But thats the thing.
How could we pull off recruiting?
Why go to one of the lowest average bands in the county, when you can go to a school like Northeast High and be in one of the biggest and baddest.

The only way were getting freshman is because of School zones. 8th Graders can't be arsed to get bused or anything. Or if there are good friends in the band.

Also another problem: I can't get in to the middle schools anymore. My old middle school (where were getting the most freshman from) put a gate around the school so people can't get in without going through the office. And I tried and they wouldn't give me a visitors pass.

The only way is if our Band Director would go with us. And she's already done this plenty of times. But to no prevail =/

By posting this, I hope you realize it means I'm willing to do everything I can, but I'm so deeply discouraged I just don't know anymore.

Bah. I had no idea this would be happening when I decided to go this specific High School. Back in the 90s, Dixie was a BIG [b]butt[/b] band with lots of pride. Now its just an endangered species, getting ready to go extinct once the last of the seniors leave.

EDIT: Wait. There may be a loophole. Is it common for marching bands to use keyboards? If so, it could kill a few birds with one stone. It'll be no substitute for actual parts, but keyboards could really help fill it in.

Our band is roughly 30 members, 2 brass (1 trumpet, 1 baritone). We got first place in all categories in our last competition. Our scores were even higher than several of the bands in the division above us. All of the people there have to know their parts, and have to understand how important every single person in the band is.

At our concert band contest, the judges there said we had some of the best sound they had heard all weekend. As a senior graduating from a small band, I can tell you that you can be surprised what you can get a small band to do.

Get them a good field show, in my opinion stay away from pop-music shows (never have been a fan), some exciting drum parts too. Get them hyped before shows. Show them videos of drum corps. I used to show various shows that I have on DVD to the drumline that I'm section leader of, you'd be surprised how interested they will be in the videos. Have them point out things they find cool, and impressive. Ask them what they are doing that makes them so clean and wonderful to listen to. Have them try to apply this to there own playing and marching.

Cham, that was truly the most inspiring post so far.
But the problem is, we already know what our show will be.
-Michael Jackson's Thriller
-Time Warp from Rocky Horror Picture Show
-KernKraft 400 by Zombie Nation

When we found out our show, we were totally syked. But the thing is, when the brass in Thriller comes in, it's supposed to be absolutely huge, even overpowering. That's the main thing that makes it a good opener. But with a small band, we kept help thinking it'll sound kind of lame.

And I've totally planned to do this next year. As far as getting us pumped up as much as possible. Haha it sucked because this year we were never pumped up before a game. I want to get us crazy!

I'm with all of you guys that have small bands.

This year, my band was in A class and there were about 30 something members. I don't remember how many of what instruments we had but it didn't matter to me anyway. My band sucked, in my opinion but that didn't really matter to me either. What I do to cope with having a small band, is just go out there and do my best, learn, have fun and hope that everyone else does the same. Like previously stated, it's not about quantity, but about quality.

I'd love to be in a top, award winning band (like my freshman year, we were decent) but to me, really, high school band is more of a learning experience.

This year almost all of our (awesome)pit is graduating and we don't have many kids coming in since we don't have any feeder programs yet. That is something you guys could do if you are desperate for kids. Talk to your band director about setting up feeder programs at the middle schools in your area.

Good luck

There are some very small bands in my area and they dominate. Numbers have nothing to do with with a band being good. The drum corps im marching with this summer only has about 35 members and the powerful sound that we get is amazing.

What is a feeder program?

A feeder program is basically a lower level ensemble that is generally set up at a middle school (or independently) to recruit members for the upper level/high school ensemble for the future. The members will learn various skills required to march and play at a higher level.

Corps such as the Blue Devils and Santa Clara Vanguard also have feeder programs.

Hope that helped a bit.

Were already doing something like that.
Our closest Middle School played their winter concert at our school, and were doing a joint Spring concert sometime next month.

This includes playing 2 songs as a whole band as well. That all may just work!

darfin,

From that song list, it seems those songs have the potential for boring drum parts (although fun wind parts). I'm going to guess you are section leader, or at least one of the more dedicated members of your line. That said, don't be afraid to talk to your director about writing a drum feature to transition between one of those songs to the other, or beefing up the parts some. Beefing up the parts in your situation helps not only challenge the players that you do have, but allows you to play things that large drumlines may struggle to play clean. (I'm having trouble wording this next part, but anyways) I found myself glad at times that I was in a smaller drumline, because there were less players to worry about making clean (not saying the small drumline=instant cleanliness). Another reason for beefing up your parts is that with many pop songs, the drum parts can get boring, just being a split up drumset part. When the whole drumline gets bored with what they are playing...well a number of different problems can arise.

Even with a small band, you still have the potential to use visuals, the line could do a version of the time warp while throwing down some notes. Or, you could adapt the tap solo from the end of the time warp for a snare break or something.

Here is our small band, I'm the one with the broken arm:

this is our small band, one, if not the, smallest in the area. I am the one left of the tuba (not percussion) Granted not as small as yours, but still.....

or you could just look at the picture under my name, JacketSnare3