No.

 

...

Ive been playing in my high school marching band for 4 years, and Ive played Alto in it each year. We are one of the strongest, and most heard sections in the band.

 

Ive been playing in my high school marching band for 4 years, and Ive played Alto in it each year. We are one of the strongest, and most heard sections in the band.

 

Yes, yes, yes. We (and other woodwinds) are important. I'm in the University of Cincinnati marching band and our head director said that while the brass provide the power, woodwinds provide a core to the sound.

 

What do you march on? I'm trying to decide whether I should march tenor or alto.

 

Only the sub contra bass saxophone.

 

No, not at all.

 

I march on alto

 

The all-brass marching bands have been in vogue the last decade or so but before that everyone joined in.
Heck in the 70s we even had bass clarinets, oboes and bassoons on the field.
Saxes can put out plenty of volume so, yes, they are useful.
The clarinet players always seemed to be pattern-fillers tho, so they served a purpose....

 

Adolphe designed them to be field horns. The man knew his stuff.

 

It depends on how far away the field is. Saxes are only important if the band doesn't have enough brass. Marching band is about drums and brass, in that order. Everything else is pattern filler. Tim, you marched oboes and bassoons? Never seen that.

Just look at the horns in a marching band score. Trumpets---melody--- Baritone/trombone--Bass and fill chords, usually take melody on second iteration, Fhorns--fill out chords--- tubas--bass
Flutes, clarinets--melody fillers--mostly double trumpets---alto saxes, double f horns---tenor sax--doubles trombones---bari sax----doubles tuba.

 

It's okay, I understand the question. I'm marching at U of L; I've never marched before. Sadly, my 3 friends I hang out with her are all low brass, and march Drum Corps during the summer. I agree with GingerSax though, we add a timbre to the sound that's pretty unique. I'm marching alto as well; We have a whole lot of melody and counter melody.

-Bubba-

 

And the U of Cincinnati marching band was just at U of L as the exhibition band for the BOA high school marching band competition last night!

 

We've discussed this many times before.

Of course, the answer is yes. At band marching contests, I've begun to see lots of woodwind solos using mics and at least two bands featuring saxophone sections as the main drive of their show. It appears sax and other woodwinds are gaining more and more popularity in marching bands.

Next, can a single saxophone be heard on the field without amplification? And again, the answer is yes. I spent my whole high school career being the super-loud tenor sax in our 60-plus member marching band. In 1982, I was even featured on a recording of our band playing New York - New York on the football field. You just have to have the right sax, mouthpiece setup, huge opera-singer style lungs and a band teacher that will allow you to do it.

Never despair over playing sax in high school band. You've got possibly the only wind instrument considered cool enough to play in rock bands. Once, school ends, the glory days for those trombone players are pretty well over. But the sax can be played for a lifetime.

 

....the sax can be played for a lifetime.

This is your answer. I doubt you'll spend your whole life in a marching band. So if you like the sax, why not learn to play it, have some fun marching around on the field, whether or not anyone can hear you--they'll hear the sound of the BAND, not necessarily individual instruments--then continue playing the sax after high school/college in some other settings where you will be heard.

 

the only reason you wouldn't hear a saxophone on the field is if the players don't know how to project past their nose. brass is naturally louder/projects more so you don't have to try as hard but if a saxophone isn't being heard, they are not projecting enough. and saxophones, btw, are hugely important in HS marching band. composers/arrangers wouldn't write them parts if they weren't. so march sax, project, and have fun.

btw, we had 8 altos in our marching band when i was in high school, and the only one of them you could hear was me. the rest of them simply either didn't play or didn't play above Pianissimo. it wasn't that i was overblowing or had a loud setup, i was playing with a medium chamber Meyer with a #3 opening, which rather closed, especially for on the field.the 3 tenors and 1 bari were easily audible.

bottom line: play the sax and play it well.

 

What are some tips for projecting?

 

Brass isn't louder. Brass is directional. Saxes are not.

 

Seventy-six trombones led the big parade
With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand.
They were followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuo-
Sos, the cream of ev'ry famous band.

Seventy-six trombones caught the morning sun
With a hundred and ten cornets right behind
There were more than a thousand reeds
Springing up like weeds
There were horns of ev'ry shape and kind.

There were copper bottom tympani in horse platoons
Thundering, thundering all along the way.
Double bell euphoniums and big bassoons,
Each bassoon having it's big, fat say!

There were fifty mounted cannon in the battery
Thundering, thundering louder than before
Clarinets of ev'ry size
And trumpeters who'd improvise
A full octave higher than the score!

!

 

I think it depends on the band. I was in a marching band once with 9 people - tuba, bone, trumpet, clarinet, alto sax (me), piccolo, and 3 percussion. No problem hearing the sax (or any other instrument for that matter...)

The hardest part was marching in 5/4, we were doing an arrangement of Woody Shaw's "Theme from Zoltan". We also did something from The Firebird Suite.

I wish college marching bands would do more creative arrangements instead of the usual bombastic movie music themes. Marching bands go way back, well before written history, I mean the Gregorians walked while chanting, didn't they? It's just like TV or radio - a certain sound makes money so everyone has to do the same thing. The 9 piece band had a summer gig, I believe we got a grant, perhaps supplemented by a musician's union grant (remember those?), the pay was crap, but it was fun and people seemed to enjoy it.

 

Marching bands go way back, well before written history, I mean the Gregorians walked while chanting, didn't they?

Was that back when there was an intermission during mass?

 

The portable cassette player eliminated the need for marching bands years ago, but I guess if you have to have one the sax could be useful. Just one idea, but I'm thinking a sop would do a great job of propping the door to the band bus open....

 

Looks like there are opinions on both sides of this one, but the correct answer is no

 

Er...they would come in handy for keeping extra drum sticks... uh...handy..

 

While we're near the topic... Are marching bands useful?

 

LOL!!!

 

Yes, I've marched with my tenor.
Just do it, who cares?

 

Are they useful? eh...
Is it fun? Hell Yeah! I remember having a ton of fun marching in high school (we were far from precision, just big old shift the weight movements) and playing in the stands in college (we only had a pep band at that point) at football games. Plus free tickets! Have fun, enjoy the ride and use a cheap horn.

 

Does it matter? Just March and have fun!

It really depends on the music and the arrangement.

 

You could use them in a woodwind feature for some variety?

 

Free lessons, free grub, free game with decent seats, and a cool new outfit complete with white gloves. Rolling party wagon busses with chicks (or guys) for away games. What's to debate??

 

I'm not at all fond of marching having done more than my share of this during my AF Band days (but fortunately we mostly played concerts, and other events).

Marching is not good for the saxunless you like to visit a repair shop often or when very cold, or shoes - when horses join in the festivities
When I was in HS band years ago I was lucky enough to play drums instead of sax which made it fun. Actually brass instruments
are most suited to marching as the do not have the complexity of a sax for example - except chops can still get hurt by sudden stops from the band member in front of you and cold weather of course. Adolph's first sax was a bass (in C) to play with orchestra to beef up the low reeds
and of course he wanted a more powerful instrument for outdoor military bands in the reeds. But sure he thought about marching specifically for application of his original invention. All of you marching lovers go for it. I have been in many parades on a float which is is much more fun IMHO

 

In the case of a brass instrument there's only one spot for the sound to go out of, the Bell. It's highly directional so where you point it is where the sound goes to an extent.

On woodwinds, there are a lot of different holes for the sound to come out of and with the exception of the lowest note on the instrument it isn't the Bell. So you don't get anywhere near the directional sound that you get out of a brass instrument.

I would venture to say if the only note you played was a low B-flat you could get in the vicinity of the loudness of a brass instrument. have I measured it with a calibrated SPL meter? No.

In college, one of the schools we played against had all soprano saxophones instead of clarinets. They played obnoxiously loud if you ask me. And they didn't have great tone.

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In college, one of the schools we played against had all soprano saxophones instead of clarinets. They played obnoxiously loud if you ask me. And they didn't have great tone.

Don't blame the sucky tone on the instrument. Too often, the emphasis in marching band is to play LOUD. This can lead to horrid habits of overblowing, and general bad habits with regard to tone production. If you need to be loud, play a cowbell. I carried the bass drum throughout high school and college marching band, and may have developed some improved sense of time as a consequence. At least my tone doesn't suck.