BOWLING GREEN — White caps and orange shirts gave visual unity to the hundreds of Falcon Marching Band members being directed by Jon Waters, who emphasized each beat of music at a recent practice from atop his directing podium.
Students faithfully drilled, preparing for Bowling Green State University’s homecoming celebration Saturday.
Up a few stories of metal lattices, a band associate observed the students moving as a sea of orange.
As Mr. Waters conducted, drum majors mimicked the same gestures off to either side of him, and, like an animated school of fish, the musicians formed BGSU’s falcon emblem.
“It all just feels very professional, very organized and there’s like 400 people in this,” said Nathan Glover, 18, a freshman studying musical theater and a twirler in the band.
This year the Falcon Marching Band is one of the largest in the country, according to BGSU Athletics. And it’s the largest in the history of the school, ballooning from just under 100 members three years ago when Mr. Waters took over as director. His tenure at the helm coincides with the band’s growth.
“When I got here, there were 90 kids signed up for band,” Mr. Waters said. “And this year we have 425.”
To the lay person, marching in various shapes in tight, measured lines, while playing music may be too many things to keep track of, but band members don’t think of what they do as stressing.
“Most of it is getting to spend time with the people,” said Micky McMahon, 20, a sophomore studying music education who plays mellophone and horn.
Commitment is required because the practices are two hours a day, five times a week with a full day spent at football games.
“I mean, why wouldn't I want to be involved with the band?” said Natalie Arrington, 21, a drum major who is a senior studying music education.
“It's a lot of what I love doing in my free time anyways, which is being with my friends, being involved with music,” she said. “So taking that extra step to be more involved was just a no brainer for me.”
Ms. Arrington is one of the few current members who experienced the Falcon marching band before Mr. Waters arrived. She attributed the growth of the band to his determination to get the band out playing in front of people after the coronavirus pandemic slowed things down.
Four years ago the band was, “very confined to the university,” she said. In 2020, they only performed locally during the pandemic.
Without traveling outside of Bowling Green, some of the fun was taken out of the band back then, especially because the band works so hard, she said.
Keeping count
“There’s probably 700 counts of music in this whole show,” Mr. Waters said, referring to how musicians keep track of the beats in their music by counting. “And so we’re really accounting for every one of those 700 counts, where they are on the field, and where they go, who they pass through, who they pass next to, and where in the music that happens. And it's all coordinated.”
To help keep track of every single member of his band Mr. Waters uses software called Pyware.
The program “offers a comprehensive set of tools for creating, visualizing, and refining intricate marching band drill formations and routines,” according to the Pyware website.
On the band director’s iPad, dots representing each of the students began to move in sync with the music.
He selected one of the Pyware dots after pausing the song and said “T-52, that's Ethan,” as he read the information displayed.
“So, it tells us who is in what position,” but more importantly, he said, it's a tool to make sure “all the counts are accounted for.”
Fancy programs aside, Mr. Waters said he sticks to the fundamentals, learning the music and making sure everyone knows where they’re supposed to be throughout the performance.
“So they're relating the music in their mind to the movement on the field,” he said.
At the beginning of practices the band starts with a musical warmup, without any marching. After the warmup each member of the band practices correct marching posture, and then each of the 425 students begins to move around the field. A recording of the music is played over a speaker with each musician pretending to play their instrument as they march.
Once the marching drill is finished Mr. Waters has the band members put both disciplines together.
“We work piece by piece and chip away at things,” Mr. Waters said, and encouraged students who might be intimidated by the band to give it a try.
“We are the number one university in Ohio for student experience,” he said, citing the findings of a Wall Street Journal article about BGSU . “And this [the Falcon Marching Band] enhances their student experience.”
All the hard work leaves band members with an overwhelming experience.
“There's nothing more terrifying to me personally than the start of a show, and then there's nothing more awesome and rewarding than the end of a show,” said Jonathan Outrich, 20, a junior studying systems engineering who is a Falcon drum major.
“You finish that last note, and that is the best thing I've ever done in my entire life,” he said. “There's no way I could top that. It is such a good feeling to chase after.”
What’s energetically contagious, even as a spectator, is the band’s dedication to a shared goal.
“Every person in your section, every person among this band, wants to be here, wants to play, wants to perform, wants to get better each day,” Mr. Outrich said, emphasizing the greater buy-in to marching bands at the collegiate level.
“Everyone who is in this band has signed up for this class, has paid for this class, wants to be here, is motivated to show up every single day and be passionate about what they're doing,” he said. “That’s something I never got out of high school [band], and it's really cool to see here.”
Even new band members said they hadn’t noticed a negative side to the band’s size.
“It doesn't feel like that much has changed,” Becca Trausch, 18, a freshman who plays cymbals said of her transition from high school to a larger college band.
“You have to work together, so you have to get to know the people around you to work together,” she said. “It’s a pretty unique experience.”
And that unique experience is what Mr. Waters said he is focused on cultivating.
“Yes, the music is great. But for me, philosophically, the music is always second,” Mr. Waters said. “Music is second, and the student experience, the person-building experience, is first, and that's what they learn. We're making them better people through music and the Falcon Marching Band.”
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