It's all in the bass

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - man, I love being a turtle. No, wait. That's not right. Sorry about that.

Pep band rocks! That's what I meant to say. It's something I've said before, and I'm fairly certain I'll say it again. I've written in the Seward County Independent about being in pep band and how much fun it was. I was reminded again last night of how awesome pep band is/was.

As a recovering French horn player, I tend to pay more attention to the brass - specifically the low brass, because that's where I got to hang out. When I first got to play in pep band, we lived in Franklin. Mrs. Swanson was the band teacher, and Mr. Swanson would often join us on the stage before games to play the tuba. I'm pretty sure he had just as much fun as we students did.

Our repertoire was primarily pop music from the 1970s, songs that the parents in the crowd probably knew and could sing along with. I didn't know any of the words, other than the titles. For all I knew, the songs didn't have any words. I have since learned that most of them did have lyrics, which was a revelation for my sheltered self.

Anyway, we played songs like The Horse, 25 or 6 to 4, Proud Mary and Sweet Georgia Brown. Of course that's not a comprehensive list - those are just the ones I could think of at this point. And we in the low brass had a blast. When it comes to pep band, the bass is key. If you don't have a solid bass line, your pep music falls apart. The upper brass and woodwinds don't have anything to build on, the drums wouldn't have anything to support, and life as we know it comes to an end.

OK, maybe it's not that drastic, but without a bass line, the music would have no groove, no hat-hanging element and no point. And we French horns, trombones, baritones and tubas would be bored senseless.

My ruminations stemmed from the Concordia University pep band, which was moving and grooving last night at a CU volleyball game. When the director is feeling the music, you know it's going to be fun, and Andrew Schultz was. He always does, which is also fun to watch. Of course, pep bands these days don't play the same music we did. They play music from the 1980s through today. Now I'm the one singing along with the pep band, just like my parents' generation sang along to the music we played.

I'm not really sure how I feel about that. When they play today's music, I don't know it and can't enjoy it as fully as I might if I knew the song. But when they play music from when I was in high school, while I enjoy the fact that I know the words and even sing them (usually in my head so no one else knows how much useless information is actually stored in there), I also don't enjoy the fact that I'm getting older. So I try not to think about that and just enjoy the tambourine choreography during Take On Me.