Mellophone

Rubbing Off in the 110 I’ve always been involved with marching band most of my time in school starting in 5th grade. I fell in love with it. I consider marching band an art form. The band marches in many different designs or a patterns on the field while playing music, and for the Marching 110, they perform a dance at the end. For the rubbings project, I wanted to celebrate my time here at Ohio University and give thanks to The Most Exciting Band In The Land. The materials I was regular printer paper and charcoal. I used charcoal because I felt it would let the words stand out more with the darkness of the of the charcoal. I knew when we went to Maya Lin’s “Input” sculpture, which rubbing I wanted to do first; the square with the “Ohio Marching Band” on it. This was the first saying on the sculpture I saw when I first came to Ohio University. Since I wanted all of “OU Marching Band”, I needed to use more than one sheet of paper, I needed two just for the word “marching” alone. All together, I used four sheets of paper to fit all the words together. This was the hardest part was to figure out what other words I wanted to use to go with “OU Marching Band”. I walked around for awhile, looking at all the different words and sayings, and I came across this saying with the word “memories”. I start to think about my time here at Ohio University, my time and effort I put in with the Marching 110, the friends I’ve made, the amazing trips, such as Paris, I’ve went on with the band.…

Marching band showed me one of the most important parts of my life. Marching band teaches people. With Mr. Beach as a director, one learns more than just how to march and play an instrument. It all started three years ago with five people in a loose section. To preface this story, I need to explain instruments. I found myself playing mellophone in marching band. The mellophone resembled a bigger trumpet and used by French horn players. Flugelhorns also look like trumpets, but they share the…

inventor, invented a new instrument in 1855 that was named after famous cornetist Herman Koenig. Koenig horns had its own family of instruments with different instruments in the keys of C, Bb, A, and F. The tenor F horn remained over the years and is known today as the mellophone. The year after the Koenig horn made its debut the ballad horn was invented. The ballad horn is made in the key of C as a tenor instrument. It had a crook to be able to be played in Bb ("The History of the Mellophone").…

I was given a spot to march on the field, provided that I played mellophone during marching season, instead of trumpet, since there weren’t enough people playing mellophone to fill all of the spots. As band camp started, I felt a great sense of belonging present in the atmosphere. I was part of the group, which made me swell with pride and, at times, anxiety. The pressure kept me trying to be the best that I could be. The experience I had that year was vastly different to the one I had endured…

In May, there are applications to be a squad leader. Last May I decided that I wanted to be able to share my knowledge of the marching season with younger members; so I applied to be a squad leader. I was chosen and able to lead three other girls that also play the mellophone with me. Throughout the season I had to put in a lot of hard work. Squad leaders had two days of training and then all of the hard work started. In July, we had pre-band camp where we taught our squads the basics of…

with a rather difficult choice: whether to join concert band or a symphonic orchestra. While both are ensembles with a conductor that play music arranged into different parts together, there are several important differences to take note of when deciding which one fits each musician perfectly. First of all, not every instrument is represented in every ensemble. A concert band, often called symphonic wind band, consists, as the name suggests, predominantly of wind instruments. Woodwinds like…

During concert season, I help lead saxophone sectionals from time to time. When we go to marching competitions, I'm also the head of the 'road crew', who loads and unloads the trailer we take to competitions. We move field props, front ensemble equipment, color guard equipment, and drum line instruments, as well as mellophones, trombones, and tenor/baritone saxophones. I make sure that everything has a place, and that it gets put in it's place. I don't necessarily care whether or not they look…

plastic. They are all narrow pipes, with holes, with an opening at the bottom end and a mouthpiece at the top. You play them by blowing into the mouthpiece and opening or closing the holes with your fingers to change the pitch. Metal caps called keys cover the holes of most woodwind instruments. The brass family, where all instruments are made of brass is similar to the woodwind family. Brass players use their breath to produce sound but vibrating your own lips by buzzing them against a metal…

In the exciting, event filled book, “Notes from an Accidental Band Geek,” Erin Dionne describes the life of a high school band student thoroughly. Erin Dionne keeps the book interesting at all times, by describing the drama that shows up in a high schoolers life. This book is written informally, making it seem as if the book is somewhat of a journal or diary. These reasons alone will make any reader jump at the opportunity to read, “Notes from an Accidental Band Geek.” As a result of Erin Dionne…

I never lost that passion for music. I joined my high school's marching band when I was only in seventh grade as a flute player and three years later became the youngest drum major. I became a student producer for our school musical and joined an indoor percussion ensemble for which I learned three different instruments, all within their respective two month seasons. With all these memories in mind, I can finally say firmly and definitively that I have an identity. I am a musician; and a proud…