Believe or not, I was an ex-marching band player. Although it only lasted only on 3 schools where I used to study in each of them which had their own marching or drum bands, such as my 2 separate kindergartens, and my old primary school. However, I'm not gonna tell you about how come if I decided to stop doing so during I was in my primary school by all of the sudden, it's because that would be my "top secret" to totally expose the truth about why... Speaking about the marching/drum band in general though, I also had lot of experience of watching marching/drum band displays or parades performed by various schools (or certain institutes, albeit it is insanely rare to invite at least one of those particularly in my hometown where I do live since I was born in here), until all the way about how I simply watch any of them on YouTube. Without further ado, let me categorize into 3 different sections, which are from those of my old schools, watching parades or displays in person, and watching many of those YouTube videos of them.
A. Marching/drum bands from your old schools? 🥁🎺
As what I clearly stated just earlier, I was an ex-marching band player from those 3 aforementioned old schools where I used to study back in those days per each of them. Except, I used to wield one of the percussion instruments only, rather than certain of those melodica or brass instruments though. As for the percussion instruments that I was referring to, I only used to wield mainly snare drums, simply because it was an easy percussion instrument that I ever played since those of my childhood days in my very first kindergarten until those days in my old primary school IMO (albeit the one in my primary school was obviously more advanced for sure).
As for the display and parades from one of them (for this case, my old primary school, because why not), here are both of my notable moments about each of them both:
- Display : I remembered that time when I and several of my old friends used to perform our drum band display that was held in someone's senior high school in order to win a display competition against many other marching/drum bands from various other primary schools around my entire hometown. Even though we eventually got the second place, but it was highly amazing experience to say the least.
- Parade : The word itself is pretty much self-explanatory in general (because this one was obviously more common than the display), although I remembered the time when I was totally exhausted while the parade itself was on-going, I had to take a break by sitting on my school's janitor's pedicab that was ridden by himself, alongside with the snare drum itself that I used to wield it with me for a moment (yep, the snare drum itself was somewhat heavy to me).🥁
B. Marching/drum band parades around your hometown? 🥁🎺
Moving on to how I watched various marching/drum band parades around my hometown, specifically performed by various schools (such as kindergartens, primary schools, junior high schools, and senior/vocational high schools). Even though those were much more common to encounter them per each of them since my childhood per each of those days where the whole government used to host each of the aforementioned parade events themselves every once per year, but I remembered if our whole government from our hometown used to invite two special guest military style cadet drum bands into my hometown, which those were both Indonesian Naval Academy and Institute of Home Affairs, respectively. However, I didn't even watch the Indonesian Naval Academy's cadet drum band in person though (though they used to invite them twice), instead I used to briefly watch the Institute of Home Affairs one from more than a decade ago. The aforementioned drum band itself was exactly what I highly excited for, more so than those of the common marching/drum bands that were performed casually by various schools around my entire hometown (except for few of them that looked great IMO). Overall, I'm glad if I used to watch at least one of those cadet military style bands in person, but I highly doubt it if our current government from our hometown will able to invite another one of those anytime soon for now.
C. Marching/drum band videos on YouTube...🥁🎺
Of course if I ever watched many of those marching/drum band that were performed by various schools around my hometown where I do live, I also watch many YouTube videos of themselves too! However, I actually watched them since my childhood, back when I specifically used to briefly watch them from my old laptop or my very first smartphone. Even though it was painfully difficult to connect them both to the internet to begin with, at least I was able to watch my very first marching/drum band videos on YouTube, which were various marching/drum band parades from various schools in Rantepao, North Toraja, South Sulawesi (unfortunately, all of those old videos of them were deleted already, although I was able to download them though when they were available online from back then).
Surprisingly, right after roughly more than a decade without watching those YouTube videos of them, I decided to watch even more of them due to my boredom against all of my own stuffs that I'm currently enjoying them these days. Anyway, the list of the videos of them are:
- Various videos of popular cadet military style bands from our whole country (such as Indonesian Armed Forces Academy, Indonesian Naval Academy, Indonesian Air Force Academy, and Indonesian Police Academy). Others such as Institute of Home Affairs do count for this category, and so for many more cadet military/marching bands from certain other academics, polytechnics or universities (such as merchant marine polytechnic[s], land transport academy, defense university, etc.).
- Various videos of certain military style bands that are "inspired" their styles from those of the aforementioned popular cadet military bands from our whole country, including those that are from the senior cadet high schools and those of non-civil institutes.
- Many videos of those marching/drum bands performed by various schools around my hometown, although majority of them (except for kindergartens and most of the primary schools) are now using modern marching style bands instead of the classic ones.
- Some of the "cheapo" marching/drum band groups performed by certain small communities or simply by a small group of people, including those from my hometown where I do live.
- More videos of various marching/drum band parades and displays from various schools around the eastern part of our whole country (for this case, Rantepao [North Toraja, South Sulawesi], Baubau [Buton Islands, Southeast Sulawesi], and so on).
- Those of the "dance-able" marching/band groups, performed by bunch of those performers per each of the groups from rural areas in entire regency of Sukabumi (excluding the Sukabumi City), West Java.
- Some lyre cover videos, both from our country or outside our country. Heck, one of them used to cover my favorite video game's soundtracks too (for this case, some of the original Plants vs. Zombies soundtracks like Watery Graves [Pool level], Graze the Roof [Roof level], Brainiac Maniac [Dr. Zomboss battle], and Cerebrawl [Puzzle mode, both Vasebreaker and I, Zombie levels]). Not sure for any other videos with different melodica instruments besides lyre though (as for now).
- Bunch of marching/drum band groups performed by any foreign people who lives in their respective countries that aren't from our country, albeit I rarely watch them though besides most of those lyre cover videos that I mentioned just earlier (as for now).
Well, there you have it for my own story about the marching/drum band stuffs in general, ranging about how I used to perform in each of the marching/drum bands in those of my old schools where I used to study back in those days, then I used to watch all of those marching/drum band parades in my hometown where I do live, and how I still watch many of those YouTube videos of them since those good old days too. If you have your good old memories regarding to this exact topic (such as performing at least one of those in your own school[s], or probably remembering the time when your hometown's government used to invite one of those special military style cadet drum bands [if any]), feel free to share your own story in the comments section if you still recognize them though until today. That's it for what I could particularly say about this particular topic, and as always, thanks for reading this short article.