Deacfreak07
Ain't played nobody, PAWL!
Ah yes, our annual complain about the band thread. It's very easy to sit in your seats, point at the band and say you guys need to be bigger.
The fact is that being a part of the band is a very thankless job. 95% of people outside of the band don't really care about us. We spend 12 hours a week including 8 hours on game day only for most people to either go to the bathroom or concession stand when we do our halftime show.
Not to mention that most of the perks of being in the band have dried up. When I was a junior, we traveled to Boston for the BC game. I think most of the band went because we just wanted to go to Boston. But even then, the athletic department started reducing the budget so that we couldn't go to every away game any more. Also, I'm not a student any more so people aren't flocking to join the band just so they can hang out with me.
The idea of having students switch instruments always gets brought up and there is a few reasons why it's not a good idea:
1) Ron Wellman had it too.
2) It's not easy to switch from a woodwind to a brass instrument. I took a class in grad school where I learned to play a brass instrument. I actually took it twice because it was fun. But at best, I would be a terrible trumpet player. We might be louder, but we'll sound terrible.
The only ways this problem gets addressed is what's already been mentioned: open up the student info so the band directors can reach out before school started, provide more incentives for students to be a part of the band, give more course credit. I did 7 semesters of band when I was an undergrad. I didn't understand why that didn't count for my music requirement. I don't think it would be unreasonable to allow for students that do band for two or three years to have that count as their music /arts requirement.
The biggest issue though is enrollment. Small enrollment = small band. Here are some numbers.
Wake undergrad enrollment: 5441
Wake band size: 70
% of students in band: 1.2%
Pitt undergrad enrollment: 19197
Pitt band size: 300
% of students in band: 1.5%
So we should reasonable expect at least 16 more band members. I don’t think anyone is suggesting it’s easy or cheap to grow the band. The enrollment argument is tough to make when Wake has significantly more students now than when most posters were in school. I think it also has a lot to do with the rigors of Wake and competition for time.