Published: August 22, 2008 12:16 pm         

Leopard band going into uncharted territory

The Gainesville Leopard marching band is going into uncharted territory.

“We are doing a type of halftime (and marching contest) show that we have never done before,” Gainesville Band Director Brian Ferrell said during a recent interview.

“It’s not going to be all sunshine and fun.”

Ferrell, who has been the Leopard band director for six years, selected three pieces of music that he called “dark.”

By the time marching contest rolls around, the Leopard band will be performing to “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”, the theme from the movie “Psycho” and “Night on Bald Mountain.”

Ferrell said he and the band members chose the three tunes because they are very different from things the band had played in the past.

“I don’t like to repeat music from one year to the next,” Ferrell said. “This music has a more classical sound than anything we have done in the past.”

Ferrell said he and his musicians will be doing a juggling act the first few weeks of the football season.

“The first piece of music (Toccata and Fugue in D Minor),” Ferrell said, “is really classical. It is also the longest piece of music we will play during the show.”

The Leopard band, Ferrell said, will work on the first part of the show during the early part of the football season and then move on to the second part and then the third.

“We are shooting to have the entire show put together for the homecoming game,” Ferrell said.

“We’ll learn the first part,” he said, “then move on to the second, then go back and polish the first part. Then we will add the last part of the show and then go back and polish the first two parts.”

Ferrell said he lets the band have a hand in picking the music they will play each year. “In the spring,” he said, “I let the band listen to the music I think we will use the next year.

“It’s important that the band members like the music. If they don’t they won’t work as hard as they need to work.”

Ferrell said the band has grown and matured over the last six years. “This year’s seniors were sixth graders when I got here,” Ferrell said. “All of us are on the same page and have a good working relationship.”

Ferrell said the band’s strength is in the fact all the students work hard.

“You have some band members that are really talented musicians,” he said. “You have others that are really great organizers. A band is only as strong as its weakest link.

“All these students know how to work hard.”

Not only is the band going to do a different style of music, they are going to do a little different type of marching drill than in the past.

“We are going to do a more traditional show, in some respects, than we have in the past,” Ferrell said. “We are going to do some diamonds and squares.

“But we are going to do some formations that require curves.”

Ferrell said the show will be complicated. “It’s one thing to tell a person to go stand on the 35 yard line and take two steps forward.

“It’s another to tell them to go to the 35 yard line and be two steps off the line and take four steps backward.”

Each year different classifications are eligible to advance to area and then go to the state competition.

“This is our year (Class 3A bands) to go to area,” Ferrell said. Ferrell said the North Texas area is one of the toughest as far as competition is concerned.

“The last time the Class 3A bands were eligible to make it to the state competition,” Ferrell said, “five bands out of this part of the state made it out of the area competition. All finished in the top nine in the state.”

“Argyle won state in Class 2A,” Ferrell said. “Whitesboro has been good, as has Decatur.”

When you look to the bands that come out of East Texas (like Canton) the competition gets tougher.

“What I think you will see,” Ferrell said, “if you go to the area competition, is a preview of the state competition.”

Ferrell said this type of competition runs in cycles. “Back when I was in Clifton, all those years,” Ferrell said. “The Class 2A bands were the toughest.”

The first order of business, Ferrell said, is to make a Division I in the district competition. “You have to do that in order to advance into area,” he said.

By the luck of a blind draw, if Gainesville makes it to the area competition the Leopards will be the first to perform.

“It really doesn’t make any difference (if the Leopards are first or last) ,” Ferrell said. “There are so many different things that can affect the outcome. It can be the weather or any number of things.”

Ferrell said all he and the Leopard band can do is do their best and see what the outcome will be.

(Register Sports Editor Marvin Hogan can be reached via e-mail at: mhogangdr@ntin.net.