It's half time. The game is going well and the crowd is enjoying the game.
A sea of purple and orange fills the stands with supporters out to cheer on their team.
The team walks off the pitch and the dull roar fades as another group of college students walk on.
They are wearing a funny uniform, with long pants, flat hats and the colours of the home team.
A thousand flashes of silver and gold dazzle the crowd as the commentator yells, “Good evening Tiger fans, are you ready!?”
The crowd goes wild, cheering and clapping, excited for what is to come.
The brass level their instruments, the woodwinds line up their mouthpieces and the percussionists prepare their sticks.
The show starts. The tune can be heard loud and clear, perfectly balanced chords and inspiring melodies to lift team spirits and keep the energy high.
The students march around, using their bodies to change the shapes displayed on the 100-yard field.
Outlines of mascots, local icons and the name of the college appears with each student making up dot-to-dot outlines, marching with incredible precision and in perfect unison to both physically and musically entertain the tens of thousands of spectators.
These are College Marching Bands, the entertainment throughout American Football games.
These college marching bands put on shows at pregame and half time as well as play music in the stands during the game.
Michael Barasch, the editor-in-chief of CollegeMarching.com explained that it is a 100 plus year tradition of creating entertainment at the biggest sporting events in American history.
Most of the largest stadiums in the United States are home pitches for college football teams, hosting up to 107,601 people at maximum capacity.
With these large crowds, bands of up to 500 players take the lead in fight songs, traditional chants as well as entertaining at pregame and half-time.
Choosing to play an instrument is a big commitment at the best of times.
One must practice, rehearse and be actively engaging as to not lose skill built up over time.
On top of that, one must also maintain, repair and clean their instrument regularly so that it stays in working order as well as trying to preserve the instrument’s longevity.
College marching bands require a whole set of new skills.
On top of the already complex task of playing music in time, tune and correctly, these musicians must march in time and in formation, keeping aware of the other musicians around them and working as one team to produce an entertaining show.
Mr Barasch laments “People don’t think of band as a sport, but it really is.”
How did that group of 350 people get on that pitch? And why is it so important to college football games?
Marching bands find their origin from ancient times, however the bands seen today originated in the 1800s.
Mr Barasch explains these bands were initially “campus bands, who kinda just performed at different functions as needed.”
“Eventually as sports grew and grew and grew, they found their place entertaining crowds in the stand and that eventually morphed into military style [marching bands].”
There are two major styles of college marching bands today; typical marching bands who play at football games and Drum Corps International (DCI) Bands.
Michael points out that the “[DCI] style is this performance art way more than you see in the college band ranks.”
“[DCI bands] will perform one show and master that.”
However, the marching bands people see the most often are the ones who play the pregame and halftime shows at college football games.
These bands rehearse five days a week and play every week when the football team is playing.
Many students started playing their chosen instrument from the sixth grade, with a dedicated class teaching them the fundamentals of music and their instruments through middle school.
Some high schools will have their own marching bands, teaching the students the basics of marching and giving them opportunities to practice.
Once they finish high school, many students will choose to audition for their college’s marching band.
Membership is not restricted to those studying music, instead students can choose to pursue study in different areas.
Dr Mark Spede, the director of bands at Clemson University and the national president of the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA), said that when students first arrive at college, they often do not know many people at all.
“The first thing that they do is band camp and they meet 300 and something people who share the common background of band.
“A lot of them find their friend group within the band.”
By the time the college semester starts, a highly trained and well-practiced team is ready to perform.
Dr Spede observed that, “the quality of [college marching bands] are really just stunning.”
“They are really good ensembles,” he says.
Marching bands are incredibly important to the culture of a football game.
Mr Barasch explains how the spirit and attitude of the crowd can make or break a college football team’s performance.
“In American sports – especially in American football – the crowd has a legitimate impact on what happens in the game.
“The louder the crowd is, the harder it is for the team to get all their signals and plays in for everyone to be on the same page.
“The fan can negatively impact an offence because they are so loud.
“And who is really driving that force? It’s the band,” hey says.
American football is often longer than its international counterparts, with games taking up to three hours.
“When you think about the biggest sports…a lot of them don’t have natural breaks in gameplay which would naturally allow for you to have [the] band performing,” Mr Barasch explains.
“The average play lasts six seconds…and then there is like 30-40 seconds in between of just like waiting for them to play again.”
Because of these breaks, college marching bands have cemented themselves as the premier entertainment for football games.
They are so important that bands will send payers to every game, no matter how far away it is.
Morgan Oliver, a student at Clemson University and baritone player in the band, recounted the time Clemson’s football team played in the national championships and the whole ensemble were sent to California for four days to play at the game.
“We didn’t have to pay anything to go,” she said, emphasising that their importance to the game meant that the university was willing to spend the money to send the whole band.
The half-time show performance is always the highlight of the performance as it gives the band the opportunity to show off what they are capable of.
Apart from the visual spectacle of college marching bands, there is something more interesting about the sport.
Marching bands are not very prominent outside of the collegiate football scene.
The National Football League only has two marching bands attached to teams and no other sport in America has marching bands as widespread.
Internationally, marching bands are only really found in a military sense, marching only on occasions where needed.
For something this culturally valuable and invested in to at this scale, it is surprising that it has not grown beyond collegiate football in America.
“I would love to see it become something that happens in other countries,” Mr Barasch reflected.
“It really works in football [but] it doesn’t work in say [ice] hockey.”
This phenomenon, although extremely limited, has impacted people around the world, with a little bit of showmanship brought to musical performances of all kinds.
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