Purdue Today

Game Starters: Ishbah Cox, Purdue "All-American" Marching Band

Editor's note: Before the team takes the field and the referees call for kickoff, Purdue staff members play their part in making football games successful. Each Friday before Ross-Ade Stadium comes alive with cheering Boilermakers, a staff member who is integral to game day will be featured in Purdue Today's Game Starters series. This week’s Game Starter is Ishbah Cox, assistant director of Purdue's "All-American" Marching Band.

Since the 1950s, hundreds of high school musicians have come to Ross-Ade Stadium for Purdue's annual "All-American Band Day," and it takes the whole marching band staff including its newest director, Ishbah Cox, to pull off the massive event. 
 
Band Day 2010 -- set for the Purdue vs. Ball State game on Saturday -- combines the talents of 26 high school bands with those of the Purdue "All-American" Marching Band in a massed halftime performance. The show will feature the movie theme "Magnificent Seven," the popular tune "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga and John Phillip Sousa's rousing national march "Stars and Stripes Forever."
 
What is your role in Band Day at Purdue?
 
I am responsible for assisting the Purdue students as I do every week. I make sure they understand the drill charts and know where they need to be on the field, as well as some musical instruction. Drill charts are what we use to position students on the field to create the designs and formations the audience sees during the show. Using special software, Max Jones, one of our faculty members, creates a set of charts showing where every student needs to stand for every formation.
 
On Band Day our marching band staff of four people works as a team to train and communicate with student volunteers who act as hosts to the high school bands. We also have one full-time graduate teaching assistant who coordinates seating within the stadium. Purdue student musicians who aren't in marching band will meet and greet the high school bands at their buses. They will give game-day information and escort them to the appropriate places throughout the day. 
    
What is the experience of being out on Ross-Ade field like for a high school student?
 
It's got to be pretty amazing. You have 60,000 fans, screaming and yelling. You have your parents and other family members supporting you, you're doing something you enjoy, and you're doing it with your friends and some potential new friends. 
 
I remember my time at Band Day at Auburn University. That was one of the experiences that really pushed me to continue doing music. Band Day is an amazing thing because of the way we do it. Our Purdue students meet with the high school students. Various instrumental and auxiliary sections will meet the other sections. They hang out during rehearsal, and they play in the stands. They really get a feel and a taste of what a college game day is like. So it's pretty neat.
 
How do you get everybody ready for Band Day?
    
High school band members receive the music for the routine in late August or early September and start practicing.
 
The day gets started as early as 6 a.m. when Purdue students meet high school students at their buses and walk them over to the practice field. Our student band and theirs begin to intermingle, and we basically put the show together there within an hour to two-hour period.
    
What will the halftime show entail?
 
There are about 1,167 high school students and 372 Purdue students on the field playing, dancing or doing some kind of auxiliary unit (flags, majorettes, dance line ... basically anyone who doesn't play a musical instrument).
 
We strategically place them in areas of the field with the Purdue band in the center.
 
Using our drill charts we make sure the high school and Purdue bands are executing the drill correctly during that two-hour morning rehearsal before the game. We always have a guest conductor every year. This year Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser, motivational speaker and music educator on the Ball State faculty, will conduct the music part of the rehearsal and finesse the sound of the massed bands. Earl Dunn, director of bands emeritus at Ball State University, is also a guest conductor for Band Day and will direct the National Anthem.
 
How do you select music for combined numbers?
    
We pick music that the students will know and enjoy. We also want something that can challenge them and teach them something new.
 
Has Purdue recruited band members from this event?
 
Yes. We've capitalized greatly on the recruitment, because of the Band Day experience and interacting with our students, it's sealed the deal for many students.
 
Band Day's great for the students that we bring in. It's great for us to see and meet new people. It gives us a chance to make an impact on young people. That's what it's all about.
 
What is your favorite music to listen to?
 
I like all kinds of music. I'll give you three. I enjoy listening to gospel music. I would say urban-contemporary gospel (Fred Hammond). Gospel keeps me going. It's the good news. I enjoy listening to jazz as well (Wynton Marsalis). I also enjoy listening to wind-band and orchestral music -- Tichelli, Grainger, Mahler, Still and others. Those are my favorite three.