Wonder if conservative stance is result of Hughes' absence? Or maybe Brock's calling card is pass defense, whereas Washington was a hell of a blitzer.

gunner

Please reference the "Salute the band" section.

And then feel free to donate money to bring about the changes you suggest.

Now. This is actually 3 or so "half time shows" as you saw them(or ignored and went to buy another hot dog) put together. They call it an "exhibition" show to present to high schools at marching competitions. It is used mainly for recruiting purposes.

Notice the first piece the winds starts playing as a warm-up at 0:11 in the youtube video. It is the song "It is So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" by popular artists Boyz 2 Men. Most definitely not classical, very modern, and arranged by the band's own staff.

Next, notice the piece the "pit"(large mass of various percussion and sound equipment at the front of the field) plays as a warm up at 0:47 in the video. It is the song "The Scientist" by the Ambient/rock visionary group Coldplay. Most definitely not classical by any stretch of the imagination.

Now. For the actual show.

The first piece at 1:58 in the video is Voodoo Child by legendary guitarist and rock icon Jimi Hendrix. If you think this piece is any sort of classical music then you invalidate your own musical opinion anyway. It is started off with a drumset, electric guitar and then a solo tuba player. I believe you called for more tubas? And drums, I believe? It is exciting, fast loud, definitely not classical. Also, I have to mention the drumline TCU has. It is one of the best, the cleanest, the most well-rehearsed drumlines you will find at ANY school in the world. Bar none. Maybe you don't notice them as much because they make incredibly difficult things look easy. Anyway, moving on.

The next piece, starting at 4:54 in the video is possibly the most well known rock anthem of all time: "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. I'm sorry that they could not revive Freddy Mercury to sing the parts for you but surely the 2 solo trumpets can do at least a passable job. That's all I will say about that.

Now. The special part. Starting at 6:16 is "Party Like a Rockstar" by Da Shop Boyz. It is started off by electronics. It is an actual recording of "Party Like a Rockstar" that the band plays along with. Then an actual member of the band raps in the song. No other band has done this much "hip hop" in a show. Even the outrageous movie "Drumline"(which you are probably a very big fan of, judging from your attitude towards marching band) is only a little more ridiculous than what the TCU band is presenting live without any movie magic here.

Oh and if you want the band to have new uniforms, they vehemently agree! They just can not afford such a cost. Maybe a sizable donation from an anonymous writer would help get them all brand new comfortable fully tailored uniforms.

Oh and if you want the band to have better stand tunes and more current repertoire to play during the games then by all means, buy some for them! They are not cheap.

I can see what you are trying to communicate here in this article but the point of the matter is that you are really just blowing smoke if you complain about something without educating yourself on the matter first. And the argument that the band does not play current enough music is simply just uneducated drivel. Please read the Youtube video summary above again if you still harbor that opinion. That was all of the half time shows from the 2009-2010 football season together as one show excluding the Armed Forces show, in which the band plays a medley of the US Armed Forces official songs. Please, David Peterson, revise this article and take into account what I and other people have been telling you, or leave it up as a testament to your ignorance of a subject which you claim to know so well. Thank you for your time.

The great thing about the TCU band is that it is such a unique group of people who devote their own personal time to work together and entertain the crowd. Rather than going just as students, they dress up in those hot wool uniforms (More on that later), sit together, and work as a team to provide school spirit.

If you've seen any games recently, you've noticed how the sections around the band have even started to join in on the cheering and the spirit and incredible sense of energy that the band creates is just contageous!

The Corps of cadets, while incredible to watch, is just that. A corps-style marching band. Everything about it is a completely different style than what TCU does. They have almost nothing in common other than the fact that it's a marching band.

Now lets get to the points you brought up.

First of all, about the uniforms. A typical band uniform costs upwards of $200. Now, if you want to buy enough for the TCU band and to have spares in case of emergencies, that's at the VERY least 300 uniforms you'll need to buy. That comes out to a wonderful $60,000. How do you propose the band buy that many uniforms without throwing the entire price onto the students?

Play new music? Are you suggesting that the band play the latest Justin Bieber hits, because I know that plenty of people would disagree with you on that one.

Be interactive? From my experience of being at every single game last year, the entire section sitting around the band interacted, and whenever they had a chance, plenty of people in the rest of the stadium did.

How do you propose the band pioneers, though? There's a limit to how much your school's marching band can do.

All in all, though you clearly have a well-written article, there are a lot of things I felt needed to be cleared up. I've marched in a college band before, though admittedly, not at TCU, but it's a life-changing experience. Even I was offended by this article because it is so fraught with inexperience. I encourage you to continue to explore this, but I'm sure the directors wouldn't mind you coming to a rehearsal and interviewing students to find out their opinions on this subject.

The even better truth is that while "TCU allocates a lot of scholarships to the band," a vast majority of them are not on scholarship and they are simply in band because they enjoy performing for people. As a former member of a marching band, I find this article very offensive to what the dedicated members of this band are doing. The members of the band are not required to sign up, they do so because they are willing to put in the time and the effort to make football games more enjoyable for the spectators.

The TCU band is a unique band, and trying to compare it to other colleges, especially the A&M band is a huge mistake. The Aggie band is a Corps-based band, and while what they do may please the A&M crowd, their style simply would not work anywhere else, just as trying to make the TCU band seem like any of the other collegiate bands Mr. Peterson mentioned.

The reality is that football games just wouldn't be the same without the marching band, so whether you like the TCU band or not Mr. Peterson, they are here to stay and will always play for those dedicated fans that want to hear.

While you think it's a bad thing that TCU's band doesn't "stand out" because they don't play hip-hop tunes, on the contrary, the band DOES stand out because they are not your average college "show band."

You also insulted the student section... have you not noticed that the student section has created their own "First Down" hand move, chant, whatever you want to call it, or how about AFTER the PA announces "third down" when the student section goes crazy? You honestly can't expect every student section to stand out from others. It doesn't matter what they do as long as they're spirited, and in case you hadn't notice, TCU's student section IS spirited.

The only thing you got right is that Bobby Francis doesn't answer e-mails or letters.