In just two days 11th ranked University of Utah Football team plays 6th ranked Ohio State in the University of Utah’s first ever trip to the Rose Bowl!
The Rose Bowl and all the celebrations surrounding it are such honored New Year’s Day traditions. The unmatched Rose Bowl Parade has been a cherished favorite of mine. Personally, I have marched with marching bands in parades and have even designed and built float, but never in the Rose Bowl Parade. To me, it is the granddaddy of them all!
The University of Utah is my Alma Mater. Years ago, not only did I march with the Ute marching band, I was asked by the Director of Bands to design one of the University of Utah half time marching band field shows. It was the first time I was able to design and perform in one of my own halftime shows!
In addition to that, on a separate occasion, I also designed a float for one of the University of Utah’s Homecoming Parades.
There is an interesting characteristic of both parades and half-time marching band field shows. With regards to parades, each float is individual and unique, but no parade exists with just one float or just one marching band.
During the years that I marched with my own high school marching band, one of the slogans I remember was: “The band is nothing without the individual and the individual is nothing without the band.” This mantra was specific to the field show marching band because when someone was missing from the drill formation, it was obvious to everyone from the stands. Hence, the group is nothing without the individual, the individual is nothing without the group. It was obvious because there was a gap, space, or as we called it a “hole” where the person missing was supposed to be marching. Just as it would have been impossible for one person to represent an entire formation, it was often impractical to march with too many holes when too many band members were missing.
As great as the University of Utah marching band may be, the real treat on January 1st will be to watch the incredible formations of the Ohio State Marching Band during their halftime performance. Ohio State halftimes are beyond extraordinary—they are legendary. Ohio State has done tributes to famous musicians like Michael Jackson and the rock band Rush. But, beyond the music they play, the formations the marching band makes and moves as they play are unparalleled and unmatched by any other college marching band!
Not only do the formations Ohio State creates require great precision, they also require each player to be in its proper place. The collective needs the individual.
Then there is the Rose Bowl Parade. Each year tens of thousands of hours are devoted to building floats for Pasadena’s Rose Parade. If you haven’t watched the parade recently you have missed the detailed descriptions of all the natural fruits, plants, vegetables, nuts, even honey, that are used on these floats. These elaborate ingredients are in addition to the traditional roses and other flowers. The float rules haven’t really changed after all these years: parade floats are still required to have only fresh, real, optimally organic materials used to decorate the exterior of the floats. But the creative ways that naturally produced materials have been introduced and incorporated into the float building has evolved fantastically.
And with so many natural ingredients, it would be impossible to build a float alone in a short time frame. Float building for the Rose Parade requires volunteers.
While float building is a volunteer project and the main focus of the preparations for the parade, there is a little-known by-product from all this float building activity. Marriages!
It’s TRUE! Each year there are a number of engagements and marriages that result from the matchmaking that occurs during the endless hours of community float building. There is something about working closely with someone, on a time or labor-intensive shared task, that is not only revealing, but also bonding.
I saw this same type of bonding during my many years of designing half time field shows for high school marching bands. More often than not, high school kids joined their high school marching band because of their friends or to make friends. Loving music was one thing but loving music and hanging out with friends was everything!
Whether it’s building floats or multiple float entries in a parade, whether it’s marching in a parade or on a football field, each individual person is needed to pull off the combined pageantry of collective efforts.
There are times when we must do things alone. It has often been said that we all march to the beat of a different drum. And, while that may be true, if people are to march in sync, together, finding a common beat is necessary.
In a parade, for a marching band to reach a perfect uniformity of motion, a common tempo is required. The beat of a snare drum is an ideal method for establishing a tempo. This tempo is known as the cadence. Marching together requires starting on the same foot, but it also requires that the band go thru its paces at the same pace.
It is not a race; it is about the pace.
Last episode we talked about the tug of war that often occurs with opposites. We mentioned quality and quantity for example. But, in reality, what really is required is balance.
The same holds true with an individual and a group.
In fact, all the opposites on our list are really like bookends: two opposite anchors.
Two bookends that stand on opposite ends of a spectrum but hold the entire book collection together that sits on the same bookshelf.
Balance requires bookends.
Go Utes!