Banding Together

The NFL’s corporate veneer might not require live musical interludes, but it’s hard to imagine a high school or college football game without the sonic lift of a band. Even if the band doesn’t march at halftime, they are there in the stands, providing the soundtrack to your Friday or Saturday entertainment.

Interesting, then, that while you can’t really have a high school football game without a band, you can have a marching band without a football game. I learned as much when my oldest daughter started drumming in her high school band two years ago. Until then, I was hardly aware of marching band competitions, or that preseason band camp would be such an intense experience, with 12-hour days that would put two-a-day football practices to shame. That year the marching band essentially went undefeated by taking first place in all competitions when pitted against bands within the same classification. Sometimes, they even outperformed larger bands. In truth, the band had a better year than the football team.

My youngest daughter joined the squad this year on mellophone, which is a cross between a French horn and a trumpet. Like her sister, she has found a community that might not have otherwise been afforded her. Most of the kids in the band get good grades and are high achievers. Many are transformed from hesitant freshman to confident seniors. Many become leaders in school and in life.

The same might be said about other activities, too. Certainly, football and other sports provide opportunities for leadership, teamwork, and communal bonding. But there’s something about marching band that’s truly remarkable. Unlike, say, art club or the Tech Student Association or the cross-country team, marching band is a large operation, bigger in some respects than the football team. Unlike most football teams, however, the marching band is co-ed. In fact, all three drum majors on our high school band—the quarterbacks of the team—are girls. It’s an egalitarian club that you don’t see operating on such a scale anywhere else in the school system.

What’s more, band competitions are less about conquering a foe (though first-place awards are nice) than conquering your self-doubts among the elements. Scores are not based on taking down an opponent but rather on perfecting your field show. Football players have the advantage of turning adrenaline into a viable force. Twenty-two players on a field can slip and slide and collide in the mud, be blown about by the wind or deluged by rain, but their plays—no matter how well designed—do not attempt the level of choreography that an 80-person marching band requires. Within seconds, a football play becomes improvisational, and then the whistle blows and there’s an opportunity to regroup. Marching band, on the other hand, seeks precision and concentration throughout the duration of a performance. Adrenaline must be checked and channeled into crisply synchronized movements, all while maintaining proper breath control. And the rain can’t be easily wiped from your nose when you’re sliding a trombone.

I say this as someone who has played football and been a football fan most of his life. But I’m also a musician, if on a minor scale, and I’m very pleased that my daughters have become musicians. For music provides food to both the heart and the brain. As neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitan notes in his book This is Your Brain on Music, music activates “an exquisite orchestration of brain regions, involving both the oldest and newest parts of the human brain, and regions as far apart as the cerebellum in the back of the head and the frontal lobes just behind your eyes.”

I’d argue that music in a social setting—as an act of teamwork, as an act of community—can be even more invigorating to these organs. The neurons fire, and the social skill set expands in concert. Plus, while marching band (or choir, jazz, and symphonic band) might not be cool to some kids, it’s often the breeding ground for some of the coolest people on the planet—the rock and pop stars who took piano lessons and voice lessons as kids, who spent thousands of hours practicing their paradiddles or scales.

Sure, there are the few raw, untutored talents who come along once in a generation and capture the popular imagination, but for the most part it’s the band kids who write the soundtracks to our lives. And music, unlike most team sports, doesn’t have a shelf life. Tackling someone after the age of 30 is a questionable proposition. Tackling a new song or instrument, on the other hand, has no age barrier.

Curs in the Kitchen, Curs in the Church

She had transformed me to a curtal dog, and made me turn i'the wheel.

—Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors

A few Novembers ago, during a time of year when radio shows are prone to discuss best practices in turkey cooking, I caught the tail end of a discussion about turnspit dogs. I don’t remember much about what was being said, but I do recall thinking: “Hmm . . . Turnspit Dogs. Good band name—or great band name?” (Never mind that I didn’t have a band.)

After some investigation, I learned that turnspit dogs (Canis vertigus, or “dizzy dog”) were used in kitchens during the 16th century to power the spits on which meat or fowl were cooked. Now extinct, these dogs were small and short-legged, possibly related to Welsh corgis. Some were curtailed—that is, these curs’ tails had been cut off. Most interesting to me (and perhaps a reason for the tail lopping) was that they worked inside something akin to a large hamster wheel, which was mounted on the kitchen wall and rigged mechanically to keep the spit rotating.

Turnspit dogs replaced boys who used to crank the spit by hand, but by the end of the 19th century these dogs had been replaced by other mechanisms such as the steam jack or the clock jack. Curiously, turnspit dogs, though considered ugly compared to other canines, often had another function. Come Sunday, they could be found in church, warming the feet of their masters beneath the pew.

I did this research in part because I wanted to write a song for my imaginary band. I wanted the song to be introductory and a statement of arrival—sort of like The Monkees’ theme song. I was, of course, way ahead of myself. Someday, I'll record the song, which for now is a bluesy ukulele number and offers up this sing-along chorus: “Whoa-oh, whoa-oh-oh—curs in the kitchen, curs in the church.”

In the meantime, I’m happy to use Turnspit as the name of my blog, which represents the nature of serendipitous inspiration (what’s on the radio at the moment you turn it on, what you might hear in a snippet of conversation). As often happens, one idea connects to another—and if you keep the wheel spinning, you might just get something flavorful to chew on.

What might such proteins consist of? Music? Tudor-era rotisserie cooking? Who knows? I like to be surprised by the connections that are made. I like to explore how subjects intermingle like guests at a dinner party.

Finally, I just discovered a band from Yorktown, Virginia, called The Turnspit Dogs. They specialize in popular music from the 18th century. There’s also a song called “The Turnspit Dog” by a band called MANKIND.

Oh, well. I suppose if MANKIND had a similar idea, it must be valid.

Cheers! And thanks for your indulgence.