“You must be glad football season is over” is what I hear every year from those wonderful friends of mine who know what my husband does for a living.  Oh no, he’s not a coach, unless you want to refer to him as a band coach.  What my husband does for a living, what he has done for his entire 37 year career, is direct bands.

We’re not just talking marching band.  No, we’re talking about beginning, high school, college, marching, athletic, campus, concert and symphonic bands.  He did a VERY short stint teaching elementary general music (my realm of relative expertise) while serving as an assistant high school director, and survived, but other than than it has been band. So here we are, beginning year 38 and once again I am in what I affectionately call “band widow” season.

To say I knew what I was getting into marrying a future band director is like saying I knew what I was getting into when I decided to become a teacher.  It’s not until you’re in the middle of it that you start to go ohhhhh….  So for those of you who also think you know what this is all about, like I thought I did, here’s the rundown of a typical year in the life.

Most people start their year in January I suppose, but in the world of education, we start in August.  Unless you’re a band director and then you start in June or July.  No, maybe that’s April – but I digress.  Okay, to clarify, he’s contacting high school director clients in early spring to see if they need his drill writing services in the summer. This year I think he has ten clients.  I say I “think” because I’m not sure HE knows how many he has.  As soon as he knows the music they’re playing and number of students they’re going to have, he begins phrasing the tunes and sketching forms, which translates to what he calls “dots” or people on the field.  He then decides how and where the dots are going to move to the music within the phrases, dictated by what the music tells him.  Quite the creative process which he loves.  Also time consuming.  There’s a LOT of time spent behind closed doors in front of a computer.

So, by the time we’re to August, he’s trying to finish shows for the high school clients and he begins thinking about his college gig.  Towards the middle of the month, right before band camp, he’ll have numbers, instrumentation, musical themes for each show (usually 6-8) and begin teaching pregame.  The fall then becomes a blur of creation, finishing up high school shows and writing sometimes weekly, sometimes bi-weekly shows for a 300 piece college marching band.  At the same time, there is the pep band to deal with who plays for volleyball games during the early football season and for basketball in the late football season.  There are several bands and subs to deal with when scheduling these. Did I fail to mention time for rehearsals?  As you can imagine, “Drill Amnesty Day”, the day when all the drill writing has been completed for the year, becomes a big deal.

Division football games and bowl games can take the season into January where now basketball is in full swing, along with campus band two nights a week.  Once football ends, it can be anywhere from 1-3 basketball games a week, at whatever time the athletic types decide.  Basketball goes until March where he gets to juggle men’s and women’s tournaments and possible NCAA or NIT bids which, for those of you who don’t know, are decided at the last minute and band directors must have rosters of kids ready (only 29 per pep band) who must be at games (per NCAA rules) before they even know if they’re in.  Oh, and did I fail to mention that these kids are doing midterms?  Which means that during the lull between games, my band director is proctoring individual exams for students with strict instructions from picky professors who aren’t happy that their students like to play music.  Oh well.

So, we’re back to early spring where the cycle begins again.  Of course, this isn’t all he does you know.  He is also a lecturer at the University, which means he teaches marching band techniques and a drill writing class, attends staff meetings, faculty meetings and college meetings.  Oh, and he supervises practicum and student teachers in music education which means 4-5 visits per student each semester and tons of documentation.  Oh, and did I mention recruiting trips?  These start about January and go through April.  And I haven’t even mentioned concerts.

On top of the “usual” which I’ve just mentioned, sometimes there are things like, homecoming parades, special requests for the 150th birthday celebration of the university (you HAVE to have the band), train tours of the state with the major athletic coaches, trips to the state fair, marching at the state high school marching band contest, the occasional requests for the pep band at baseball games and gymnastic meets (I’m not kidding)…. are you tired yet?

So, as I watch him pack his lunch and his back pack today in preparation to work high school band camp at the University this week with the same enthusiasm he usually has, I think about those well meaning friends who ask about the end of football season.  No, we’ve only just begun.  Again.