Kevin Gallagher, the new band director, began efforts to revive the pep band this past football season.
“There has traditionally been a pep band here at Aragon, although it was kind of phased out over the last three or so years where last year [a pep band] never played at any football games,” Gallagher said. “Typically there’s about four per year that the band would play at … so we’re just trying to phase it back in.”
The pep band played at two varsity football games this past season and looks to increase that number in the future. Approximately 150 musicians played at each game this year, with students from concert, jazz and symphonic bands, along with the wind and jazz ensembles.
A pep band is made of mainly brass, woodwind and percussion instruments. It plays exciting music to pump up the audience.
The pep band is different from a normal band environment in that the goal is to support the athletes and energize the crowd instead of just performing music.
“I think it’s interesting that we get cut off in the middle of playing songs,” said freshman french horn player Colin Shew. “It’s different from our regular band because we’re sightreading almost all the songs we play, [and] because it’s more fun and light hearted and there’s not as much pressure to play well.”
“Pep band … as far as the band is concerned, should be more of like a social, fun experience and [band members] should just go out there and play fun music,” Gallagher said. “I give them [the] third quarter of the football game off, and that’s when they hang out and eat together and … see their friends.”
The pep band from Hillsdale was also at the homecoming game, allowing the musicians to socialize with people from different schools.
“Playing with Hillsdale’s pep band and getting to meet them [was very exciting],” Shew said. “[It was memorable] because I got to see people that went to the same middle school as me and now go to a different school.”
“You play what you want to play and have a good time,” said freshman tenor saxophone player, Jack Hickey. “[The best memory was] definitely when we had the battle of the bands against Hillsdale. That was really fun because we played some songs against them, and it was just a good time–the aspect of competition, really.”
However, the novelty of the pep band led to a lack of participation. Out of a 230 student program, only 20 students originally volunteered, so Gallagher offered test passes to increase participation.
“I’m new … and then pep band is also a new thing to them, so understandably, they’re slightly resistant to the idea,” Gallagher said.
The pep band had lower participation from upperclassmen and was comprised predominantly of freshmen and sophomores.
However, Gallagher does plan on making pep band mandatory in the future to increase spirit at football games.
“I think it gets the crowd pumped up and I think it gets the football players pumped up,” Gallagher said. “it adds just another element [to the game].”
