Redwood Band Performs On Home Turf

By: Mia Angulo

Redwood’s Band and Color-Guard competed for the second time since returning to in-person school on October 16th, 2021. Students had been preparing for this event since summer vacation.

Band member Kaylee Santos ’23 says, “I am more excited than anything. There is nothing better than the feeling of being on the field after not being able to do it for so long.” The band had not been able to compete since November of 2019 due to the Pandemic.

Having the competition at their school gives the Redwood band more of an advantage. It allows them to prepare for their overall performance in a familiar setting.

Santos adds, “It’s a little bit of a freeing feeling being able to compete at our own school”, the members feel more comfortable performing on their own field because that’s where they practice and because they haven’t competed in such a long time.

“When the competition is at Redwood we have more opportunities to do a full rehearsal of our show before we actually go on, which is really important to get in the right mindset”, Santos says.

Color Gaurd, the group of students that performs alongside the band feels differently about their second competition of the year. Sam Morales ’24, a member of color-guard says, ” The difference is that the football games are just an extra practice for me to learn my choreography and perfect it. But, for competitions, I’m being scored on how I do.”

For Color-Guard, football games are viewed almost like trial and error runs, while competitions are much more intense. Color-Guard’s role is to add to the overall performance alongside the band.

Ali Urena 23′, “Our role is to provide more visuals, We have to express and enhance the sound of the music with the movement of our flags and by dancing”. The combined effort brings their performance to life.

Football games can be challenging for bands because it can be so easy to get caught up in the excitement of the game. Band member Jalen Bullock 23′ says, “For football games, we tend to overcompensate by playing louder because of the loud fans [in the stands]. We also sometimes can get caught up in the fun of the night and that can affect our performance. However, I feel it is easier for a band to concentrate at a competition because every band is the main event. With competitions, everyone is there to do the same exact thing, which is put on the best show possible.”

After a whole day’s worth of watching other bands and performing themselves, Santos says “I’m really proud of today’s performance. We added a lot to our show since we competed two weeks ago in Fresno. There’s new uniforms, a pre-show, and another part of the show that we weren’t able to do yet. It felt like one of our best runs that we’ve had all season.”

Tags: arts and entertainment, color guard, competition, mia angulo, ranger band, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, visalia