Eric Shannon doesn’t look like a band nerd. He’s tall and thin with tousled short hair and freckles tucked behind a pair of Ray-Ban aviators.

But he’s the Memorial High School Big Blue Machine’s ultimate band nerd — he went to Memorial, played French horn and marched his way to drum major there and later at the University of Oklahoma.

Now he’s Mr. Shannon, 24 years old, band director and music teacher at his alma mater. Today, he’s wondering why.

Lots of kids were late to band camp; some students can’t keep their feet together on the practice field or stay on tempo; others are out of shape. The horn section is getting simple lessons on marching fundamentals two weeks before school starts, and it’s not going well.

“This group used to be built on being really hard-core,” Shannon lectures. “I had to do push-ups all the time because I talked and was bad.”

The kids look sheepish, sleepy and grumpy in the August heat on Memorial’s practice field. Many have the pasty pallor of a summer spent indoors.

Shannon wonders whether it would be more beneficial for everyone to run the trail around LaFortune Park instead.

A French horn player nicknamed Opie pukes in the middle of the field.

“I don’t know why most of you came to band camp today,” Shannon says. “You didn’t come to play.”

Later, Shannon chomps on a lime popsicle in frustration, trying to figure out how this group became the Bad News Bears of marching bands. It seems unlikely that they’ll have the discipline it takes to learn to play music while marching in elaborate formations.

In the 1970s and '80s, Memorial’s band frequently had more than 200 members and played its way to prestigious gigs such as the 1973 Tournament of Roses Parade.

But Shannon’s second year as band director is a rebuilding year because 23 seniors graduated last year. There are more kids in Broken Arrow High School’s color guard than there are in his entire marching band.

The middle school feeder programs aren’t what they used to be. The kids have spent all summer playing video games and forgetting how to play their instruments. There just aren’t as many kids who want to join the Big Blue Machine this year, to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Shannon doesn’t even have any bass clarinet players. But he sets the bar high, because he believes in the Big Blue Machine.

If only they could all play the music as Shannon hears it in his head. The cymbals in perfect crescendo, crisp bass notes from the low brass, fluid flutes and trumpets, percussion keeping precise time — the awe-inspiring sound of instruments blending seamlessly.

But a few days into band camp and one week before school starts, that’s not exactly the version that Shannon is hearing in Memorial’s auditorium.

“Deep brass, do not just enter and sound like a Whoopee cushion,” he admonishes.

It’s supposed to be a musical show titled “Legend,” broken into movements with names such as “Adventure,” “Mysticism,” and “Action.” If that sounds super sci-fi fan and dorky, Shannon would like you to know that it’s actually King-Arthur-meets-Sword-in-the-Stone. Much cooler.

On the auditorium stage, he is flanked by his diligent drum majors, Grady Briggs and Erica Laub. He’s trying to reach the rest of the band, trying to snare their enthusiasm for the music. He explains that trumpets playing in tune will sound much louder and better, using the popular video game “Guitar Hero” as a metaphor.

Never let on if you mess up. Just get back on track and keep playing, he says.

This is the first day during the two-week band camp that the front ensemble, or “pit,” the section of nonmarching bulky percussion instruments, is playing with the rest of the band.

Pit leader Julie Keeton takes her job seriously. And she already knows that it’s not much fun being the boss sometimes.

After a morning spent trying to get her section on track, she walks into the classroom to find a drawing of an angry T. rex chasing stick figures on the dry erase board. The T. rex has “Julie” written above it. She erases it and rolls her eyes.

Nobody loves the person who’s constantly yelling, “Work harder!” Her house got toilet-papered last night, and she’s wondering whether she was the target of a crush or a prank. “Mr. Shannon, did you TP my house?” Julie jokes.

It’s drum-line instructor Daniel Yarborough’s birthday, and what he doesn’t know is that two of the students brought him cakes, and another baked him brownies. What he does know is that his drum line’s got problems. The drummers keep losing the beat.

Yarborough — Mr. Yarbs, the kids call him — tells them that if they don’t start playing their music spot-on, he and Mr. Shannon might have to re-evaluate whether the band will have a marching drum line. The drummers hang their heads and listen, knowing that to be a nonmarching pep band this year would be a mark of shame.

If Shannon hears melody in his head, Yarborough hears the beat. Constantly, wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, he’s drumming. He played on several drum lines and then joined a Christian rock band, Sweet Memorial. But his bandmates started getting married, having babies – things that got in the way of gigs.

“He’s a sick drum-set player,” Shannon confides.

They’ve been friends since high school, back when they were both wearing Memorial’s blue, white and red marching band uniforms.

“It’s something for us to do together,” Shannon said. “Most people have rock bands. We have our own marching band.”

But whether their band will march this football season remains to be seen.

It’s the second day of classes at Memorial High School, and Dave, a tuba player is late. He was supposed to be marching on the field by 7:30 a.m., but it’s 8:45 and the freshman is struggling to assemble his bulky, 45-pound tuba in the band room and get on the field before he misses most of first-hour practice.

His cat of 14 years died yesterday, so he missed the first day of school. He had to build kitty a coffin.

“Oh, Mr. Shannon’s going to be mad,” he grimaces.

How angry can Shannon get? He has only two tuba players, pit leader Julie Keeton comforts him. As Dave walks onto the field, he gets an annoyed look from drum majors Grady Briggs and Erica Laub, and Shannon assigns him two laps to run tomorrow morning.

Shannon’s on the field in dress slacks and leather loafers, now covered with dew and pieces of turf. He’s trying to arrange a carpool for Nick, a trumpet player who also showed up late. Another horn player also named Nick might be able to give him a ride. “You guys can become BFF – best friends forever,” Shannon teases.

There are lots of new faces this morning. In the past two days, at least 10 kids have shown up who did not come to band camp, did not keep in touch over the summer and did not learn the music. Shannon’s not sure whether they can even play.

With only 56 kids, they can’t afford to turn away willing marching band members, but so many are already so far behind. They missed the pool party, the popsicles, learning beginning marching steps, puking on the field.

Back in the band classroom, Julie Keeton leads the pit through warm-up exercises. As the first-hour bell rings, several students file in. They have first-hour band on their class schedule — but they have no instruments in hand, they weren’t at band camp, and they have no idea that they’re an hour late for marching practice.

A student with ’80s metal-band shaggy locks and a rocker T-shirt wanders in with a Jack Black, confused-lazy-guy look on his face. Whoa, xylophones.

“Where’s like, the band, dude?” he asks.

“You were supposed to be here at like, 7, dude,” Julie answers sharply.

“I just need to know where I can go to get my schedule changed,” he replies.

“I’ll help you,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Julie and drum major Erica Laub called about 30 new people over the summer to see whether they were planning to join the Big Blue Machine. Some never called back, and lots were wrong numbers. Some of the feeder middle schools don’t give the students enough information about their summer commitment if they want to join high school marching band. Some kids just don’t listen.

Enrique Sifuentes, a drummer who missed band camp and is late this morning, says he can’t stay in band because his grandmother can’t take him to school that early. Julie tells him she will pick him up on her way to school, every morning.

“You’re not quitting band,” she says.

The Big Blue Machine needs cogs, badly.

Behind them, the band classroom bulletin board is decorated with inspirational words, including “resourcefulness”:

“To respond to challenges and opportunities in innovative and creative ways.”

Part of Shannon’s job, besides teaching these kids how to be a marching band, is to figure out how to raise more than $16,000 for expenses this year. That doesn’t even cover the new instruments they need. That would be more like $100,000.

Shannon wrote his own drill program for this year because it was free that way. Larger 6A schools, such as Broken Arrow and Owasso, might pay as much as $30,000 for their music, drill programs and props. Shannon bought Memorial’s sheet music for the year for $3,600.

He works from 7 a.m. until well after school each day, taking time in between classes, after school and at night to help students figure out their music.

He has to raise thousands of dollars to make this band work, in addition to figuring out who has the missing pair of size 12 white marching shoes, helping Nick learn “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and finding a clarinet for a new girl sitting on the bench this morning, muttering that she’s not sure she wants to get up this early every day for marching band.

It’s the Friday of the first week of school, and the band’s making progress.

They’re marching in place and playing the first movement. The drum line sounds sharp from across the field. These kids sound vaguely like a band.

Several students showed up this week who never made it to band camp, don’t know their music and march steps and have no instruments.

Yarborough downs a Red Bull and runs across the field to point a drummer in the right direction. They are practicing their drill – the marching formation they will have to move in while playing shows on the field.

“C’mon, people! Faster!” Teiawnna Barclay yells, trying to pep up her sleepy bandmates. Teiawnna and horn player Twiggy are always the loudest in their section. They know to stand at attention. They don’t want to waste Shannon’s time.

They march out the drill steps, trying to form moving circles instead of squares.

“That was a good first run,” Shannon says from his metal perch above the field. “No one died.”

There is no second string, he explains to the students, tell them that they are it. If someone sleeps in or doesn’t show up, there will be a hole in the formation. It’s not going to look good.

“If you’re just lazy, it’s going to be really evident in about two weeks,” he warns.

Their first home-game performance, the Midtown Classic versus Edison Preparatory School, is less than a month away.

It’s the morning practice before the Midtown Classic, the Big Blue Machine’s first home performance, and rain is piling on the drums, cymbals and sheet music.

In their gym clothes and pajamas, they practice in rain, 100-degree-plus heat or freezing cold, because they have to be ready.

Battery captain Quinton Kelley runs across the field to where his wet drum is waiting, hoping that no one notices that he’s late — that means pushups or laps.

Shannon doesn’t seem to notice. He’s too busy watching the marching steps. “Horns, it’s looking cool – good for you!” he says.

Drum majors Grady Briggs and Erica Laub are playing telephone across the field from their drum-major stands. No one on the field can hear both of them at the same time.

Half of what Shannon yells at the band makes sense only to them. He sings what he wants notes to sound like, sings the tempo, tries to describe how their feet should move.

Everyone is soggy and frustrated.

“Your pulse comes from the drum major, drum line!” Yarborough yells.

A trombone player and a saxophone player almost collide while marching.

“Grady, the horn line is not really watching you, he says. “I think you’re just up there; you’re just a mantelpiece.”

This especially frustrating for Grady, because the horn line includes his twin brother, Sam Briggs. If you can’t get your twin brother to listen, good luck with everyone else. Julie Keeton is just as frustrated with her pit players.

“You’re making me angry today, Josh Baker!” she says. “Do you want to see me angry? I’m wearing green; I might Hulk out!”

Shannon yells at Hoss : “Can you promise you’ll try to not look like you’re sneaking?”

They start marching again, and two bass drums nearly crash into each other. But they manage to play a full section without stopping, without any total disasters or sour notes.

“Give yourself a round of applause,” Shannon congratulates them. “I’m really, really proud of you guys. I see the light. I see great performances. I see standing ovations for what that little band is doing.”

A half-hour before the game, they file into the visitor’s side of LaFortune Stadium even though it’s adjacent to their school. Edison and Memorial share the stadium, so it’s Memorial’s turn to be the visitor.

“I hate seeing them on our side,” Yarborough mutters.

The drum line’s getting fired up, the horn section is dancing, and the school’s new step team is stomping next to the band in the stands.

Julie Keeton floats about, keeping tabs on things, making sure that her family members are in the stands and making sure that everyone is where they’re supposed to be.

The rest of the band is having fun playing in the stands, revving up the crowd by changing the lyrics of “Party Like a Rock Star” to “Party Like a Charger.” It’s a warm summer night, and members of the Big Blue Machine are sweating and itching in their polyblend uniforms.

Shannon and Yarborough don’t look that much older than the kids they’re teaching. Shannon still carries a backpack, and Yarborough has pierced ears and a tattooed upper arm.

The Chargers score a touchdown, but Julie doesn’t even look up. She’s debating whether it’s time to go down on the field and start warming up the pit. It’s getting close to halftime. She herds the pit members down onto the field, to the corner where their bulky instruments are waiting.

“I have to pee!” someone whines.

“I have to pee, too,” Julie snaps. They’ll just have to wait. Halftime glory is only a few minutes away, and they’re performing second, after Edison.

“Julie, can we put our stuff on Lauren’s cart?”

“Julie, where do we put our covers?”

“Everybody calm down!” Julie yells. She’s nervous, and she wants to bring her sheet music out on the field. Nick wants her to hang tough and play from memory, like they’re supposed to.

“We’ll look retarded!” he says.

She shoots him a disapproving look and starts calling out the warm-ups.

“Pop rocks! 16th notes!”

They’re nervous and edgy but think they have a while to warm up.

They’re wrong. The Big Blue Machine is performing first. Panic ensues.

“Does everybody know how everything is getting on the field?”

“Who’s carrying all this stuff?”

“You guys, get ready, let’s have a great show!”

The announcer says: “And now, the Memorial High School Big Blue Machine!”

The announcer clearly doesn’t realize the difficulty of getting two football teams off the field and an entire marching band and sound system on the field in a matter of minutes. Especially when a large chunk of the band thought they were performing second.

Someone on the Edison side of the stands shoots an air horn off before the band starts, which earns them Shannon’s death stare. He and Yarborough are having trouble getting the amps plugged in and ready to go. Nothing is going smoothly.

Drum major Grady Briggs starts too soon, and the timing is off. The marching looks cool, but they don’t sound as sharp and powerful as they’re capable of.

The crowd doesn’t know the difference, so they clap and cheer anyway. The Edison cheer squad shouts an encouraging, “Good job, guys!” as they file off the field. Now they must stand quietly on the sidelines for the rest of halftime, watching Edison’s band perform.

Then they get a lecture from Shannon, which is half “Come to Jesus,” half pep talk. No gold stars.

“I told them to swallow the lump in their throats from the show they wanted to have but didn’t,” he says after the kids slump back to the stands looking defeated, even though their team is winning.

But Shannon can’t hide his admiration for their moxie.

“We’re so small, but for some reason, we have this band program that kind of won’t die. It won’t give up.”

Shannon directs traffic from his office a few hours before Memorial’s homecoming game versus Claremore.

Go ahead, get the uniforms out. Sure, use that old drop cloth to paint signs. No, color guard girl, you cannot drop out of band.

He’s wearing dress slacks, a vest and tie, mostly because he ran out of clean laundry, he confesses.

Watching the students as they get ready for the school’s homecoming carnival and the band’s alumni night, he laughs. So many of these kids remind him of kids he played with in band, back when he was a student at Memorial.

“It’s so bizarre,” he says. “The roles are still there.”

The Big Blue Machine marched in a competition the previous weekend, but they didn’t make the finals. They didn’t perform as well as Shannon was hoping.

“I wasn’t really upset that we didn’t make the finals. I just wanted us to have a good performance,” he says. “There’s a lot to this show, but they won’t take the time to learn the music.”

Tonight, he has a plan. He’s going to make them play the third movement of their show — “Action” — even though he knows they’re not quite ready. If they feel a little embarrassed, maybe they’ll work harder and learn their music. He doesn’t tell them this, of course.

A few hours later, Claremore is beating the Chargers 13-6 at the half. Yarborough is tuning up drums, and the horns and woodwinds are stretching, getting ready for the halftime show.

Shannon gives a pep talk:

“So we have a great opportunity tonight. If you can do as well as you did in rehearsals, that’d be good. But that’s the one thing about performances, is that freaky stuff happens. If we can just keep the freaky stuff from happening, that will be good.”

Julie Keeton finishes leading the pit through warm-ups and sits on her marimbas cart as they wait for the homecoming court to clear the field.

“I was nominated for court, but I didn’t make the final three,” she says. Some other senior in a white evening gown gets crowned “Miss Memorial,” and the Big Blue Machine takes the field.

Drum major Grady Briggs steps up on his conducting perch, solemn and serious. Shannon taps his shoe to begin.

“Adventure,” the first movement, sounds clean and bright, and they march in sync. “Mysticism” and “Action” are a little spottier, with pulse problems in the horn section.

The finish, and Julie mouths to Alex: “That was bad.”

Shannon tries to be kind in his post-performance upbraiding. He knows that the music and drill are challenging.

“We have an uphill battle this year,” he says. “But that’s all we have. There’s no plan B.”

They need to commit to learning their music and improve at playing their instruments.

“What you’re going to leave this program with is your ability to play music,” he says. “I thought we’d embarrass ourselves tonight, and parts of it were embarrassing, but all in all, there was some good stuff.”

Bright and early the next morning, the Big Blue Machine is on the Memorial High School field, metronome chirping, trying harder to play the music as Shannon hears it.

No one who heard the Big Blue Machine play during band camp would guess that this is the same band whose members couldn’t march and hold an “E” note only months ago.

Tonight, the final home game of the season, they are fired up. It’s senior night, the final field marching performance for several students who have been the backbone of the band this season: Grady, Julie, Sam, T.J., Teiawnna, Twiggy, Nick, Jeff, Opie, Sean, Alicia and Marquitta.

They’re also joined by middle school band students who might one day be a part of the Big Blue Machine themselves, learning the glory of 7 a.m. practices and vomiting in the summer heat.

 

They play a near-flawless national anthem, rock out to “Party Like a Charger” and sound fierce — in spite of the fact that it takes Muskogee High School less than 30 seconds to score a touchdown and two-point conversion on the Chargers.

The Chargers are losing, badly. But the band is having fun. They’re dancing, playing enthusiastically and trying to hand down traditions to the seventh- and eighth-graders.

After tonight, it’s just the Veterans Day parade and the holiday Parade of Lights. No more early morning marching practice. They’ll play as a pep band for basketball games, which should be a little less painful than Memorial’s football season — the Chargers went 1-6 in their division.

A victory against playoff-bound Muskogee does not appear to be in the cards — it’s 33-0 early in the game. Memorial recovers a fumble, but Muskogee intercepts and gets the ball back on the next play.

Tonight, the band will play a full halftime show, joined by the middle school musicians for a brief song, and then all five movements of their field show, “Legend” — the same field show that only months ago, Shannon wondered whether they’d ever be able to play.

Band members line up on the sidelines, giggling and chatting before the performance, save for two feuding members of the woodwind section.

“So are you ready to rock the house one final time?” drum major Grady Briggs asks flutist Teiawnna Barclay.

Down at the other end of the field, Julie Keeton dutifully lines up the bulky pit instruments so they can be hauled on and off the field quickly. Grady and Erica Laub assemble the rickety conductor’s stand, a perch that Erica will take over next year after Grady graduates and she becomes the senior drum major.

Grady takes his perch, serious as always. Behind him, Julie is lined up with the pit. A bandmate tells her to have a good show, to which she responds with a sarcastic “Sure.”

Shannon watches from a safe distance. After they finish, the seniors’ names are announced to the crowd, and they are joined on the field by their parents. Julie gets a dozen pink roses. Teiawnna beams. Grady and Sam’s dad sheds a tiny tear.

Many of the seniors are headed to the University of Oklahoma’s marching band or other college music education programs. Shannon’s influence is larger than the show, it seems.

And on this cold November night, the little band that once couldn’t play all five movements of his ambitious field show does so with gusto.

But more than the music, the Big Blue Machine learned that what really matters is how far you’ve come from where you’ve started.

Cary Aspinwall 581-8477
cary.aspinwall@tulsaworld.com

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