Scramble Band - Characteristics

Characteristics

Scramble bands often take pride in their diversion from the normal marching band. In fact, most scramble bands do not march at all, regardless of whether their official group name contains a form of the word "March".

Like their marching counterparts, scramble bands almost always perform music using traditional band instruments. They will also stand in formations on a field, but that is usually where the similarity between scramble bands and typical marching bands end. The formations themselves are often simple shapes or crude "pictures" that lend themselves to a particular section of the performance instead of intricate geometric or abstract shapes. Additionally, scramble band performances often rely on a humorous or satirical script, read during the performance by an announcer using a loudspeaker or public address system.

Scramble bands are generally student-run and tend to be smaller in membership than what one would expect from a marching band.

According to the self-described "Cleverest Band in the World" at Columbia University, the origin of scramble bands is as follows:

"See, in the 50s, our great country was going through a lot of changes. Disco was at its peak, little Shirley Temple was charming the hearts of Americans everywhere, Jesus was walking the earth, and Ronald Reagan was pushing hard for the new Women's suffrage movement. The Columbia University Marching Band, which had always been slightly wacky, took a good look at itself. "How," we asked ourselves, "could we make being in a marching band even more fun?" Well, we decided that the whole marching around and forming rhombi thing had gone out of style with World War II. So we introduced the world to the "scramble band" concept - so named for the way bandies would scramble from one interesting formation to the next."

However, there is no widespread agreement as to which school actually invented the scramble band concept. The Harvard University Band lays a significant claim to the title with proof of scrambling as early as The Game (Harvard-Yale), November 23, 1946, as well as spelling "Keep 'em Flying" for the Navy and forming an airplane with the drum major twirling his baton as the propeller in 1941. With Guy Slade as director, baton twirler, and drill master, 74 letters were spelled during the 1930 football season, 29 at the Harvard-Yale game alone. The word "Welcome" was learned and formed in five minutes at a stadium game with Michigan.

Other characteristics of scramble bands vary by the particular group and may include:

• Non-standard instrumentation - Some bands include string or electronic sections to offer membership to musicians who would otherwise be excluded from participation in a marching band. Instruments in this category might include violins, cellos, string bass, electronic keyboards, and electric guitar. More unusual instrumentation such as bagpipes and accordions is not unheard of. For example, the Princeton University Band included an accordion, a bagpipe, two violins (acoustic), an electric guitar, and an electric bass in the 2005-06 school year, and has also featured a set of plastic flamingos and a pair of plastic pumpkins. The Columbia University Marching Band includes a six foot bench stolen from the University of Pennsylvania stands.

• Non-musicians - Just as membership often includes non-standard instrumentalists, it may also include people who have little or no musical talent at all. These members may "play" homemade instruments (washboards, trash can lids, mailboxes, etc.) or may participate in other various capacities. They are usually known as "miscies," while at Princeton they are known as "trash percussion." More skilled bands can have people with high levels of musical talent playing unusual instruments. The Stanford Band, for example, has "mugs" with sometimes up to a decade of musical education playing instruments such as a kitchen sink or satellite dish.

• Skits or other dramatic performance - Members may dress in costume and/or employ the use of props (usually handmade) to mime to the audience a scene described or suggested by the announcer's script. Such scenes are often overdramatic (to aid audience members seated far away) and make use of slap-stick comedy, where appropriate (or not). Members of the Yale Precision Marching Band who act on the field are called "squids."