Apparently John (former MV Trombone player) spoke to Cracked.com about being in a marching band.
http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1890-the-team-loses-youre-pu...
Sounds pretty brutal - is John on here?
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As a former trombone player in the Marching Virginians, that article is crap. I don't know who "John" is, if he even exists, but he's very confused.
I saw this a couple days ago and decided to not spread it around because it's silly.
Edit: I'll leave one quote from the article to underline the validity of the 'interview' they conducted:
Who sees the problem with this statement? There's so much flat out false information in this it makes my head hurt.
I agree, this didn't line up with my experience in the MVs. Band camp was long and tiring, but my face wasn't bleeding or anything... I don't think "John" is a real person.
He obviously misspoke and meant to say East Carolina.
Cracked is no better than Buzzfeed now. They used to have some good articles that were both hilarious and some were actually informative. Now it's just click baity bullshit and they just flat out lie, make stuff up, and omit key information to entice anger and rage for clicks.
I used to really like cracked, now it sucks.
There's a lot of half truths and exaggeration. If anyone on here has questions about what MV life is actually like, I can answer, and I bet there are other MVs on here that would be willing to answer questions as well.
Here is a short version of what an MV will do. Yes there is a band camp that is about 12 hours a day the number of days it is varies based on what you'll do in band and if you are leadership, a new member, or a returner. I never saw anyone pass out and it's not nearly as serious once you're a returner. During the season in a busy week practice is monday through friday 5:30-7:00pm and if you have an academic class you go to that. In a non busy week well usually get 1-2 of those days off. The only thing high school football related that the band does usually is take a smallish group of MVs and play for the Craig County High School. It's actually a fun gig, the fans treat us well. This year I think they did something else too the day after the NC State game at high school marching band competitions I assume(this is my first year not in the MVs since 2011). The only other obligation is the 7-9 VT football games you get to go to.
I read through the article again and I swear it's a worse read the second time around so I'm gonna go through there main points.
I touched on this one above it's not nearly as bad as the article makes it out to be and it's only like 3ish days for wind instrument returners.
There's some truth to this however halftime shows are only about 7.5 minutes long and the MVs usually have a set where you are standing for at least 2 minutes of that. Don't get me wrong I'm gassed by the end of some of those shows, but if an out of shape 5'9" 260lbs guy can do it, it's no death march. As for the mental strain it can be summed up in the motto "hurry up and wait" cause there was a whole lot of that over my 4 years.
Once again half truths here. Yes we don't really get paid to do this outside of big bowl games and there is certainly a lot of personal time put into an MV season. Also about once a day the band director makes a joke about taking away someones nonexistent scholarship (for reference most if not all SEC schools give their band members scholarships). In addition I know for a fact there are and were band members that were full time students in band with a part time job, for example me last fall.
This is mostly false. The only things we at the mercy of the team for is a free trip to the ACC championship game, how good of a bowl we go to, and how early we have to wake up on Saturday.
Frankly this is probably less true than we want it to be. Technically we can cause a flag to be thrown against the team but I've never seen it happen, ever, even in a high school game. Although 2 or 3 years ago one of the players or coaches tried to blame a false start in the red zone on us, I don't remember the exact details, but I do remember a couple of sarcastic "our fault" chants the next game.
Most years everything outside of College Games are on a volunteer bases, except for homecoming parade and band-a-rama. Usually you'll either get a meal or some cool stuff if you volunteer, like a free shirt, MV "toothpick holder"or a Dave McKee (the band director) bobble head.
My wife and I were both MVs and I've just got to say that this article is a joke. As mentioned above, some of the things are true but generally speaking this article is overexagerrated.
As if the ODU reference wasn't enough to call bullshit, has Craig County EVER scored 42 points in a game? I was under the impression they struggled to eclipse 42 points in a season.
I think it was the first year I went, back in 2008, that they actually won; scored a lot but I don't think 42.
Don't think they've won since though...
They haven't won much, but one time during a game last year their coach was so far out on the field that I got tied up in his headset wire while I was running down the field. That was interesting.
If you were or are in the Marching Virginians, you should know that Hokie Nation appreciates your commitment to improving the game day atmosphere.
I never played with the MVs but, it's easy to see this is BS.
I did get to do some parades and an NFL halftime show as a cymbal player for a marching band out in San Diego.
Them big Zildjian 20" cymbals need to be held up high to hear the crash properly on a parade. I got picked out of the drumline because I was strong enough to do it. I got stronger shoulders for it.
But the crap he talks about is easy to see through.
I played on 20"s for two years. Them things get real heavy after the first hour or two.
Yeah buddy. Those shoulder muscles get strong.
This was back in '84 and I swear that they were 22" but another guy I talk to tells me they didn't make 22" so, I guess they were 20's and I'm adding 10% for old memory type thing.