SOUNDS for the SEASON

School bands gear up for fall

By RICK ROUAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

With summer break almost in the rearview mirror, Valley high schools have been littered with students braving the elements for hours on end, often with heavy equipment, for the coming season.

But these trainees are not wearing shoulder pads and flac jackets; they’re carrying tubas and trumpets, as high school band season is in full swing.

“This is as demanding physically as any sport,” said Tom Ruggieri, Boardman High School band director.

Local high school bands are gearing up for the football season, when they will perform halftime shows and fight songs. But before the leaves turn and the pigskin flies, band directors must help new crops of freshmen march in lockstep with upperclassmen and teach hundreds of students new musical arrangements.

“It’s not like walking. You have to use muscles you’re not used to using,” said Brendan Paull, the band’s senior president.

Earlier this month, Boardman’s band was coordinating its stentorian sound with the rhythmic marching of 270 students. The band plays classic popular music and will include an homage to Michael Jackson this year.

“Everything’s old because I’m old,” said Ruggieri, who has been the school’s band director for 11 years. “I try to sell them on having an appreciation for the kinds of things we play.”

Ruggieri spends his summer arranging the band’s music himself, a feature of the band he said is unique. Many bands, Ruggieri said, purchase arrangements from a publishing company.

The thrust of the band is to put on an entertaining halftime show at high school football games, but most Valley bands will perform in parades and on band nights before ever taking the field for intermission.

The Austintown Fitch High School band is preparing for a parade in Alliance on Aug. 15 and its Aug. 31 band night, but its director said the military-style band’s tradition will persist.

“I’m a firm believer in ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it,’” said director Wes O’Connor.

In Howland, director Greg Rezabek, who is in his first year, is preparing his band for its Aug. 18 band night with the same formula the school has always employed.

“People who look at our band will see it’s the same as it’s always been,” Rezabek said. “We continue to play upbeat, pop-style music.”

O’Connor and Ruggieri agreed that being in the band is about more than learning music and formations. Both said students can take lessons and apply them to other parts of their lives.

“It’s not just music, rhythm and notes,” O’Connor said. “It’s discipline.”

A militaristic regimen is required to sync a large number of students spanning a vast spectrum of skill levels. At most band practices, directors use loudspeakers to yell over the band, booming “line” for students to hit a yard marker or “take it from the top.”

But the students take the criticism in stride, knowing that hard work now will pay off in front of an audience this fall.

“The directors do a great job pushing us,” Paull said. “We’re all about perfection.”

For Melanie D’Eramo, a Boardman cross-country runner who plays trumpet, the demands of the band are even more taxing than her athletic commitments.

“This is 10 times harder,” she said.

rrouan@vindy.com