Show time

AZLE – The Marching Green Pride put on a flamboyant and precise performance for the hometown crowd at Hornet Stadium on Sept. 1 during the football team’s home opener.

The marching band adds an important component to the game experience, something everyone – particularly the football players – understand and appreciate. Azle football players travel to watch the band perform at some contests. During homecoming games, Hornet football players sit in the stands to watch the band perform rather than relax in the locker room.

“The support that the football team - and for that matter all of the athletic teams - gives the band program is a really big deal,” said band director Aaron Martin. “It starts with our athletic director, Becky Spurlock, and it filters down through our coaches to our student athletes. There is a mutual respect and support for the groups. Our band students support and respect the efforts of the athletes, and vice versa. As staff members, we work together to make sure that our students can participate in the arts, as well as athletic endeavors, and they do not have to choose between the two.”

More than 200 students participate in the marching band, making it one of the most popular extracurricular endeavors at the school. Performing on Friday nights is a big draw.

“Our students get excited about Friday night football games,” Martin said. “They love seeing their friends on the field in victory, and they feel the sting of defeat with the team as well. These kids love to perform at halftime and love showing off their hard work in front of their home crowd.”

In addition to performing at football games, the kids compete in contests. The first one is Sept. 25 at the annual Denton Golden Triangle competition.

Bennie Manes, a sophomore, plays trombone and is looking forward to competing in Denton. He enjoys performing at football games because of the large appreciative crowds and “you get to yell a lot,” he said.

Manes began playing trombone as a kid. He began on a straight trombone with no trigger, referred to as a peashooter.

“I started out with a dinky old pea shooter - nothing like the trigger I have now,” he said. “That was my trombone for a while, then I got this, a trigger trombone, or an F1. It’s the same thing. It's called a trigger because it has a single trigger. The most common kind is the peashooter with no trigger at all, just straight slide.”

His dad bought him the peashooter years ago and upgraded him to an F1 later. Manes likes playing trombone because of its sounds, size, shape, and method of playing.

“You move your arm more,” he said. “You have some thumb involved if you do get a trigger, and some middle finger involved if you have a dual trigger base.”

The trombone gained notoriety in the 20th century as an instrument that can create funny sound effects, such as the womp-womp sound that is heard after someone makes a mistake on a TV game show, or when Lucille Ball would do something dumb on her show.

Manes, though, doesn’t do sound effects with the band. He provides a crucial sound that mixes with all the other instruments.

“It has more of a brass sound than your euphoniums, trumpets, mellophones,” he said. “I add some bass and some melody. Trombones are in that kind of range where they can be a melodic instrument and can also be a bass.”

Marching contest dates:

Sept. 23 - Golden Triangle Marching Contest at C.H. Collins in Denton

Sept. 30 - HEB Marching contest (no finals) at Pennington Field in Fort Worth

Oct. 10 - UIL Region Marching Contest at Chisholm Trail High School

Oct. 14 - BOA North Texas Regional Childrens Health Stadium, Prosper

Oct. 28 - UIL Area Marching Contest at Birdville

Nov. 6-7 - UIL State Marching Contest at San Antonio

Photos by Jeff Prince  | Tri-County Reporter