[Nfb-idaho] FW: [NFBAffiliatePresidents] Fw: [Ohio-talk] Fw: [Blindad] Blind band to march in rose parade.

Sun Jan 3 20:10:19 UTC 2010

Hi Everyone

This is an article about the Ohio Blind Marching Band heading to the Rose Parade.  It is a good article.

Susan Bradldy

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "fred olver" <goodfolks at charter.net>
> To: "NFB of Missouri Mailing List" <nfbmo at nfbnet.org>;
> <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org>; <Blindad at babel-fish.us>
> Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2009 11:33 AM
> Subject: [Blindad] Blind band to march in rose parade.
> ******************************************************
> Subject: Ohio blind marching band
> 
> Ohio blind marching band
> 
> heads to Rose parade
> 
> COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - "I used to have an old car that sounded like that when
> it started," the marching band director says. "Urr, urr, urr, blatt."
> 
> The players crack up, throwing their heads back and having a good laugh at
> themselves.
> 
> Dan Kelley is always saying things like that to his players. They sound like
> an Amtrak train going off a cliff, they sound like a car engine dying, that
> note sounded like a giant, wet splat when it should sound like the surf
> rolling onto the beach.
> 
> "It's audio imagery," he says. "I wanna keep it loose, too. I've got kind of
> a stern voice. If I say, 'I want this, I want that' all the time, I feel
> like I lose them because they feel like they're not doing it right."
> 
> The 32 blind players, 36 volunteer marching assistants, two band directors
> and one music assistant really, really want to do it right. The Ohio State
> School for the Blind Marching Panthers are going to Pasadena, Calif., to
> march in the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day. They'll be the
> parade's first blind marching band. The smallest band, too.
> 
> The invitation to march came more than a year ago, giving plenty of time to
> practice. It's also plenty of time to ponder a tough question: Are we OK
> with being famous because we're blind?
> 
> Kelley believes in gentle honesty, but honesty nonetheless.
> 
> This is going to be hard. Six miles is a long way, longer than the parades
> they've marched in to prepare for Pasadena. In the past year, they've been
> playing and playing and playing. Performances in Lancaster, at churches, in
> Cincinnati, at the Ohio State University skull session and in the
> Circleville Pumpkin Festival parade.
> 
> Practice has not made perfect. That's the honest truth.
> 
> Eleven band members have perfect pitch (hearing them hum during
> marching-only practice is beautiful enough to make you hold your breath).
> 
> But when they pick up their tattered and battered and borrowed instruments,
> not every note is hit just-so.
> 
> Having perfect pitch "doesn't mean you have the finesse you need. It doesn't
> mean you have the articulation skills you need," says Carol Agler, the blind
> school's music director and co-director of the band. She turns no one away
> who signs up to play at the beginning of the year. No auditions are
> required, just desire.
> 
> It hasn't made a lick of difference to the audiences who have heard the
> blind band play.
> 
> The typical response: They leap to their feet, clapping wildly, some with
> tears in their eyes. Amazing! Unbelievable! Inspiring!
> 
> For the players, though, the experience is different. They want perfection,
> or near it. They are teenagers, after all, and they occasionally have bad
> attitudes and bicker at one another. So-and-so shouldn't get to go to
> Pasadena; he hasn't tried hard enough. He's playing the wrong notes. She's
> spreading rumors.
> 
> They have a lot of questions. Practices sound like a bustling cocktail
> party, with everyone lining up with the marching assistants who will guide
> them through the 5.5-mile parade route and a 12-minute halftime show in
> which they'll perform their signature: Script Ohio, in Braille. The
> twice-weekly practices after school and three-a-week band classes go too
> fast.
> 
> By the time Kelley scoots all the players through the side door at the
> school and into marching formation, the sun has set and the air is sharp
> with cold. His whistle tweets, and the band comes to attention. At his
> signal, they honk out Military Escort, one of two songs they'll play in the
> first mile of the parade.
> 
> The other is Superstition by Stevie Wonder.
> 
> Some of the marching assistants - they can see, because, as Kelley points
> out, keeping straight lines is a "visual thing" - stand beside their student
> and sling an arm across his or her shoulders. Others prefer to guide from
> behind, walking like Frankenstein's monster with one hand on each of the
> student's shoulders.
> 
> This is seriously taxing work. A few of the students have limited sight;
> they can see shapes or figures or have some light perception. Many see
> nothing. So, once the Marching Panthers make their way onto the school track
> for a mock parade route, the workout begins for the assistants. Pushing,
> pulling, steering.
> 
> This is why there are more assistants than band members. You wear out after
> a while.
> 
> The two songs sound over and over as the band makes five or six laps. In the
> pitch dark.
> 
> There are no floodlights around the track and field. Why bother with
> something you don't really need?
> 
> The farthest the band has marched is 4 miles. The students won't make it to
> 6 until they're in uniform and in California.
> 
> "If you can march 4 miles, you can march six," Kelley says.
> 
> Excitement (and a heap of nerves) has been building in the weeks leading up
> to the trip. Hotel rooms and chaperones have been assigned; someone donated
> cool sunglasses, and those have been passed out. Rules and travel tips -
> keep a firm grip on your belongings, mind your manners - have been laid out.
> 
> Kelley has reminded everyone, more than once, that they're representing the
> Ohio State School for the Blind, the Ohio School for the Deaf, and the
> entire darned state of Ohio while they're out west. People are about to see
> exactly what blind musicians can do.
> 
> "Even if they don't want to admit it, one of the reasons people say it's
> amazing is because we're blind," says Whitney Hammond, a 15-year-old who
> plays bass drum.
> 
> It's fair to say there's been a bit of discord among players as the band has
> become a public phenomenon. They put on their red-white-and-blue uniforms
> and march on, but the question of why they're so well-received really gnawed
> at some of the kids.
> 
> News crews from CBS, a Los Angeles CW network affiliate and local TV
> stations have stopped in with their cameras. Writers from national magazines
> and just about every local paper have hung around.
> 
> "It's really easy to say we're a unique story, a human-interest story. We're
> all that," Kelley says.
> 
> At the beginning of this school year, with the Rose Bowl months away and
> months of sweat and tears and bickering well behind them, something
> happened. The players started to make peace with the why.
> 
> "Now, we think it's because we're doing something good," Hammond explains at
> the last practice before the trip. Every player and marching assistant is on
> deck to, as Kelley says, make the practice count.
> 
> "We said, 'No, we're actually doing work. We're working.' We have style,"
> she says.
> 
> "There's nothing amazing about a blind person walking and playing an
> instrument with a guide," Kelley says. "I ask the kids to reflect on that
> kind of thing, and what they want to get out of it. And not focus on
> 'They're just taking us because we're a blind band."'
> 
> Macy McClain, a 19-year-old who has played piccolo and flute for the band,
> thinks it is doing good by sending a message.
> 
> "I just think there are some people who don't understand what truly blind
> people can do. Blind people go to college, have jobs - do things sighted
> people can do," she says.
> 
> That's the right thinking, Kelley says.
> 
> "My philosophy is there's never been a bigger audience than what we're going
> to go out and play for. For me, it's getting people around the country to
> see that these kids have talent. I don't care about abilities and
> disabilities, blindness or whatever. They're out here marching."
> 
> The 32 musicians, 36 marching assistants, two directors and music assistant
> were scheduled to march onto a plane Monday. Then, they'll do exhibition
> shows, the halftime show and 2½ hours of marching.
> 
> Kelley will boom, "We proudly present the Ohio State School for the Blind
> Marching Panthers!" and the banner with their name in Braille will start
> moving.
> 
> The players won't see the crowd, but its reaction will be easy to read.
> Amazing. Unbelievable. Inspiring.
> 
> (Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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