It is 7:30 on a Monday night, and Band members assemble in twos and threes on Cobb Track, gloved and scarved to ward off the 45-degree chill. Giancarlo Aquilanti, in his fifth year as musical director, calls the group to attention.
Suddenly, wordlessly, a sax player drops his instrument and sprints away from the group, and two other horn players take off in pursuit. The sax player has arrived late, and his punishment, as soon as his section mates catch him—which they do, eventually, on the other side of the track—is a ceremonial dog pile. They wander back to the group, which has carried on without them, pick up their horns and begin to play.
Aquilanti is nonplussed. This is a typical Band rehearsal, and he is used to the distractions. “I am very quiet with them. I don't say much. I think the students like that. I'm from Italy, and my grandfather used to say you could only use the stick sometimes; if you use it too often it doesn't work.”
A casual observer might fairly ask how such a practice can produce quality music, and the musicality of the Band has been variously praised and criticized over the years. But often overlooked in the frenzy of the group's performances, notes Aquilanti, DMA '96, is that there are many fine musicians. Twenty of the 54 students in the music department's wind ensemble came from the Band last year. “The Band can play quite well when they want to—when they put the effort and time into a performance,” he says.
Chris Holt, '07, MA '07, says members take themselves seriously as musicians, but also make room for novices, a deeply held Band tradition that speaks to the group's come-one-come-all ethos. There are many examples of students who showed up for a Band rehearsal as freshmen having never played an instrument. Current and former Band members agree that the sense of community this engenders is a basic strength of the organization, and nobody would advocate adopting a more rigorous recruiting standard.
Nevertheless, “there are times I wish they played better,” says Frank Robertson, '65, who has continued to play with the Band for many of his 43 years since graduating. “It's hard to play well when you're gyrating. The Band's motto is 'rock out,' and that's part of the fun, but they have a responsibility to the audience. The music matters.”
“All the crazy things they do—those are secondary,” Aquilanti says. “Take those away and the Band still exists. But take the music away and that's it; the Band would be no more. The Band exists for the music.”
