SCHS’ marching band is voluntary this year, which caused the numbers to go down. This ensures the marching band is full of people who want to be there, which makes productivity skyrocket. Sean Bippen, the marching band director, shared that this was the desired effect of making the marching band voluntary.

“Our hopes were that that would allow more of really the incoming freshmen…we’re trying to keep more of those band members in the concert band and the jazz band, so while the marching band is getting a little bit smaller, like we knew, the concert band and the jazz bands are getting bigger, so that was the desired effect,” Bippen said.

Sophomore Taylor Nash, a marching band student, didn’t see a huge decrease in size. Instead, Nash believed the numbers to have increased. 

“I think they’ve [the numbers] increased with some of the freshmen that joined,” Nash said.

Junior Jackeline Cortez-Lopez, a marching band student, believes the numbers to have increased, but not by much.

“We’ve had a big number of freshmen come in this year, so that helped boost our numbers a lot,” Cortez-Lopez said, “[the numbers have increased] not that much, but they definitely have increased…we had a very small senior class last year and this year we have a little larger, a little larger freshmen class, so yeah, it just like evens out.”

The productivity and overall success of the marching band this year seems to have skyrocketed, which just may be due to the fact that the marching band is voluntary this year.

“Since we’ve gone to a volunteer marching band, which means it’s not required of the concert band to do it, we find we’ve got more of the kids that actually want to be there, so we tend to get a lot more done, and we’re having a lot of fun with the show, so I think it’s going very well,” Bippen said, “our motto is ‘Each performance should be better than the last one.’”

Something that seems to be common with after school activities, but marching band in particular, is the sense of community that comes with being part of a team.

“I like that we’re all together and we do stuff together,” Nash said.

Cortez-Lopez agrees.

“Honestly, just like the overall people and atmosphere of just like, everything goes well together. If you’ve been around the people for a long time, you like blend right in with them. It’s just a fun place to be,” Cortez-Lopez said.

The marching band season runs through the end of October, and they try to get better with every show.

“So we just try to, each week, do a better job and…get more of the music coming out, and get the marching accurate, so just trying to improve with each show,” Bippen said.

The marching band has quite a lot of freshmen join this year, which helped their numbers grow.

“I think it’s going pretty good. We’ve had a big number of freshmen come in this year, so that helped boost our numbers a lot,” Cortez-Lopez said, “I like how we can go hours without getting bored of it.”

Bippen has been teaching marching band for quite some time now. In fact, almost thirty years.

“I love teaching marching band. I got hooked on marching band when I was a freshman in high school, and I’ve basically been involved with it ever since. I was telling the band that this is my twenty-seventh straight year doing a marching band show and marching band camp, and a show…so it’s almost been thirty years that I’ve been doing marching band every fall.”