A quiz on scramble band shennanigans

Clearly the biggest story in the last week in Ivy Band-related news was Princeton's melee with the Citadel. Noah's done a beautiful job describing this, so I'm not going to add anything specific about this. Instead, I thought I'd post a team round from a quizo I did last year for one of the band roadtrips that focuses on 10 different scramble bands, and their antics through the years.

What Scramble band:

1. Calls itself the “Cleverest Band in the World.” Antics: Against Fordham, one joke about an altar-boy joke (tuition going down faster than...) drew the ire of Catholics.

2. Insists that there’s a “pause” in its name. Antics: they’ve been disciplined for a polygamy show at BYU and a Catholic nun show at Notre Dame.

3. Has as its full name: The Award-Winning ________________ Indoor/Outdoor Precision(?) Marching Pep Band, & Chowder Society Review, Unlimited!!! Antic: Currently not recognized by its school’s athletic department, and is banned from all official sporting events.

4. Uses “Louie, Louie” as its signature song. Antic: trapped inside a stadium by an angry mob of Texas A&M fans in 1973?

5. For the last game of its season, builds an “enormous three-dimensional prop” called an “Überprop.” Antic: banned from West Point after a halftime show in which band members formed "USA" on the field, then dropped their pants and marched off, leaving the letters spelled out in clothing.

6. Antic: Claims to be the oldest Ivy League marching band. Antic: banned from Holy Cross for a show that involved a Ted Kennedy Triathlon which included the "Ted Kennedy drive and swim," while Kennedy family members were in attendance?

7. Gives out a yearly award for “the most outrageous antic during a public band performance” that has the inscription "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword" but with no space between the second and third word? Antic: During the 1967 Harvard game, nationally televised on ABC, this band intentionally spelled out the letters NBC.

8. Claims to have started the scrambling tradition, as it was scrambling as early as 1941? Antic: At the 75th Reunion, the 1812 Overture was performed on the field with the explosion of hydrogen balloons serving as cannon fire.

9. Claims to be “the world’s best and only ice skating band.” Antic: Every year they play for the people waiting in line for Ben and Jerry's Free Cone Day.

10. Played for William McKinley twice in one year. Antic: “suggested that [they] not come back” to the New Jersey Turnpike Vince Lombardi rest stop by a police officer for bowing to a model of the Superbowl trophy.

1. Columbia

2. Stanford

3. UVA

4. Rice

5. Yale

6. Dartmouth

7. Princeton

8. Harvard

9. Brown

10. Penn

Adaptive Traditions

Traditoinalize- (v.) to make traditional

“‘Tis better to Bone Give than to Bone Receive!”- Lawrence Musketfeathers (1898)

Tonight was the last rehearsal before Thanksgiving break. Therefore, it was time for the ritual celebration of Bonegiving. From the Challah of Bifurcation to the veal, all the symbols of the holiday were in place and the gluttonous celebration commenced.
Being in the band affords the opportunity to see something become tradition, something that was lost to time or something completely new. I.E.

• ARN, the Penn (and Stanford) Band’s victory song, features a trombone lick. After every Ivy League victory the Trombones traditionally play the fight song/alma mater of the other school, and by traditionally I mean this started during basketball season last year.
• Bonegiving, founded in 1898, lost in 1973 and returned to the Penn Band Low Brass Section in 2006. An event full of gluttony and fun that was, hopefully, traditionalized tonight.

These “traditions”, despite their relative newness hold important places in the hearts and minds of the section. In his blog post, Dr. Gupta discusses the institutional memory of undergraduate groups. He’s right, kind of. The role of the upperclassmen is not solely to teach and maintain long term memory, it’s to adapt to the strengths of the group. A tradition should not necessarily look the same year after year, it should continue to shift and change until it’s something that conveys the feeling the tradition originally intended, which, on Bonegiving, is stuffed to a point of nearly vomiting every time you stand up, walk, sit down or lay down. I’m feeling Bonegiving-y right now.