Our Arcadia High School (AHS) Marching Band performed its annual competition at Mt. Carmel High School, all the way out in San Diego where the members performed in a parade and a field show on Oct. 30. Each member who participated did their best and gave the show a good run-through, with Arcadia being judged as expected, getting sweepstakes overall and second place for its division in music. They left in the morning, traveling far and wide to represent the high school and show off their hard work which they had been working on since June.

In the early afternoon, the band marched a short distance in a competition block, under the command of Drum Major and current senior Elise Fong, performing for both spectators and judges to hear. The percussion and auxiliary did fairly well, offering up their potential and receiving sweepstakes in their respective categories. Marching Band is divided into divisions when judged, and the position of sweepstakes is the best score out of all the divisions, meaning it is better than first place. The band scored well on the marching and showmanship, only losing in the music category to Rancho Bernardo High School. This was what was expected of the students as well as directors Kevin Sherrill and Tom Plunkett, and it gave them the focus to keep on improving in the future. 

Mr. Plunkett, voiced his thoughts on the band’s performance, believing in the band.

“The performances will just get better and better exponentially,” he said. “That day was a bit of a weird day, but that definitely wasn’t our best run-through. By getting that mature and dark sound, the music will be given even more life.”

One of these students, freshman Henry Zhao, said how he felt about Arcadia’s performance on the street that afternoon.

“I think Mr. Plunkett is right,” Zhao said. “Our introduction isn’t the best, and we should practice more specific chunks.”

After a short rehearsal and break for an early dinner, everyone geared up to play in what’s arguably the hardest part of any musical competition: the field show. Even though the judges do not receive a copy of the music score, the marching judges know what every part of the march is supposed to sound like, and the lines are often exposed, allowing those to see who is in line and who is not. Furthermore, any changes to the way a note is played must be exaggerated on the field for it to be noticed by the music judge, meaning changes in music are harder to be accounted for.

When everyone was ready to play, Arcadia did a visual and a musical warm-up to finish up any final preparations before the singular run-through. Nervousness rippled throughout some, while others’ focus and determination were bolstered. Finally, the playing began. The band earned sweepstakes which is really good! With awards coming, auxiliary or color guard got sweepstakes as always, alongside the percussion. The winds in the band overall got first place in their division overall, as well as the high visual award commending any choreo or horn snaps (when an instrument is quickly moved up or down from set to playing position and vice versa). As a burgeoning member of the band, freshman Rogers Yu explains his thoughts on Arcadia’s overall performance that day.

“The band did pretty good,” Yu said. “With this in mind, I do believe that we could’ve done a lot better. We had people absent, and we didn’t perform as well as we did in rehearsals. Not everyone was together, and it was probably from people being nervous or underprepared.”

The AHS Marching Band went home with sets of awards, returning back to the high school later that night. With this, the organization performed well and will continue to get better as the marching season nears its end.

Photo courtesy of Aruna Ananthanarayanan and Diana Babapour