The Fall rally is coming up!

On Friday, the first rally of the year is happening at my school. But, why is this relevant to me?

Some Context

The rally isn’t just a fun, social event for every student in the school, whether they want to go or not. It’s a performance! The ASB, marching band, cheer team, color guard, and dance team all work to entertain the many students in the stands of the gym.

Preparation for the Performance

The marching band practice the day before, our director gave us some time to review the songs we were playing in our performance. At this rally, We were playing Dance the Night and Alma Mater. We held light discussions as to plans and went into the next day.

We were to be dismissed from our 4th period class to give the marching band time to warm up and prepare for the rally. The performance itself is quite short. Nevertheless, tuning and warming up is a necessity to provide a high-quality performance.

The actual day

I have Wind Ensemble during 4th period, so I did not need to be given an early dismissal, as my instrument was already out, and I was in the band room. As the group was given an early dismissal, I pulled out my pep book and lyre.
A pep book is an envelope, cut and fortified with tape, that holds all of a marcher’s pep tunes.
A lyre holds the pep music/pep book on the arm of a flutist/Sousaphonist, or on the instrument of a trumpet, clarinet, baritone, etc.

Once everyone was set up, our director had us stand at standing by as he explained what the plan was.

We will play outside, by the cafeteria some pep tunes based on what the drum major calls out. We will then go inside and perform the Alma Mater and Dance the Night. [A member of the choir and our color guard] will perform [Star Spangled Banner], but we will not play along for time.

We kicked off with a warm-up, and I worked with a social media member to get a post about the rally. She was nervous to pause playing to get a picture to post, but I gave her clearance and she went with it. The band room echoes a little bit, and even as a small group we were somewhat cramped in there. We were then directed outside.

Taking a step outside and getting hit with rays of light gave me hope for a light performance. After we took senior photos, we walked to the cafeteria (which was right around the corner) and set up to play Fireball. The cafeteria ladies gathered outside to watch as we played for all of the students who entered the gym. We followed that with Seven Nation Army, and lastly Land of 1000 Dances. It was relatively as you’d expect.

The loud environment of the rally has been unchanging throughout the years. The actual lights are off, replaced by the green and yellow party ones. After the ASB played their video and made their “hype-the-crowd-up-speech.” After that, we came out of the sideline of the gym and played the Alma Mater as that guard/choir member sang. I played Dance the Night memorized, which went relatively well. Exiting the rally, we all celebrated for a short but enjoyable performances.