THE EARLY YEARS OF THE SOUTHERNERS (cont.)

Obviously, the potential for the use of volume is different among the various instruments. The woodwinds cannot, and should not, try to produce the louder volume levels as done with the brass. However, they still provide a valuable inner structure of sound. This contributes significantly to the quality of the overall sound. It is my belief that balance is not always an equal matching of volume levels, but the structuring of tone quality and volume levels to achieve desired "colors" of sound. Much of the success of the Brass Choir and marching band of those days was due to the structuring of tone quality and volume to achieve the desired "color" for a specific passage.

In the Southerners sound, the percussion shifted from the traditional role of being merely a rhythm keeping device for marching to becoming a show piece. The percussion section reached a truly high level of performance during the 1960s and 1970s. Beyond the traditional snare drum, bass drum and cymbals, new and even exotic percussion instruments were added. This process continued and accelerated well beyond the early years along with elaborate feature presentations of the entire spectrum of percussion.

The above thoughts are a minimal sketch of some of the changes that occurred in the early development of the playing and marching style of The Southerners. Of course, there were many other techniques that were used, most of which the band members will remember. Through the early years, the performance groups in the field show were: the Southerners, the small ensemble used to accompany the Marching Ballerinas, and two, specialty, feature twirlers. Also, there was, for a year or so, a group of guidons. Just a note: the original name of the band was, merely, the Southerners, not the Marching Southerners. The name Marching Ballerinas is correct.

Much of the success of the band was the willingness of the band members to work very hard to perfect the requirements of a new system of marching and playing that was very different from what they had been doing in the previous bands. This is not to say that there were no doubts and some misgivings concerning whether this hard work was going to lead to something successful. Such statements as the following greeted me at frequent intervals: One of my private students confided in me at one of her trombone lessons that she did not think the band would take the pressure of the hard work we were doing if they did not already know me from previous years. Another student was very concerned that the first show we were preparing would not be accepted by the audience, since our entrance tempo was so slow (about 120 beats per minute). He had been accustomed to the fast 180 beats per minute tempo at the entrance of a show. This entrance was called the "bomb shell" and was used by a number of Alabama bands of this period. Fortunately, these doubts did not deter these band members from really working hard and receiving a standing ovation at our first half-time show.