Music and Rituals

One ritual I often took a part in during high school was football games. Being in the marching band, I was required to attend every home football game, and we always followed a certain order and had specific music we played at football games. In addition to this, we had certain uniforms we had to wear to the games. At the beginning of the season we wore “summer uniforms,” often our show shirt and shorts or jeans, and then as it got colder we would switch into the full marching band uniform. 

Summer Uniform

Full Uniform

Each game would start with the pregame show where the marching band would march onto the field and play the national anthem. 

My band playing the National Anthem for the pregame show.

After that, we would change formation into two rows across the field and once the football team was ready, they would do a chant and then run through a tunnel at the end of the field and then through the rows we made as we played the fight song. We would also play the fight song in the stands during the game whenever our team made a touchdown (which was not very often because our team was not good).

I couldn’t find any videos of us playing the fight song during the pregame show but here is one of us playing it in the stands. Normally we were a little closer together but this was right after COVID so we had to try to have social distance in the stands.

During the game we would play different stands tunes, many of which had different little dances to go with them. This was always my favorite part of football games because I got to goof around with my friends. 

Towards the end of the second quarter we would leave the stands and go warm up for the half time show. Once it was halftime, we would perform our show that we were working on that season. After halftime, we would return to the stands and continue to play stands tunes for the rest of the game. 

At the end of the game, the band would alway play the school’s Alma Mater. The cheerleaders, football players, and sometimes students from the stands would all go on to the field and sing the Alma Mater while swaying together. The colorguard often did the same thing in the stands. Once again I could not find a video from the game, but here is a video from a pep rally that shows pretty much what would happen at a game.

Until writing this blog, I never thought of this little routine as a ritual, but it was so cool to reflect on that experience through a different lens. The music we played definitely added to the environment at the football game, making it more fun for viewers.