The Auburn University Marching Band provides a traditional Auburn game day experience with entertaining shows for fans to enjoy along with the game.
The AUMB requires planning and countless hours of practice to create a successful show.
Corey Spurlin, associate director of bands, marching band director and associate professor of music, works in-season and off-season to create and design the band’s elaborate shows.
“We have brainstorming sessions usually in February where we’ll come up with the show and concepts, and we pick the music first,” Spurlin said. “We try to offer as much variety to the fans because we have people of a lot of different ages in the 86,000 people that are in there and lots of different musical tastes. So we try to make sure we’re offering something for everybody with what we put on the field between the different shows that we do.”
Once the themes and music are selected for the shows, Spurlin said he focuses on the visual components such as formations, movements of the band and incorporation of flags.
A computer program is used to chart field formation positions and prints a series of charts of specific pages which are given to the members for practice.
“During the course of practice, it takes a lot of repetition to make that muscle memory to figure out exactly how to get from one position to the next,” Spurlin said.
Spurlin said he likes to include anniversary- themed shows.
For the Georgia game, they will have a “Back to the Future” show since October 2015 is the 30-year anniversary of the characters in the movie traveling to the future.
The show for the Idaho game will have a military appreciation theme.
Spurlin said he believes the AUMB is special for many reasons.
“Precision is one of the things the military prides itself on, and marching bands have that kind of military tradition, so the precision part of our band is something that we really work toward,” Spurlin said. “There have been a number of other bands that have tried to model the jog entrance that we do out of the tunnel. And all the spell outs we do are pretty challenging. For our halftime show, with the variety of different types of stuff that we do and what we try to bring in terms of entertainment value along with the precision, hopefully the fans appreciate it.”
Spurlin commends the work ethic of his students, which he said is needed to achieve the band’s level of precision.
Elijah Clark, senior in music education with an instrumental and vocal concentration, plays the tuba.
He was a section leader last year and is a freshman adviser this year.
Clark said the four goals members try to follow are performance, ambassadorship, spirit and enjoyment.
“We always want to perform at a high level,” Clark said. “We always want to be great ambassadors for our University because we’re wearing the colors, and we feel like we’re carrying on the tradition of many, many years. We want to have great spirit and keep the spirit of Jordan-Hare alive and electric. And then after all that, we want to enjoy our experience in the band.”
He also said he loves performing pregame.
“Marching out of the tunnel for pregame is one of the greatest things in the entire world; there’s no way to share the feeling that you get,” Clark said.
Hannah Duraski, sophomore in music education, instrumental and vocal combined, is an assistant drum major.
“We are a really dedicated group of students,” Duraski said. “You don’t find a lot of people like band kids just anywhere on campus. We kind of live out the Auburn Creed.”
Duraski said her favorite moment of marching band is when they sing the Alma Mater after game day rehearsal.
“It’s one of those traditions that we’ve been doing forever, and it’s really powerful,” Duraski said.
For the San Jose State game Saturday, Oct. 3, the band will focus on homecoming and its alumni band show.
“This week is a very special week for us because … anyone who’s been in band in the past comes and joins us on the field,” Duraski said.
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