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Home > Hobbies & Activities > Marching Bands

Marching, Manoeuvre and Dance!

The sounds of rhythmic drumming are cross cultural, found in the music of all nations. It is very much part of present day youth music, and many community festivals in the UK use mass percussion as their ‘street music’.

‘Youth Marching Bands’ have been street parading with brass, woodwind and drums for more than a hundred years, with perhaps the Scouts and Boys Brigade being the first to use this community art as a focus for public attention.

However, whilst there remain many hundreds of excellent traditional youth marching bands in the UK there has also developed an interpretative strand of performance that is allied to the ‘American Show Band’ genre. These are the North American styled drum corps and show bands who create arena shows that reflect the wide range of music played with kaleidoscopic manoeuvre and dance.

Whether traditional or contemporary, this is young people playing live music and, uniquely, to movement – no easy task and one which involves lots of outdoor rehearsal and a high degree of fitness. But it is more than this for it encourages team work, self discipline, challenge and raises both individual self esteem and a sense of community identity. It is also a youth art that in any one year performs to more public than any other – taking music to the people on the streets and in the public arena.

This style of young peoples community art has until recently been poorly supported and hardly recognised by the arts and educational lobbies. In many parts of the world, and in a few isolated cases within the UK, ‘Show bands’ have been a way of extending music in schools by involving many more pupils than usual in the arts. The British Federation of Youth Marching Band Organisations was formed in 1999 and represents the fourteen national youth organisations that involve their young members in the activity. Since then, lottery funded ‘Youth Music’ has supported the development of this totally voluntary community based youth art, helping to raise its profile and providing funding for youth and leader training.

There are more than 750 youth marching bands, show bands and drum corps in England. These cater for ages 6 to 21 with Cadets, Junior and Senior units. Many of these bands compete in the mainly summer season of events listed on the ‘whats’s on’ section of this website. In all cases instruments and uniforms are provided in return for a nominal subscription and no previous musical knowledge or ability is required (though it helps if you can chew gum and walk at the same time !)

To find out more, visit www.marchingbands.org.uk. From this web site are links to each of the 14 member organisations and to local bands. Free support packs for those who want to start a new youth band are available from:

The Federation Office PO Box 141
Eastleigh, Hants, SO53 3WS.

The Marching Band World comes to the UK this July 3000 young marching musicians from at least 15 nations will be performing in Bournemouth between 21st and 25th July this year in the World Show Band Championships and Music Festival. To be held in Bournemouth Football Club’s new stadium and to be opened by HRH Prince Phillip The Duke of Edinburgh this event also includes free workshops and a multitude of outdoor concerts. Visit www.marchingbands.org.uk for details.

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