Band Season Doesn’t End With Football
By Bonita Wilborn
For anyone who might not be aware, band season doesn’t end with football season, far from it, to be exact. Mountain Valley News talked with Plainview High School Marching Band Director Chris Davis to get the story on a variety of things that the band is involved in during what most people consider their “off-season”.
“Let me start with the Bicentennial Parade. I believe we’re one of about ten bands that have been selected to perform in the Bicentennial Parade celebrating Alabama’s 200th anniversary. We had to put in our application, and I’m very excited to say that we will be going down to Montgomery to perform in this parade.”
In this particular instance, when Davis said, “We will be going down to Montgomery,” he did not mean just Plainview students; representatives from all six bands in the DeKalb County School will be taking part in this performance.
“We couldn’t bring everybody because of funding, but we have about 120 kids going, which is a pretty good-sized band. We did an audition process, and we’re calling it a Marching Honor Band, which is a first-ever in the history of the DeKalb County Band Association. I believe our vision for that is that it’s only the beginning. We are possibly going to take opportunities to go and march in parades like in Chicago and Macy’s. We will do a lot of different things. This is basically like our test run to explore what that means and what it would look like.”
No project of this magnitude can exist without funding from the various individuals and businesses throughout the county, and according to Davis the communities have been extremely supportive. Funds donated for the project will be used to cover the cost of travel and lodging and meals for the 120 students and six-band directors that will be making the trip.
Preparation for the Bicentennial Parade has been done on multiple Saturdays and through lots of planning. Davis said there would be a final practice on the day before the parade during school hours. Even though this parade is taking place in what would ordinarily be considered the time for Christmas music, the Bicentennial Parade will not feature Christmas music; it will feature traditional Alabama music.
The Bicentennial Parade will be held on Saturday, December 14. If information about which television networks will be airing the parade becomes available to us, we will post it on our Facebook page as well as in the Community News section of the Mountain Valley News.
November 11 is Veteran’s Day, and like many of the high schools in DeKalb County, Plainview High School held a Veteran’s Day Program. Plainview’s Concert Band, as well as the Chorus that is currently being instructed by Band Director, Chris Davis, performed at the Ceremony. Just after the completion of the Veteran’s Day music, the band students shifted gear and started learning Christmas music, as the local parades will begin taking place as early as December 7, and there will be various Christmas Concert performances between now and the time school is out for Christmas break. Those involved in the Bicentennial Parade have also been practicing their “Alabama” music.
Another exciting thing that is going on with the Plainview Band is the addition of their Pep Band that is performing at some of the home basketball games. Davis explained, “Every band director has many avenues that they can choose, based on what they determine will work best for their specific school and community. I felt like the Pep Band would work well here at Plainview. I gave the students the option to choose if they wanted to perform with the Pep Band because many of them are involved in other activities, but if they chose to do Pep Band, they had to commit to continuing whether the team wins or loses. We want to be there to support everything Plainview and encourage school spirit here. It’s a lot of extra work and time in a busy time of year, but in my opinion if Plainview wins in one category we all win. Any success in any part of our school, any of our programs, sports, or music, every success for the individual is a success for the whole. I’m about winning in that respect.”
Currently, the Pep Band is only performing at one home game each month. They perform for the varsity boy’s game as well as the varsity girl’s game. Davis selects a date that is not on the weekend and does not interfere with other things on the band’s very busy schedule. Davis added, “The kids enjoyed it, and I believe the teachers and parents did as well. We received a lot of good support. It was fun.”