants their students to look their best from head to toe.  When the company sales representative comes out to your school to fit your students, it’s a good idea to have at least a 50% deposit ready if your booster club is paying for the costumes, or if your school is paying, provide them with a copy of your signed purchase order.  You can then allow the sales rep to take care of the paper work for you – it’s their job!

Now that we’ve discussed the design and paperwork process, let’s take look at several scenarios and time lines to help plan a more successful and less stressful year for you next year.  For the purpose of this article, let’s assume for the first performance you plan to wear your costumes and wave your flags is the weekend of September 22^nd.  Now, we also need to assume that not everyone of your students has the perfect body type and that you’re not paying your flag company to ship your flags already on the poles.  Let’s say you need one week to make minor alterations and hem your costumes and put your flags on poles.  So, now you’re looking at taking delivery on September 14^th at the latest.

For custom costumes, a good rule of thumb is 14 weeks from start to finish.  Begin the conversation with your designer by June 8^th or before the last day of school.  Allow two weeks for your designer to get back with you for your first sketch. Remember, this timeline doesn’t include time for additional revisions of your sketch!  May companies will provide one or two revisions of your design as part of the design service, but be careful… that 4^th revision may cost you, and I don’t just mean time.  It may cost you financially as well.

Next, have your finalized sizes and deposit by June 22^nd.  Even if you’re still working out designs, be ready to proceed to the next step.  A great tip is to have students pay the first half of the costume deposit out of their pockets as part of their band

fees.  This helps to make it much less likely that costume will sit empty in the fall.

Of course, there are many other alternatives to creating a custom costume from scratch.  Each of these options diminishing enormous amounts of stress on you and your staff.  I’m a huge advocate of what I like to call re-fabrication, meaning taking an existing design featured in a company’s catalog or on their website and changing the fabrics to create a costume that 9 out of 10 people who may have seen it before will think is an original.  The re-fabrication process takes less time and money than creating a costume from scratch, but this process still requires planning.  If you’re going the catalog re-fabrication route, plan for 10 weeks and have your sizes and deposit by July 6^th.

If you’re just not able to have everything ready until August, then rush costumes are often available, but they will have their limitations.  They are usually offered in a small range of colors and sleeve and/or pant options.  If it is only offered in black and red for example, then expect it to cost you additional time if you desire it in purple.  Rush costumes can usually arrive within 4 weeks, so have your sizes and deposit to your company by August 10^th.  And if you’re going with in-stock costumes, plan on 1 week with your sizes and deposit to your company by September 10^th.

Just remember if it says, “ships within 48 hours” that means it leaves the factory or warehouse in 48 hours.  What it does not mean is that you will have it in 48 hours. We haven’t even talked about shipping yet.  So, when your costumes leave the factory within 48 hours, they will still travel at the rate you paid for through UPS, FedEx, USPS, etc.  In reality your 48 hour item can take up to a week to arrive.

Finally, make sure you have not only taken care of your costumes but also taken care of everything costume related.  Have your flags ordered by July 20^th and make sure your shoes and tights order is in by August 17^th.  Your color guard and/or dance team moms and students are going to love how organized you are and that everything is ready to go for your first exciting performance.  You’ll be much more at ease and able to enjoy the success and achievement of your students!

Benjamin Hipp is the Distance Learning Coordinator and Color Guard Director at Summerville High School.  He is a graduate of Lexington High School and the University of South Carolina with a Bachelors in Music and minor in Art.  He began work on his Master’s in Education at Illinois State University in 2004 before joining the Summerville staff.    In 2007, Ben became the director of the Summerville Color Guard and has served in that position since. 

Ben has been involved in the pageantry arts for over two decades, winning state and national accolades as a performer, instructor, clinician and designer.  As a coach his teams have garnered hundreds of medals including 24 state championship titles, 9 regional and national titles and a world championship.  Ben has also been an active adjudicator for the Florida Federation of Judges Association since 2003.  His most recent adventure is working for Algy Costumes out of Hallandale Beach, Florida where he is involved with consulting and designing for countless high schools, universities and professional teams in the carolinas and all over the nation.

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I have a like/hate relationship with marching band.

I like the fact that it’s the one time during the year that everyone gets to play in the same ensemble.  The youngest students in the program get to hear the best players on a regular basis while trying to emulate their sound.  I like the fact that it creates a sense of family and that it takes everyone in the program, including parents, to make it all happen.  I like that it is an activity where the entire community can rally around the esprit de corps of the ensemble and I like the fact that we can be incredibly creative and artistic in our approach to the activity.

I hate that we’ve created this monster called marching band.  Somewhere along the way, programs have let the activity take over to the point that the tail is wagging the dog.  I also hate the fact that we’ve allowed the drum corps model to dictate what we do at the high school level.  The problem with this model is that the best drum corps in the world contain 19-22 year olds who are exceptional, not 14-17 year olds who aren’t quite as mature and who lack the savvy and bravura necessary for performance.  Therefore, the activity itself dictates that we spend an inordinate number of rehearsal hours to do what we do.

I was asked to write down some thoughts about keeping marching band in perspective, so here goes:

Concert Band is the hub of the wheel – If you want to have a great marching band, have a great concert band.  A marching band is nothing more than a collection of great players trying to communicate the emotion of the show on a football field.  In our program we clearly state that concert band is the hub of the wheel and all other components of the program are spokes of the wheel.  To keep this in perspective, we schedule a November concert.  It keeps us well-grounded in concert literature during marching season and it makes the band sound better, inside and out.  For percussionists, percussion ensemble work is where it’s at.

There is no defense in marching band – Band directors should NEVER talk to their bands about “beating” another band.  Beat them with what?  There is no defense in marching band.  You can’t do a thing to affect the performance of the other band, so why would you tell your students to beat someone else.  What are you going to do, send someone out with a flag pole to take out a saxophone player … hmm, maybe not a good analogy? Marching band is like golf.  You can only control what you do.  The message should always be to do your very best.  This is true for every aspect of the band program, and especially true for marching band.  Nothing else is needed if the students are encouraged to perform with passion and reach the audience on an aesthetic level.

Competition should be kept in perspective – In the fall, I wrote a letter to our band parents and explained that I recently attended a concert by the Chicago Symphony.  I ended the letter by saying, “At the end of the concert, I waited around for the scores to be announced.  Oh wait … there weren’t any scores announced.  Wonder why that is?”  Music education is about using the language of music to communicate something about who you are and what you feel.  A score is not necessary to evaluate whether we are able to transcend the nuts and bolts of the performance and attain the true artistry needed to communicate to the audience.

“Marching” is an adjective to band – My friend Roy Holder (Virginia) coined this phrase.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with having an exceptional marching band.  Just keep it all in perspective.

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