11:25 a.m., Sept. 10, 2009----With traces of a fall chill in the morning air, Blue Hens fans know it is time to return to Delaware Stadium for football and the sound of the University of Delaware Marching Band.

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Under Heidi Sarver, who marks her 15th year as UD Marching Band director, the band is among the largest ever at UD.

“In 2004 and 2005, the band also numbered in the 330s, but that included student support personnel such as photographers and videographers,” Sarver, associate professor of music, said. “I believe this is the largest performing band, with 334 members actually on the field.”

Sarver said that while the 115 new members from a record freshman class of 3,900 students holds pretty much with the traditional ratio of first-year band members to first-year students, the real reason for the band's size is the number of returning members.

“This year 219 members from last year's UD Marching Band returned for another season, which is about a 78 percent return rate,” Sarver said. “The average return rate for college marching bands is in the 50 percent range.”

While the band's size has remained at about the 330-member level in recent years, the musical offerings have changed with each new football season. This year the band is featuring tunes by Billy Joel, Elton John, Green Day and Queen, Sarver said.

“The theme of this year's main show, 'Pressure,' which runs for about 13 minutes, takes its name from the song by Billy Joel,” Sarver said. “The visual ideas that ensue capture every possible conception of that term, including implosion, explosion, stress and teenage angst.”

Sarver said that the first main selection is "Holiday" by Green Day, followed by an Elton John tune, "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting," albeit with The Who's treatment because it contains a very interesting and different center section of the tune that most people have not heard before.

“The final selection is Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody.' We first performed the song in 2003, and it was such a wonderful arrangement, we felt the need to bring it back,” Sarver said. “We also felt that it captures that part about teenage angst fairly well.”

The changing focus of the main theme continues a tradition that has featured music from the big band and jazz era through tunes popular in the 1960s and 1970s, Sarver noted.

“Overall, I would hope that our audience has found us to be entertaining, which is our goal,” Sarver said. “We work very hard to create different forms of entertainment, from musical choices for everyone to a visual moment that perhaps only marching band and drum corps aficionados might understand. Still, we also hope that the average fan finds this to be exciting.”

While the appearances and basic routines will stay pretty much the same, the tuba section will be dressed in black tuxedos with royal blue bow ties and cummerbunds. Fans may notice something different due to a lot of “crazy” percussion accessory instruments in the front percussion section, Sarver said.

“They are so bizarre that I'm not even sure what they are called,” Sarver said. “If you hear something out of the ordinary, scan the sideline for the instrument that produced the sound.”

Like performers from past years, the 2009 UD Marching Band is comprised largely of non-music majors, who join for a variety of reasons.

“More often than not, a person joins the UD Marching Band because they participated in marching band in high school,” Sarver said. “Music brings people together and that is a proven fact. Today's kids really seem to like being in a band, and they know that the band will make a large university like UD seem smaller by giving them a home.”

Tradition also can be seen by the fact that the fathers of two members of this year's band also were members of the UD Marching Band. “Ironically, both fathers are also brothers,” Sarver said.

Sarver said that many prospective student say they have looked at schools such as UD, the University of Massachusetts, West Chester University and James Madison University, all schools with large and powerful marching bands.

“Why they actually choose UD, I cannot be sure, but I would like to think they first love the campus and the University as a whole, and that their area of study is strongly represented here,” Sarver said. “I also would like to think it's because that have seen the UD Marching Band somewhere and thought, 'I want to be in that band.'”

Sarver said her favorite part about being marching band director is creating the drill designs and teaching the members and watching the creation “come alive on the field.”

“There is a moment each season when the band 'gets it.' At that moment I sit in the stands and actually laugh, because they are that good,” Sarver said. “I love watching them tear down the invisible wall of inhibition that separates them from the audience, a moment when they love what they are doing and it screams in the way they carry themselves, the way they perform and the way they interact with the fans and each other. There are no words to describe that moment for me other than they get it and they love it.”

A UD Marching Band tradition introduced by its current director is its theme song, "In My Life," by the Beatles.

“This song is about life and the journey of life. While an ensemble, the UD Marching Band teaches life skills on a daily basis,” Sarver said. “The song captures the essence of what the staff and I try to impart upon the students, that life can be a 'long and winding road,' and it can be filled with many trials and tribulations.”

The key understanding all of this is to remember all the people who have touched your life and to remember “love along the way, not just to others, but also what you do in your life,” Sarver said.

“Remember to go through this life never taking what you have for granted, especially people,” Sarver said. “Each and every person impacts the lives of thousands during their journey. Mitch Albom said it best, that the secret of heaven is 'that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.'”

Fans will have their next opportunity to see the UD Marching Band when the Blue Hens host the defending national champion University of Richmond at 3:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 12, at Tubby Raymond Field at Delaware Stadium.

Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photo by Mark Campbell