With three more competitions remaining in the season, the marching band prepares for their newest challenge. The marching band will march and perform the schools first ever field show in a competition at the Selma Band Review on Oct. 28.

The marching band will compete against 25 high schools in the parade and 20 in the field show.

“A field show is a musical presentation from five to ten minutes in length,” Chris Rice, band director, said. “Normally based on three movements or sometimes four, they are all based on a central theme.”

The name of the marching band’s field show is Super Heroes. It is composed of three movements: Star Wars Raider March and Spider man, both by John Williams, and Jaws/Superman by Robert Harris and Paul Webster.

“I want to give a good experience to the students and start a new tradition for the school,” Rice said. “I hope that the students come away from their three months of practicing content and happy with what they had gone through and how they performed.”

Field shows require the marching band to march in different directions while playing longer works of music.

“Field shows are more difficult then marching in a parade because we have to march backwards, forwards and diagonally,” Amanda Bearden, ’09, said. “We are also such a small band that if someone makes a mistake it is noticeable.”

In preparation for their first field show, the marching band hold evening practices on Tuesdays from 5:30-8 P.M. The percussion and color guard also meet together on Thursdays from 5:30-7:30 P.M.

“We have exponentially grown, and we are better as a group,” Chris Tharpe, ’08 said. “Mr. Rice’s inspirational speeches readied our minds for performing music by memory, both on the road marching and on the field during a field show.”

The marching band along with the junior high band attended the Sierra Cup Classic on Oct. 21. They watched numerous high school bands perform their field shows to an audience of 10,000 at Fresno State.

“We saw about seven or eight high school bands perform their songs and field shows,” Raine Hayes, ’12, said. “They were all in step, and they look like a giant broom going back and forth.”

As a test run, the marching band will perform their field show at the home football game on Oct. 27 during half time. The band will also march in the Pismo Beach Band Review on Nov. 11 and at the Fairfield Review of Champions, (46.9 miles north of San Francisco) on Nov. 18 along with the jazz band.