No matter the score on the football field, CSU’s marching band is always down for a good time
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FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Rub your belly, pat your head. Not too hard, right?
Now try walking backwards with a 40-pound tuba, hitting the right note and keeping time with 237 other musicians.
“Most students, when they start band, it's inside learning how to play an instrument,” said Jayme Taylor, the director of athletic bands at Colorado State University (CSU).
“To strip away those walls, spread everybody out on the field, and put them in front of a crowd of 30,000 people on a game day is a huge leap forward,” he said.
Taylor joined CSU as director in the fall of 2021 when the band counted 170 members. That number has since grown by 40 percent, to the current 238 person roster.
Students had quite literally forgotten how to march, Taylor said.
In order to rebuild the band, Taylor focused on what he says is the heart and soul of all bands — community. He has helped to implement new traditions, like the March to Victory, in which the band leads fans into the stadium, and leaned on the band’s past, inviting alumni to perform with the band every homecoming game.
“If you walk into any college band in the country, you're going to immediately feel a sense of that group's community. This group is no different,” Taylor said. “Coming out of the pandemic we added a lot of new people that weren’t familiar with our community. Training them to be a part of that was one of the major things that we had to do.”
For a college marching band, numbers aren’t just a matter of pride.
In order to play in a large venue, like Canvas Stadium — where the Rams play football — the band must have a critical mass of players to generate sufficient sound to reach the audience.
For the on-field formations, the band needs enough players to form pictorial arrangements, such as a boulder chasing Indiana Jones down a collapsing tomb — a scene the group rehearsed during a recent practice.
In addition to logistic considerations, developing a strong sense of community motivates students to work harder, said Taylor.
“It's not a bunch of individuals out on the field. It's a trumpet section, a flute section and a drumline section. And they're all working together for the marching band as a collective whole to bring game day to life,” he said.
A lifelong passion
Taylor traces his passion for music to Maryville, Tennessee, where he learned to play trumpet in 4th grade. In high school, marching band offered him an opportunity to see the country. His band played in New York, Phoenix, and Washington D.C..
“I got the travel bug,” said Taylor.
When it came time to pick a college, the choice was easy.
“I knew that right down the street, the University of Tennessee had a well-renowned marching band. It just seemed like the natural progression for me,” said Taylor, who studied music education in college.
“It’s odd thinking back about it now,” said Taylor, “I was very much an introvert. Band is the thing that got me out of the house. It’s where I met my wife.”
Now the director of the football, basketball and volleyball bands, Taylor admits that his love for sports followed his love for music.
“I didn’t know how the game of basketball worked until I joined my college basketball pep band, and sat next to somebody who explained the game to me. I fell in love,” he said.
Band camp
Like most marching band programs, the Rams’ season starts with a grueling preseason band camp in the heart of summer.
“I don't want to call it trauma bonding, because I don't know that it's necessarily that level, but it’s one week straight of 12-hour days,” said senior Samantha Haldeman, a trumpet player and computer science major.
“We're all miserable, we're sweaty, we're out in the hot sun getting bitten by mosquitoes together,” she said.
As bad as Haldeman tried to make it sound, she couldn’t stop grinning.
Band camp provides the first opportunity for students to learn music and marches, build the physical stamina to play during an entire game day, and audition for the group as well as leadership positions.
Lucy McCrossan, who studies music education and serves as one of the group’s drum majors — a trio of students who conduct the band and keep its 238 members on time and in line — remembered her first band camp fondly.
“My whole senior year [of high school] was online. I didn't see anyone in-person for about a year and a half,” said McCrossan. “So then when I came to CSU and I went to marching band camp, I was almost overwhelmed. But it was also awesome to get to connect with these people and share this common interest.”
Keeping time
Over the course of this season, which runs from August through November, Taylor’s group will learn 18 different arrangements for seven half-time performances. In addition, each member must learn staple songs, including CSU’s fight song, the “Green and Gold March” and a booklet containing between 30 and 40 compositions the band plays during timeouts and touchdowns.
The group practices Monday, Wednesday and Friday for two hours. On game days, the marching band meets six hours before kickoff.
“I have to put everything in my calendar. If I don't have it in my calendar, I will forget to do it,” said Haldeman. This year, she’s juggling upper level coursework in computer science, on-campus jobs and marching band.
Every year, Haldeman has questioned the time commitment.
“But by the end of the season, after all of the games, I'm like, yeah, definitely doing this again next year,” she said.
At a rehearsal in early October, the group worked through music from Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
Taylor directs the group from a three story platform that allows him to better analyze and correct the group's movement. He uses a program called Pyware 3D to choreograph the band’s on-field positions.
“It’s sorta like AutoCAD for marching bands,” said Taylor, referring to a design software popular among engineers and architects.
As the group practices the “Imperial March,” McCrossan conducts the group from a shorter podium.
“I'm listening to the drumline, listening to the winds and making sure that we're lining up and just kind of keeping the band on track,” she said.
Slender and a self-described introvert, McCrossan, nonetheless, has no problem calling her troops to attention.
“It's actually a part of our audition process here,” she said. “We have a few sets of commands, and we're told to just yell them at the judges and they basically just assess, like, okay, if they have to get the band's attention, could they do it?”
Despite the sacrifice McCrossan and Haldeman put into the group, there’s no question in their minds that marching band is worth it.
“Games are way more fun when you have 200 of your best friends surrounding you,” said Haldeman.
“We're always vibing with each other, dancing to the music in the stadium, joking around, and then in comparison, the student section honestly looks kind of dead,” she said.
“When you have 250 people all yelling the same chant. In those moments, I really feel like I'm a part of a bigger community,” said McCrossan.
As a leader in the band, she sees it as her responsibility to pass down traditions to younger students or to incorporate them in future marching bands she hopes to direct.
While Taylor’s rebuilding process has focused on enriching the community within the band, the fruits of his work have had a much wider impact.
“I know for my students, for me, for anyone I talk to who’s a musician the number one reason we get up every day and do it is, is to perform for people,” Taylor said.
“We want to entertain people with the music and enrich their lives somehow. When we're playing our fight song the people cheer, the people sing, they clap along, they yell, ‘Go Band!’ It’s infectious.”
Editor's note: This story was updated Nov. 4, 2024 to clarify Taylor's role in the band's new traditions.
Editor's note: This story was updated Nov. 4, 2024 to clarify Taylor's role in the band's new traditions.