between MSU and MC's band is- and I was a member of both at one time? Support. Madison Central has a TON of support from the community and the school. They've had two band halls in the schools existance, which is about 15 years or so and MSU had the same band hall for almost 100. MC's band hall is very state of the art and it is very well run.
MSU's band is actually run well in my opinion. One thing that you have to understand about SEC marching bands is that all of them fall under the athletic department except for- you guessed it- MSU. Every other band gets some funds to do all of the shows, stand music and everything. And so I say this to people in general- if you want a good band- and I'm guessing that people do because it's discussed from time to time- our fans need to donate money and really get behind the band and support it. Even if it's 50 bucks a year it would be appreciated. I don't know if Byrne can do anything, and obviously there are much greater needs in the AD dept. than the band, namely getting the baseball program back on track, but that's what it's going to take to have a really good band. It took MSU YEARS to get up enough money to build MSU a new band hall. I think it would be good to somehow earmark some BC money to the band if a BC member so desires, or even better you could get points for donating to the band. There are some solution.
Personally, I do like Mrs. Lance. I see her from time to time out in public and she always says hi to me, even though I was one of the worst baritone players in MSU history. Maybe she liked me because my GPA offset some of the other band members GPA's. She loves the MSU band and was once a part of it herself. That said, I do think that the shows could be a little more creative. I think MSU fans were accustomed to Dr. Sills shows, which were very creative. I would also like for MSU to do something very similar to what LSU does in the stands. They have a song that they play on offense for first down, one for offense on second down and etc. Same for defense. That makes it easier because everyone knows what they're going to play and when, all you have to do is look at the scoreboard. We probably play more stand songs than anyone else in the SEC, and as a result we didn't have all that much time to work on them, and some were pretty ragged. We probably had 50-60 songs that we would play. It was a mess to keep up with. By making the stand songs easier like LSU, that means more time for the halftime show, and when you come back to school, the only people that are sightreading the stand music are freshmen and JUCO transfers.
