As any seasoned Band Parent can tell you, Marching Band season starts before the end of the previous school year.
By the time school is officially out for the Summer, your Band kid will know who the Leadership team will be, when and where they’ll be competing and sometimes even their show theme.
Band Parents need to get out in front of this fast moving train early or risk getting run off the tracks.
Here are 5 things you as a Band Parent should be doing right now to stay ahead of things:
- Instrument Tune-Ups
- Schedule and Re-Schedule
- Purchase New Shoes
- Stock Up
- Save Up
Instrument Tune-Ups
If your Band Kid is like mine, he’s been playing one or two instruments in several different bands throughout the school year. Which means that general maintenance has been mostly neglected. There is never a week of time when he’s not playing his saxophone. So, the end of the school year is the perfect time to take the instrument into your local Music shop for a tune up. A tune up for us consists of; a through cleaning, replacement of pads and tightening of keys, plus a general once over by a professional to make sure everything is in top working order. This usually takes about a week, so make sure you plan it for a time when your kid doesn’t need to be playing the instrument. The earlier in the summer the better, as Band Camp is right around the corner.
Schedule and Re-Schedule
Schedule
At the end of the school year you should also receive a schedule that includes: Band Camp dates, Practice days, Competition dates and football game dates and other miscellaneous event dates. All together, our Marching Band has 79 dates on this season’s schedule. That’s a lot to keep track of! We’re a family of Mac users, so I use iCal to help keep us sane during Marching season. I’ve created a calendar for my Son’s activities, I put all of the Marching season dates on the calendar as soon as I get the schedule. I have then shared that calendar with my son, his father and his grandparents. Inevitably, there are schedule conflicts.
Re-Schedule
Having all of my son’s activities on one calendar makes it easy for me to see what activities need to be re-scheduled once we get the Marching Band season dates. This season, we need to rearrange his Sax lessons as Band practices will be Monday and Wednesday nights rather than Tuesday and Thursday as they were last year. I’ll also be rearranging the odd dentist and dr. appointments .
Once I have everything scheduled and re-scheduled, I can plan the family vacations around all of it (who ever said our worlds didn’t revolve around our kids?).
Purchase New Shoes
This one is CRUCIAL in our house. Marching Season destroys shoes. So, at the beginning of every summer I order 2 new pairs of Athletic shoes from Amazon. You need to buy shoes at the beginning of summer so they’re broken in before Band Camp starts in August. Make sure you get good quality Athletic shoes, that fit properly as blisters and sore feet will be the unwelcome result if you skimp here. Oh and don’t forget to get a bag of socks while you’re at it, Marching makes for hole-y socks!
Stock Up
There are a ton of little essentials your Band Kid will need during the Marching Season and now is the perfect time to stock up on them, later you’ll be too busy Band Parenting.
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- 1 Gallon Water Jugs like this one from Amazon:
We currently have 2, but honestly could use more.
- Sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen!
Your Band Kid will be spending 8-10 hours outside for what feels like the foreseeable future. Don’t let your Band Kid get burnt to a crisp.
- Snacks – I have a teenage boy… ‘nough said
- Dot books, pencils, highlighters, binders and page protectors
All are necessary for plotting field position and saving their sheet music from who knows what.
Save Up
And finally, Save Up. Save up money, Band is expensive from uniform pieces and competition entry costs to transportation and food. If you’re lucky it’ll run you about $1500 a year. So saving up over the summer really helps. Plan and budget for the expense.
Also, Save Up your energy. Once Marching Season is in full swing you and you Band Kid will be on the go. Remember I said we had 79 Marching dates on our schedule this season? Those are mostly dates between August and November…
