Official committee formed to investigate Mighty Sound
The Mighty Sound of the Southeast has recently been criticized for not having that mighty of a sound.As a result, President Harris Pastides has formed a committee to review USC’s marching band. The committee includes the dean of the School of Music, the provost, directors and representatives of the USC band, and three members of the Athletics Department.
Tayloe Harding, dean of the USC School of Music, said the band staff is putting together a document entitled “The Vision for the Carolina Band,” which details every facet of the band program. The committee is going to review the document and make recommendations to the president about how changes can be implemented.
“The main explorations will be in the size of the band and the overall volume of sound,” Harding said.
The proposed document will also analyze the band’s budget.
“Clearly there are some funding issues that have to be addressed by all the various constituents,” Harding said. “I would be very surprised if recommendations from the committee’s work do not include some financial considerations.”
USC spokeswoman Margaret Lamb was unable to provide the band’s budget as of Thursday evening. Steve McKeithen, director of the marching band, said he would not comment on the state of the budget until after the committee meets, which he estimated would happen sometime around the end of February.
McKeithen said he plans to address the marching band’s systemic problems.
“There are things that are stacked against us that are massive, massive fundamental issues,” McKeithen said.
McKeithen joined USC in July 2009, and he is the third director in five years.
“There’s something wrong when that kind of thing is happening,” McKeithen said, referencing the number of director changes.
According to McKeithen, USC’s marching band has 260 members while Auburn University has roughly 380 band members and the University of Georgia has about 440 band members. He said increasing the size of the band requires improving recruiting efforts.
“Some of the people that make the decisions or are hearing about this don’t understand what the inner workings are,” McKeithen said. “I talk to counterparts at other schools, and I know how they recruit. There’s this whole side of it that people don’t see because they’re not involved with it.”
McKeithen said the only way he has access to incoming freshmen is if they stop by the band’s booth at summer orientation.
Harding, said USC needs to do a better job recruiting and retaining non-music majors to the band. He added that there is less history of non-major students in USC’s band than at other SEC schools because the SEC football tradition has not been in this state as long.
McKeithen worked previously at Arizona State University, and he said he completed a face-lift of the band program there. When he took over, McKeithen said, the ASU band consisted of 200 people and was the laughingstock of the Pac-10 Conference. He said he changed the whole identity of the band, including the look and sound, increasing band membership to about 380 students.
“It took a pretty significant investment to make that happen,” McKeithen said. “I was one of those investments.”
Courtney Robinson, a second-year exercise science student and trumpet player, feels that the committee will be a positive thing.
“It puts us under the microscope,” Robinson said. “It basically makes us work a little harder.”
USC’s marching band has been compared to smaller bands from schools in South Carolina, such as South Carolina State University and Furman University. But Robinson said there is no comparison.
“S.C. State has a completely different style of marching [from us],” Robinson said, adding that Furman practices the same show all year.
USC’s marching band performs several shows, including a pregame show and three different halftime shows. Robinson said they have about two weeks to learn each show, with three practices a week.
“It’s difficult to do all that in such a short time frame,” Robinson said.
Josh Clark, a third-year history student and trumpet player, joined the marching band his freshman year because he wanted to be a part of the tradition and have a good time. Clark said that, contrary to popular belief, the band is loud and its sound has improved dramatically since he started.
“We are really, really loud. We just deal with issues [with] our stadium acoustically,” Clark said.
He also said that USC is attempting to march in a more modern way than other bands in the SEC.
He said that when fans complain they aren’t finding the band entertaining, he views it as constructive criticism instead of an insult.
“Marching band is show business, and just like in show business, the only thing that matters at the end of the day is that performance,” Clark said.
Clark is glad the committee will be reviewing the band and said that the committee should talk to students in the band in addition to the director.
“Enough fans have said enough. It’s my hope that if attention is drawn to the problem, then it will be remedied,” Clark said.
According to Harding, the committee is aimed at making improvements.
“This committee has not been formed to correct a problem,” Harding said. “This is a committee that has been made to seize an opportunity to make something better.”