Lady Gaga, ‘La La Land’ serve as inspiration for Western Pa. high school marching bands
It started around this time last year — a wisp of an idea centered on stained glass and Gothic architecture. From that vague image, Norwin High School band director Tim Daniels spun a full nineminute marching band routine titled Baroque-N — a mash-up of classical baroque and the Lady Gaga song “Bad Romance” — that received some of the top honors in band competitions this year.
Complete with reveal videos, special effects and elaborate storytelling, some local high schools have taken their marching band performances well beyond the standard precision march to classical standards. “It is very different than what a lot of people traditionally associate with marching band,” said Mr. Daniels. “Everyone is looking for that next thing, and right now that next thing is, ‘How can we make this more artistic? More of a production?’”
This year at the Pittsburgh Interscholastic Marching Band Championships, Hampton did a “La La Land” theme. Fox Chapel’s program was based on the Netflix show “Stranger Things.” The band at Gateway High School, which won the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Marching Band Association Class AAA title last month, did a program simply titled “Enigma.” Other trailblazing local schools include Kiski Area, Deer Lakes and Moon Area.
A departure from traditional marching bands began in the late 1990s and early 2000s, said Chad Himmler, high school band director at Hampton High School. When Mr. Daniels graduated from Norwin in 2008, he said, the band had transitioned into using pop music but hadn’t fully embraced the visual storytelling.
These days, fueled by easily accessible inspiration on YouTube, including from the professional Drum Corps International and the introduction of special effects, marching band programs have gone heavily theatrical.
From his house last month, Mr. Himmler at Hampton watched a live stream of Florida’s Tarpon Springs High School marching band whose show was based on the novel “Ready Player One,” featuring massive video screens. Depending on online voting, the ending of the show would change with different players “winning.”
“Some of the things I’m seeing — I’m stunned, shocked and amazed at what is happening with this activity,” said Hampton’s Himmler. “It’s really unreal.”
Senior Madeline Stevens, who plays the flute, was accustomed to the style of Hampton’s performances because her older brother was also in the marching band. But when her brother first started, her family was surprised. “They said, this is not what we were expecting at all,” she laughed.
For Hampton’s “La La Land”
show, officially titled “City of Stars,” parents built a 7foot-long grand piano prop to house a keyboard on the field played by a band member dressed as Ryan Gosling’s character from the movie. Banners depicting the Los Angeles skyline, similar to the movie poster, covered about 40 yards of the football field. Dancers in yellow dresses waltzed across the turf. And the school used some electronics, miking all of the keyboard instruments and adding special sounds controlled by band members on the field.
The use of electronics has expanded extensively in recent years, with some bands using recorded voices and special effects. This year, Deer Lakes uses a siren at the beginning of its “Tales from the West Side” program.
“There are definitely some purists who always talk about back in the day they didn’t need electronics,” Mr. Himmler said. “I get that, and I would even say maybe 10 years ago, I was with them. Over the past five or six years as I’ve watched these other bands in Texas, Indiana, my eyes and ears have completely changed. I think it’s great.”
Norwin also used electronics this year as part of its Baroque-N show depicting a jilted bride who finds love again — using the music of Bach, Vivaldi and Lady Gaga. The show is visually striking — at one point, the bride runs through the marching band members in formation, her white dress torn off to reveal a black outfit and her veil trailing behind her. Baroque elements such as a heart and organ pipes on the altar serve as props.
“It’s getting much more thematic, much more emphasis on a storyboard,” said Mr. Daniels. “Visually and electronically, the shows have completely changed in the last 20 years.”
That said, many marching bands in Western Pennsylvania don’t march particularly differently than they did 20 years ago. And that doesn’t make what they are doing any less difficult.
“You can have great bands that don’t try to push the envelope this way,” said Mr. Himmler. “Doing this alone does not identify a band as being great or not. At the end of the day, it’s how you march and how you play.”