I was in the band for four years under Dr. Diem right after he replaced Luckhardt. Grew up really into Illinois' band because of family connections, and I've had buddies in Wisconsin's and Iowa State's bands as well as seeing a ton of K-State's band in person. I was also in UWEC's band in high school. I've got some perspective.
My opinions about the band under Dr. Diem: we are too nice and too content to keep everything the way it is, regardless of whether it's good or not.
This is the first year where we've cut non-drummers in forever, so maybe a fear of losing numbers is where our softness stems from. I disagree with that fear. I think, like football players, good band members want to be in a good band. You're asking kids to pay for a credit to put in 500 hours every fall, give up lots of friday/saturday night parties and tailgating. It's gotta be fun if you want to attract and retain kids, and it's more fun if you are good.
For all the talk of emphasis on tone and musical quality, the musicianship was not great. Definitely better than Wisconsin, but the UWEC band was way better than we were, as are Illinois and Kansas St. UWEC in particluar produces as much sound as us with half the people, and the trumpet players (my instrument) blow ours away both on average and at the high end. I know I was a much better player in high school, partly due to having way less free time to practice in college but mostly due to having a hardass director who would destroy you if your chops were out of shape or you didn't get your music down. We didn't have that pressure at the U of M when I was there. If we can audition selectively now, that will help a great deal. Good players can play loud without sounding crappy like the UW hopping bunny band. There should be no need to mic up the band. Ever. Move the band if you have to, but microphones create more problems than they solve.
In terms of show selection, we recycle too much and don't have enough custom stuff. A lot of the arrangements are stock pep band tunes or borrowed from other bands. Hated that. I can appreciate stuff that's not necessarily new popular music, but it has to sound good and be musically interesting. All the single ladies? Muppets? Really?
Marching-wise, our lack of precision bothered the crap out of me after coming from a band that was very precise in HS. It would piss me off to no end that we allowed people to march who couldn't figure out how to stay in a straight line. All it takes is a few dummies to screw it all up, and we had a few. Nice kids, enthusiastic about it, but they didn't have the ability to do it well. Some of the people were constantly unsure of where they were supposed to be in rehearsal; everybody needs to KNOW where they should be and be able to fix themselves if they get off. When you are trying to do your job right and nothing ever looks good, it kills your motivation. Check out some of the company front entrances onto the field for an example of simple stuff that we should NEVER screw up that still looks messy. The drill doesn't help. We marched several shows that had very little movement and forms that are not impressive if excecuted well while being easy to screw up. A series of 80 yard arcs? Nobody cares if it's good, but everybody can see if it sucks.
I'd cut down pregame a bit. I know some feel it's sacred, but objectively speaking, Battle Hymn is too long for such a simple drill. Condense it somehow if you want to keep it. Integrate some other patriotic forms and make it interesting. I'd also have conditioning tests. High step marching and playing a wind instrument is physically demanding; if you aren't in shape, you cannot play half the show because you are sucking wind. I actually got in great shape my senior year by running out in colorado, and it was amazing how easy everything became.
