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For Award-Winning Blue Knights Band, The Music Is Always Moving
October 23, 2005
By ROBERTO GONZALEZ, Courant Staff Writer

SOUTHINGTON -- Tom Jacob remembers what people said when he decided to join the high school marching band as a freshman:

"You're a dork."

"My freshman year was kind of tough being in the band, because you got a lot of flak for doing that," said Jacob, who was wearing a Green Day T-shirt during rehearsals Thursday. "But as you mature and the rest of your class matures, now I don't get any crap for being in the band. I'm the drum major, and that's really cool."

Jacob now conducts, along with fellow senior drum major Lisa Poulin, the award-winning Southington High School Blue Knights Marching Band. The band has 105 members, most of them underclassmen, including 36 freshmen who gave up two weeks of summer vacation to spend eight hours a day in band camp.

That's right, band camp.

Jacob said the marching band helps freshmen deal with the often difficult transition from middle school to high school, especially the two weeks of band before the school year starts. It may sound grueling, but it helps build camaraderie, he said.

"When you go to band camp for those two weeks, you make a bunch of friends with the older kids," Jacob said. "So when you start high school, you are already in a clique. Since we devote so much time together with each other, we basically become a family."

Despite its youth, the band has come together.

The Blue Knights Marching Band continued its tradition of winning last Saturday, taking first place in its division at the U.S. Scholastics Band Association competition - the Southington band's fifth competition of the season - at Cheshire High School. Last year, the band took the state championship in its division.

The band won performing "Da Vinci's Dream ... The History of Flight," a piece that consists of three complex movements. It was composed by Key Poulan, a renowned arranger and composer of music for marching bands.

"Music has always been a part of my life, and when I was in middle school, I played a bunch of instruments," Jacob said. "It was a natural step to join the marching band when I got into high school. I try to involve myself in music as much as possible."

Band director Jeff Shaw said 60 percent of his marching band is freshmen and sophomores, making this the youngest band he has directed in his 16 years at Southington High.

It has presented some challenges, he said.

"This year, it took a little longer to develop," Shaw said. "Right now the kids are fairly confident in what they are doing. Now we're into the little stuff - so and so is out of line, or so and so is not facing the right way visually. And in the musical stuff, you want to get everybody to do everything the same way. So at this point of the season, we're into the minutiae."

This year, aside from the two-week band camp, band members have to memorize 70 formation changes on the field and have to study thick books, similar to football play books.

"It's tough for the freshmen, because they can't be middle school kids anymore, and they can't really be freshmen anymore," Shaw said. "They have to be experienced marchers when they go into competitions. It puts a lot of pressure on them, because they've never done it before, and they have to memorize all the music."

Shaw said the draw for students to join the band is the competitions. While playing at halftime during a football game is fun, most people leave their seats to grab a hot dog or stretch their legs and don't pay attention to the band, Shaw said.

"Once they get into the competitive stuff, they really enjoy that," Shaw said. "Because in the competition, you're focused on the musical performance."

Freshman Will Basilicato, 14, plays the trumpet and said he was inspired to join the Southington marching band - which doesn't hold auditions and welcomes all comers - after watching it perform while he was in middle school.

"When I saw it at middle school, I thought it would be challenging and stressful," Basilicato said. "It's been fun. The practices have been long, but it's good when you see what you've accomplished."

Next week is the New England States Championships at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, followed by the USSBA All-States Championship at Giants Stadium on Nov. 5. More details about the band's schedule and past performances are on its website, www.shsbands.com.

"We've been pretty successful, and there is a lot of hardware out there," Shaw said, referring to the trophies in the band room. "But it is what it is. It sits on a shelf. The experience of going through it is more important than what kind of plastic you're bringing home to put on a shelf."

And there is still more work to do. The younger band members still have much to learn from the veterans.

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