How one SC high school marching band chases nine perfect minutes
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- Marching band camps unite 1,000+ students in Rock Hill in pursuit of top shows.
- Directors, parents and alumni combine resources to support 100+ student performers.
- Students manage intense rehearsals, choreography and musical precision amid summer heat.
It’s Hawaiian shirt day, and Scot McGuire stands behind the half-wall overlook of a trophy-laden chorus room banging a taped-up drumstick against a ledge like a metronome.
“Do you hear a difference when we all commit?” he asks nearly three dozen woodwind students. “It’s pretty nice.”
On a mid-July Wednesday afternoon, the Northwestern High School band director poses his question to the ensemble. He may as well ask the entire Rock Hill region. More than a thousand performers across three counties spent some of the hottest days of this summer at marching band camps much like this one.
They’re part of perhaps the largest competitive activity fielded by area high schools.
They’re also part of a rich tradition in the Rock Hill region that has produced scores of state championships and countless musicians, passed down as a familiar tune from one generation to the next. And they’re all searching for the same thing — the perfect nine-minute show.
McGuire and assistant drum major Lucia Coghi direct three tiered levels of saxophones, flutes and clarinets. They’re tackling “Rewrite the Stars” from “The Greatest Showman.” McGuire might spend half an hour repeating an eight-measure sequence or run through the whole song while older players march in place on riser-thin steps.
At the opposite end of a long hallway, a parade of color guard performers perfect their footwork to a brass serenade from the similarly trophied band room beside them. Will Ellison bangs a cowbell with a drumstick. He pauses.
“Show me how you finger your first note before we have a disaster,” he tells about 30 trumpet, tuba and euphonium players.
By day, Ellison leads the Dutchman Creek Middle School band. During marching season he helps with the high school band, just like scores of professional musicians do for band programs across the region.
“Do you have one more pep tune in you?” Ellison asks.
Marching band is the rare activity where many people recognize performers from someone else’s competition. Northwestern is a six-time state champion in football, including last year. So marching band here can run from July’s camp to near Christmas some years.
Ellison mixes in competitive show music with Friday night favorites like “Sweet Caroline,” “Hey Baby,” “Take on Me” and “HandClap.” Now, he asks for “Carry On My Wayward Son.”
Parent, community support key to band success
In the school cafeteria, parents and grandparents prepare for soul food night.
Kendra McCray has a full-time job but takes off for band camp week. She’s in charge of feeding 114 students and their instructors. Her junior-year son Malachi plays alto saxophone.
The volunteer lineup includes a mom who hadn’t been back to Northwestern since she graduated. A band father-turned-grandfather recalls when the school opened in 1971. McCray is part of it all, from securing the Publix fried chicken donation to passing out extra rolls before players take the field.
“The community loves our kids,” she said, “and the rest of it is parents taking care of what we need to do.”
There’s also a practical reason why so many parents volunteer. Otherwise, they wouldn’t see their kids much.
“We spend more time with each other than we do with our families during band camp, or just during the band season,” said senior and second-year drum major Jozlynn Robinson.
She has to memorize every note the band plays, not just one section. She has to know time signature changes. But the hard work starts for Robinson as the band wraps up dinner.
She has to instruct both the senior who ought to know what to do and the freshman who has yet to attend a high school class.
“Being authoritative while also being encouraging,” Robinson said. “Changing your tone of voice and ensuring the marchers that they’re doing well and you’re not mad at them all the time, is I guess the best way to do it.”
The marching bands take the field
The toughest job in the band? Surely, it has to be the tuba, right? A tuba takes the most blowing power. At up to 50 pounds, it can weigh three times what a full set of football gear does. It’s also metal on a blistering summer day.
A coterie of Trojans ponders the question along a shaded sideline. Other students wheel large wooden ramps and platforms onto the field. Still others push a small stampede of marimbas, vibraphones and xylophones the couple hundred yards into place. All in what’s left of a 95-degree day.
From the sunscreen-scented shade near a water mister, it becomes evident there aren’t any adults here yet.
Tenor saxophone player Abby Thomas figures, along with great band instructors, it’s this kind of student effort that’s produced championship performances across the region for decades. “A lot of the students here know how to motivate themselves, know what drive is,” she said. “We know what hard work is.”
The sampling of students settles on the euphonium. The brass horn is just about as heavy as a tuba, but players don’t get to wear it. They hold it out front, which kills the shoulders. Sorry, tuba.
Nobody, though, gets a free pass.
Band members run through line lunges, back lunges, squats and sprints typical of just about any sport warmup routine, as the instructors arrive. Pro drummer Josh Walker steers a utility vehicle down to the field with more percussion gear in tow. It’s the first night combining the band and pit crew on the field.
While his students lead marching and choreography drills, McGuire takes a minute to ponder what he does and how marching band fits with other school sports and activities.
“It’s not us versus them,” he said. “We’re all teaching the same things. We’re just using different vehicles.”
Reaching for the stars
A choreography coach insists that if players don’t feel a bit ridiculous pointing at imaginary stars, they probably aren’t doing it right yet. McGuire sidelines the instruments so the band can motion through the intro to its celestial-themed show, “Rewrite the Stars.”
High-schoolers aren’t always known for their precision or detail orientation. Imagine having to teach them how to step 22.5 inches without looking at their feet, to hit five yards in eight steps.
Each student wears a lanyard card with a number and instrument code on it, so directors can spot and correct mistakes from a viewing tower.
McGuire teaches body carriage and posture while orchestrating rehearsals into more than 100 school and afterschool schedules. He reminds students to play off the instruments around them when the drum major is too far away so the sound hits the stands at the same time.
And he can’t just bench a kid who’s struggling to keep up, or rely on showstopper performers to carry the show by themselves.
“We don’t have a second string,” McGuire said. “Every single person out here is first string.”
Competing with family
Anyone who has ever competed in the fall knows what it means to train in the summer.
Band is no different, except maybe for the consequences. Run out of breath at the wrong time, and the whole neighborhood hears it.
“It’s hot,” Thomas said. “You’re burning. You feel like you’re going to pass out. It takes a lot out of you.”
On this particular Wednesday, students who warmed up and were ready to go at 1 p.m. won’t leave until 9 p.m. New members have to be inducted. There’s a rumor of an instructor getting a shaving cream pie to the face.
“We have to work to introduce the fun,” McGuire said.
For several senior band members, all the effort is worth it because of the people they’re playing alongside. And, oddly, even for folks in other area bands. Directors and musicians don’t cheer for competing bands to trip over themselves or drop flags.
“We have no defense,” McGuire said. “We’re always on offense.”
It’s part of the training, to want to be part of the perfect show.
“The adrenaline you get when you compete,” said Coghi, the assistant drum major, “you don’t get that anywhere else.”
This story was originally published September 2, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "How one SC high school marching band chases nine perfect minutes."
