FUNdamentals . . . and how they are EVERYTHING.
October 17, 2017 When I was a younger educator, a mentor said, "Marching Bands stop getting better around the first week of October." I never understood what that meant until circa 2016. It has been in the last few years that I have come to understand the awesome power that is fundamentals and training within the HS Band program. They are my everything now. I would have NEVER guessed this as a younger director. And, honestly, this is probably the thing that I would have told 23 year old Seth to pay attention to. The above quote does not mean the band stops growing (they clearly do). It means that bands eventually stop improving beyond what they are fundamentally asked to do. Therefore, one sees bands strike success early and plateau. This was a scenario in which earlier generations of bands of my own did. And, I could never understand what I was doing wrong. The reality of my early failures was entirely attached to lack of fundamental training. I never respected them....
