The Band

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I am class of '32. In my day we enjoyed the unexcelled band leadership of Leroy Anderson, recently honored by the Varsity Club. Anderson was brilliantly inventive and such qualities are inimitable. But he had one basic concept which requires no genius at all: that the proper function of a musical organization is to make music.

Now (for some decades if I don't overestimate) the Band devotes its halftime shows to current events, each time attempting to connect such events with what they consider appropriate tunes and formation of letters. The results have been an almost uninterrupted series of flops. People listen a little, fail to recognize or connect the tunes, get bored, and start up conversations in the stands. A subdued roar is the collective result. Gradually this increases until at the end of the show one can scarcely hear the announcer and literally no one is paying the band the slightest attention. This is, I believe, an accurate description of the Yale game halftime this year. The only relief was provided by the antics of the MIT gang.

By contrast, when sections of the Harvard Band barged in on some of our gatherings at my fiftieth reunion this past spring, and made music, they were great. Everybody really liked it and responded accordingly.

It hurts me to see the Band, at its most public moments, discredit itself week after week, year after year. I can understand if one has an idea, tries it, and it doesn't go over. One discards it and all is soon forgotten and forgiven. But the pig-headed obstinacy of your present leadership in persisting for years with an approach that would close on Broadway after the opening week--this is unreasonable, and also inexcusable. It is rotten leadership.

The question at once arises, how could you improve? Criticism is somewhat unfair unless a better alternative is offered. Well, consider your resources. Harvard supposedly has the best music department in the country. Surely there are some who understand band orchestration, some who are inventive enough to continue the Anderson style, which was innovative use of the Band in a musical way.

If others wish, let them march in infinitely complex (but usually boring) formations. Let others continue to allow the one hundred odd musicians to languish on the field while someone on the PA system, in a nauseatingly self-satisfied tone of voice, makes what are supposedly 'cute' remarks but are in fact a series of solid lead balloons, so tiresome that soon no one listens at all. You have a great opportunity to revivify the whole scene and provoke once again the comment in the New Yorker 'the best in the business.' All it takes is two qualities supposedly often present at Harvard: independent thinking and the courage to act upon it if it points away from the current path of the majority. Let's get a little Harvard into the Harvard Band! Jack Barnaby '32   Squash Coach

This letter was submitted as an open letter to the Band.