Clare+R



Clare Rigney

AP Language

Mrs. Vore

10 December 2012

Defense of an Image: Times Three

The first piece is a picture that was taken the day of our final performance before warm-ups and shows the whole band, except the pit- they were in a separate warm-up room. This image is a visual representation of the mixture of feelings that everyone had that day: happy, sad, a little confused, and the most important thing: that we were all together. The best part is the people who have their instruments in the air- a universal sign for party- showing the excitement that had accompanied that season and the performance that was about to come. This picture shows not only the band that I marched with that year, but the family we had become.

For its display of sheet music and piccolo, “The Last Rose Of Summer” by William Michael Harnett was chosen to portray the precarious, yet beautiful nature of that season. Also, the theme of rose is throughout this piece, like in a marching show there is one central theme, elaborated in different ways between the different pieces. It’s also just something sweet with an air of mysteriousness; it’s so mundane, but together makes something that fits together and looks good. When I saw this piece in the Art Museum, it was so vivid that it took my breath away, like marching band does.

“Children at the Beach” by Frank Harmon Myers 2 focuses on what the children find as they search through the sands of beach, not on their faces. In the narrative, the overall excitement of the season is focused on and expressed through a single event as here, not the specific details of wonderment as if that season had been a wonderful blur of everything that had happened. The sun is shining on the picture, but it's unclear if it's rising or setting. The ambiguity makes it mysterious and wonderful, just like Marching Band which is something artful all in itself.

Excerpt: “In the warm-up room inside old Lucas Oil Stadium (oh yes, I said it: Lucas Oil Stadium, Home of the Indianapolis Colts), the air was filled with the sounds of marching shoes hitting the ground in unison and something else… The sounds of the band performing before us were on the other side of the huge blue curtain. No, no, no that wasn’t it… It was the feeling of finality, that after that day, an amazing season would be over. All of us were together: the guard, our Drum Majors, the pit, the winds, and the percussionists. We didn’t know what the future held, but that in this moment- in this very moment- we were all united, all thinking the same thoughts of how much we all cared about each other and loved each other, and how this past season had been the best season that Milford had seen in a long time. That that season about to pass had been the most fun season that anyone had yet to experience.”