Yale Precision Marching Band

The Yale Precision Marching Band (affectionately known as the YPMB, or more simply The Band, for short) is the official marching band of Yale University. It is a scatter band (what some peers might call a "scramble band"), as distinct from university marching bands that emphasize precise movements and geometric field formations. Band members refer to themselves as "The Members Of...", which is derived from their introduction at Yale events.

About The Band

Aside from Director Thomas C. Duffy and Business Manager Stephanie Theodos Hubbard, the band is largely student-run.

• The Drum Major conducts the band during rehearsals and at games. The current Drum Major is Katharine Walls, SM '18.
• The Manager works closely with the Drum Major to organize performances and events on-and-off campus and ensure the well-being of the group. The current Manager is Shah Khan, TC '19.
• The Production Managers (PROs) guide a production team that writes each week's halftime show. The current PROs are Seamus Houilihan, TC '19, Julian Rosenblum, JE '18, and Sara Harris, SY '19.
• The Student Arranger (STUD) heads the Musicological Junta, the student team that arranges music for the shows. The current STUD is Antonio Medina SM, '19.
• There are six sections, the leaders of which assist the Drum Major and Manager in the running of the band. They also lead sectionals and provide section morale.

The band performs at most Yale football, basketball, and hockey events, and travels with Yale athletic teams across the country. It makes regular appearances in New York's Village Halloween Parade. It has been featured on Good Morning America and in many newspapers.

The repertoire of the YPMB is constantly evolving, driven by student arrangers and pop music trends. Besides standard types of band instruments, the YPMB includes violins, bagpipes, accordions, keyboards, keytars, musical saws, and air guitars, and in 1973, was the first scatter band to incorporate electric guitars.^[2]

The YPMB's "Squids" section creates large cardboard props for halftime shows. The Squids evolved from the "Appoges" /əˈpoʊdʒɪz/ (after "appoggiatura", a grace note) of the 1980s and 1990s, who handled props but also carried their own "instruments" (frisbees, stuffed giraffes, lounge chairs). The Squids have also been known to handle more visually stunning aspects of the halftime show, such as flaming sousaphones, blank-loaded firearms, and other non-traditional marching band additions. The appearance at certain games of smoke- and flame-producing pyrotechnics has also been linked to the YPMB Squids, but this has never been successfully confirmed via official channels. Squid alumni have gone on to join The Flaming Lotus Girls, The Cacophony Society, professional pyrotechnic companies, and other groups.

YPMB uniforms consist of white pants and dark blue blazers with the University emblem for football games; signature t-shirts for basketball and volleyball games; and hockey jerseys for hockey, lacrosse, and most other sports.

The Game

For the annual Harvard-Yale game - The Game - the YPMB puts on its largest halftime show of the year, featuring enormous three-dimensional props. Known as "Überprops", these typically serve as a means of destroying John Harvard. An Unterprop is the opposite of an Überprop. An Unterprop would be used to represent John Harvard and would be destroyed by the band during the halftime show. An Unterprop was used for the first time in 2001.

Überprops

Überprop "Dmitri" at The Game 2010 (in attack position)

Überprop "Peggy" at The Game 2006 (wings folded)

• 2016: "Batilla" a 12 foot long Batmobile which lead the college flags in a jailbreak to free Boola the Bulldog.
• 2012: "Ziggy the Ziggurat" a two part Mayan temple where the college flags could remain hidden from view along with a podium in the middle in which a person could climb up.
• 2011: "Eustace," an 13 feet (4.0 m) tall bulldog Patronus who repelled the dementors of John Harvoldemort.
• 2010: "Dmitri," a sparkling blue toruk (the species of dragon from the movie Avatar), which the reigning squiddeities rode onto the field.
• 2009: "Shield of Yaleonidas," a mosaic of 64 shields that, when held up together, formed a giant Yale crest, and then flipped to read "Yale Will Win"
• 2008: "Berlin Wall", a large model of the Berlin Wall covered in graffiti against Harvard. (The content of this graffiti caused the band's director to suspend the band from upcoming performances and appearances.^[3])
• 2007: "Bessie," a stegosaurus-like creature with a moving head and jaw and a moustache in the likeness of the one worn by (then) Yale College's Dean, Peter Salovey.
• 2006: "Peggy," a giant pegasus with a 40-foot (12 m) wingspan.
• 2005: "WWI Tank," with a turret, treads, and 15-foot-long PVC pipe gun that shot out smoke as it destroyed the Harvard observation balloon
• 2004: "Alain," a giant blue dodecapus with 70-foot (21 m) tentacles
• 2003: "The Spider," a 30-foot-long, 20-foot-tall spider with independently moving legs and bloody mandibles, accompanied onto the field by a roughly 300-square-yard web
• 2002: "The Snake," a snake that was 105 feet (32 m) long and 10 feet (3.0 m) wide
• 2001: "Peaches," an enormous fire-breathing blue dragon
• 2000: "The Booty Hunter," a two-story pirate ship with simulated cannon fire
• 1999: "The Train," a 40-foot (12 m) train with several boxcars
• 1998: "The Tank," a tank with gun turret
• 1997: "Nessie," the Loch Ness monster
• 1996: "The Shark"
• 1995: "The Gallows", a hangman-style noose erected to tear the tab off of a large soda can
• 1994: "The Volcano", a 12-foot (3.7 m) smoke-belching volcano into which a Harvard student was sacrificed (the student was spit out by the volcano)
• 1989: "The Drum", a drum twice the diameter of the Harvard drum, out of which the Yale Bulldog Mascot jumped after the drum exploded
• 1988: "The Guillotine", a giant guillotine that spanned half the width of the field

Unterprops

• 2016: A large Harvard jail cell which was used to imprison Boola the Bulldog.
• 2015: A 15' canvas structure with a 10' PVC gun painted to resemble a Havard death ray.^[4]
• 2013: A large weather balloon painted to resemble a Harvard-themed Death Star.
• 2011: Three red-colored Harvard Dementors, come to suck the fun, hot breakfast, and attractive people from Yale as such things are rare in Cambridge.
• 2010: Cantabot 2.0 and cardboard vuvuzelas
• 2009: A battering ram with the head of John Harvard at its forefront.
• 2008: A phallic missile
• 2007: Three pterodactyls in the service of Harvard.
• 2006: A hydra that sprouted two heads when one was cut off.
• 2005: A Helium-filled observation balloon (the first ever flying ünterprop), Yale biplanes (Allies) and Harvard triplanes (German).
• 2004: The "HSS Compensation," a 30-foot (9.1 m) long ship operated by John Harvard and commandeered by "Alain."
• 2001: The Harvard Castle, attacked by "Peaches" the dragon.

Notable stunts

On October 27, 1973 in a rare political statement, the YPMB reacted to Richard Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" (wherein he ordered the firing of the special prosecutor assigned to investigate Watergate) by forming a major "H" on the field and playing "10,000 Men of Harvard". The band paid tribute Harvard Graduate Elliot Richardson who resigned rather than carry out the order to fire Harvard Law professor Archibald Cox. The order was carried out by Yale Law professor Robert Bork.

In September 1977, at the conclusion of the halftime show at the Yale-Brown game, the YPMB formed a giant diaper on the field. The members of the YPMB dropped their pants en masse to reveal that all members were wearing diapers. (The band marched "Down the Field" with their pants around their ankles.) The announcer stated that the YPMB was the "Most Pampered Band in the Country" as they marched off. This became known as one of its more infamous stunts; the band parodied that stunt at the Princeton game in 1983, where the band dropped its pants en masse again, this time to reveal that all members were wearing sweat pants underneath their white uniform pants.

In October 1985, six YPMB members were suspended after dropping their pants at halftime during the Yale-Holy Cross game (New York Times, October 20, 1985, 11CN p. 17). Only one week earlier, the band was forbidden by West Point officials from performing its halftime show during the Army-Yale game for the script's insinuation that certain government officials were communists. The following season, in the Yale-Army game at New Haven, the YPMB took the unusual step of marching in straight lines for several minutes before breaking into its usual scatter formations. (NYT 10/7/86, B4) Before the band left the field, members removed their blue blazers on the field, spelling out "USA."

In 1992, before the combined playing of the "Star-Spangled Banner", the Harvard marching band attempted to "X-out" the Yale Precision Marching Band while the Yale band stood in its traditional Y formation; however, the Yale band caught wind of this plan and, as the Harvard band marched onto the field, shifted its formation into a large H, thus making Harvard X itself out.

In 1992, the Yale-Fordham halftime featured the marriage of two former band members, Drum Major James Lockman '89 and Props Goddess Rori Myers '92. ("At Yale, Wedding Band Takes On a New Meaning", New York Times, October 10, 1992.) During the ceremony, the band formed a three-tiered wedding cake; at each corner of the cake, serving as a candle, was a sousaphone that was on fire. In 2012, they celebrated their 20th anniversary during the pregame show at the Yale-Princeton game.

In 1993, the Yale-Harvard halftime show included the "assassination" of the Energizer Bunny(a bass drum player) -- the band formed a forty-yard bow and arrow, and "shot" the arrow at the Bunny. After they missed, the drum major took out a shotgun and blew the Bunny away. He was carried off by band members dressed as dining hall workers.

After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the YPMB became a source of minor controversy for performing a halftime show parodying the history of jingoism in American media and culture, including patriotic bowdlerization, and addressing the possibility of conscription. A strong negative reaction from a several audience members, including boos (especially when "War" was spelled on the field) and angry letters to administrators and newspapers, led the band to limit the often aggressive political content of its shows through at least the 2002 season. Negative reactions were heightened by the fact the show took place on Yale Parents' Weekend.

Drum Majors

YPMB Drum Majors are the political, social, and spiritual leaders of the band. They are usually elected by committee in January, and serve their sentence through the subsequent football season. Most Drum Majors are elected in their junior year, passing the torch to the next generation before they graduate. The current Drum Major is Katharine Walls, SM '18.

Repertoire

• Bulldog, Eli Yale words and music by Cole Porter class of 1913
• Bright College Years (the unofficial alma mater of Yale University) words by Henry Durand in 1881 to the music of Die Wacht am Rhein
• Down the Field (march two step) words by Stanleigh P. Friedman; arranged by G.L. Atwater, Jr.; published in 1905 by the Chas H. Loomis Company (New Haven, CT)^[5]
• Yale Boola, Boola (march) words and music by A. M. Hirsh; arranged by G. L. Jr. Atwater; Original Copyright 1906 by Leo Feist^[6]
• Yale College Life words by T. Herbert Reed; arranged by J.C. Heed; Original Copyright: 1903 By: Reed, Dawson & Co.^[7]
• Sons of Yale: Here's to Good Old Yale Alternative title March Blue arranged by JL Lake; Original Copyright: 1917 by Carl Fischer^[8]

The Band's repertoire includes hundreds of songs arranged by the YPMB Junta, the Band's own syndicate of arranger-transcribers. These dedicated and talented folks manage to add more than 30 pieces to the Band music library every year. The YPMB runs the gamut of genres, from Hip Hop to Techno, Pop to R&B, and, of course, plenty of straight Rock.^[9]

References

External links

• Yale Precision Marching Band
• Yale University