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My decision to audition for the UW Marching Band the summer before my freshman year was a very spontaneous one. In other words, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. Those first four days of freshman auditions, known as "Reg Week", was easily the most physically demanding, mentally straining, and overall hardest thing I have ever done. It was the best decision I've ever made.

On the first day of Reg Week prospective members are taught how to do the band's signature high step. The video below is definitely longer and more detailed than any instructions given to us that day, as according to legendary director Mike Leckrone all it takes to do this step is all you've got.

However, this step is a great culmination of many of the topics we've discussed in 361.  Between learning the marching step, switching to a new instrument, and rehearsing a new show every week the band has certainly taught me a lot about motor learning, transfer of learning, interference, and coordination. Read on to see how these apply!

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Wisconsin Marching Band Marching Style Tutorial Video

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Learning the marching step comes very naturally for some and for others it takes months to feel comfortable. Marching is a continuous skill- each step goes into the next and the movement has no clear beginning or end. Therefore it is generally picked up faster than other types of skills (like discrete or serial skills). I was able to acquire the step quickly, and this could be due to the transfer of some of the skills I had learned as a competitive dancer like good balance, bimanual coordination, and proprioception.

Being in the marching band is also a test of asymmetrical bimanual coordination. This occurs when limbs perform different tasks. While marching, one hand is responsible for holding and turning music pages, the other is holding and playing an instrument.

Balance is another important skill to have in the band. The image below shows one of the balancing exercises we do every day during our warm up before practice. Since this is practiced every day, most people show a great improvement in these exercises from the beginning to the end of the season, displaying one of the characteristics of motor learning.

Finally, to execute our step correctly one must be highly aware of where their limbs are positioned and how they are moving in space. This awareness helps members of the band to analyze and make corrections to their step so that it matches the rest of the band. Proprioception allows the band to look uniform and ultimately, better.

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The fun had only just begun after I found out I had made the band. I had auditioned on the clarinet-the instrument I had played since the 5th grade- but was selected to be a member of the Flugelhorn rank. The day after I found out I made the band I was handed a pair of marching cleats, a uniform, and a brand new instrument.

The transition from a woodwind to a brass instrument was not easy. With just four days until our first show (played in Lambeau Field against LSU, no less), my rank leader handed me a beginner's trumpet guide (the flugelhorn and trumpet are in the same key of B flat and share the same note fingerings). Negative transfer affected my learning, seeing notes I was used to playing with one fingering and embouchure on the clarinet were interfering with my ability to learn the same notes on a flugelhorn. As that fall continued, I would sit on the band field with my rank leader for an hour after every rehearsal and practice my playing. This form of distributed practice was much more effective for learning than attempting to learn all of the notes at once (massed practice), and by the end of September I knew "On, Wisconsin" by heart.

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"Jansen! Do you know what you're doing?!" 

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"Jansen! Do you know what you're doing?!" 

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This was the phrase shouted down to me over the loud speakers as our director cuts off the entire band mid-show just to call me out for missing a move. It was a simple "In 4"- flip in, forward march four, flip home. But between being one of the handful of freshmen on the field, reading the directions for my moves on the field, accurately performing the high step, holding an unfamiliar instrument, reading music, executing new fingerings of notes, attempting to make a sound through an instrument I had been handed only the day before, all while trying to avoid running into a tuba player who was just as lost as I was I was feeling very overwhelmed. This is an example of the Attention Bottleneck theory, which states that the human brain can only receive so much input before it has to start filtering the incoming information. Therefore, because I had too much input my brain wasn't paying attention to my upcoming move.

The picture below shows me getting help from an upperclassman when trying to "chart". Charting is the process of taking the position you start in on the field and figuring out (based on diagrams and those around you) how to move to your next position on the field. It is a complex and often times frustrating way the brain has to combine large amounts of input.

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One of the most challenging aspects of the freshman audition process is learning "Run-On", the high energy, high intensity version of our marching step that the band uses to get onto the field before the pre-game show. This is a skill that requires a great concept of proprioception, control, balance, endurance, and incredible timing.

Run-on demonstrates the concepts of Fitt's Law, specifically the speed-accuracy trade off. At an increased tempo, the faster our legs go and the less accurate we are at hitting our mark on the field, pointing our toes, and matching the angle of our knees and shins with each other. This is why when freshman are learning the run-on step we often practice it at a greatly reduced tempo, as seen in the video of one August practice below. This helps new members maintain the quality of their step, interval spacing, and timing.

Learning the techniques of run-on also demonstrates the Identical Elements Theory of Positive Transfer. The run-on step is almost identical to a regular marching high step. This theory states that the degree to which the learning of one skill assists in the acquiring of another is determined by the similarity of the two skills. Since the run-on step is very similar to the regular step, learning the regular step helped me to quickly learn run-on.