Marching band season kicks into gear early across Cincinnati’s schools.

August means long days of band camp, and band camp is often more about the movements than the music – learning how to march, how many steps it takes to hit each position, and rehearsing a complex set of maneuvers before the first football game of the season.

To prepare your kids for the marching band season, it is a smart move to book some private music lessons before the band camp crush begins. Giving your kids a refresher and a jump start on their instrument makes those August sessions easier, more productive, and much more fun.

Whether or not you have the sheet music for the fall’s marching band show, getting limber on the marching instrument will help them learn quickly, and might even help them become section leaders.

If your student marches a wind instrument, getting a solid, steady embouchure before the marching begins will help ensure a solid, steady tone in motion. If the embouchure is unsure, then playing while marching can make for unpredictable sounds.

Marching band can be a tremendous amount of fun, but for students who are musically adventurous, it can be challenging to perform the same 15 to 20 minutes of music repeatedly throughout the marching season. For this reason, it can be highly beneficial to have additional repertoire developing during the private lessons. It keeps new music in their fingers while the muscle memory keeps their marching show ready at hand for their daily repetitions.