(11-22-2021 09:10 AM)Ourland Wrote: What's the answer? How does the MOB find thirty more members?
We've been seeking an answer to that for years.
We see evidence that the undergraduate student body still contains quite a few people who played in band in high school.
We used to send out recruiting snail-mail to all of the incoming freshlings (early), and reminders to those that showed any interest (later in the summer).
Rice no longer lets us do that.
I don't have the specifics on that change - whether it is a general prohibition, or if it is simply no longer in our budget.
Would the non-music-majors that don't join The MOB really prefer to spend hours in the hot sun, carefully rehearsing marching in 9" backward diagonal steps to maintain a Spirograph formation instead of scattering?
I certainly don't.
It's safe to say that I am somewhat biased in that respect.
The loss of interest in a spirit-group band has more or less paralleled the loss of student support for athletics in general.
I don't have a solution for that either.
The change in conferences, and in the way bands are used in the media circus of modern collegiate football has not helped.
The big draw of The MOB for many years was how different it was from all those other bands, especially in the SWC.
That contrast has been lost.
More often than not the band from the Directional State U supply of C-USA doesn't travel to away games.
We are the routine now, not the oddity, and familiarity breeds contempt.
That is particularly true when we lack those rare offerings from our opponents that make for the biting humor that so many fans crave.
No coaches fleeing to Tulsa.
No Title IX issues.
No grown men falling asleep naked in the backyard.
No politics.
We aren't the Don Rickles of half time bands.
It's not all about insulting the other school.
Hopefully, the nearby and more familiar AAC schools will have bands that travel to Houston, and they can once again be our foils
(Oh! Look! Something to do with the subject of this thread!)
Performance time has been whittled from 8 minutes to 6 minutes at half time, even when there is no opposing band.
The rules for when The MOB can play during the game have also reduced our playing time.
As I've said before, we rarely get to finish playing a tune, after we wait our turn during times out.
The ads have to play first.
This is not much fun for a musician.
The MOB you see at games now is the distilled essence of non-music-majors who
really want to play in a band.
That includes the many who play non-traditional "marching" band instruments that don't do a lot to fill the stadium with sound, but they fill the band with spirit.
Unfortunately, you don't get to hear the magnificence of the opening bars of "25 or 6 to 4" while surrounded by cellos.
I do.