After Marching Band is one of the speculative short stories in Section 3 of my book ImaginingPossibilities. Here’s some of the backstory and context around it.
Contents
Backstory and Context
I started writing After Marching Band in 2018 while participating in a Cli-Fi(climate fiction) writing workshop led by AZ science fiction author Malik Toms.
The kernel of the story came to me a bit earlier while I was sitting in my back “yard” trying to relax while being frustrated at the loud mechanical rumble of air conditioner units. I started to wonder when it might get too hot for marching band to exist outside. Arizona summers are sweltering and getting worse. Heat, drought, and related issues are significant concerns for the future (and the present), particularly for vulnerable populations.
My interest in exploring climate change and related socio-cultural issues was further catalyzed by the book The Weight of Light, a collection of speculative short stories of solar futures, led by ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination. I wondered what role music education could play in addressing the climate crisis, which eventually led to a related collaboration with colleagues at ASU and high school music programs (Tobias et al., 2023). Working on After Marching Band throughout the Clifi writing workshop provided an opportunity to explore possibilities around learners taking the lead in project-based approaches in an ensemble setting. This was spurred by a comment that the workshop facilitator, Malik Toms, made in an early draft of my story to lean in more to the idea of music teacher, Sam Trainor, not being the protagonist. This led to re-framing learner-centeredness and project-based learning in a way where students took over and the music teacher was supportive but following learners’ leads.
After the workshop ended, I shelved the story until taking it up again for the 2019 Mountain Lake Colloquium when I shared it as part of a presentation titled “Imagining Possibilities: Speculative Futures, Curricular Inquiry, and Music Learning and Teaching,” where some of the themes in this text started to cohere.
This was also around the time that I started to explore futures thinking and speculative futures in relation to music learning and teaching more seriously.
As someone who was one of the “hardcore” marching band kids who marched drum corps and who as an undergraduate complained to my Dean that we did not have a marching band techniques course, co-created an unofficial version that ran basics blocks in the school’s courtyard, and then tried to start the North East Marching Arts Association (NEMAA, a competitive marching band circuit in the North Country), and who has since pivoted into far different contexts for music learning and teaching, it was interesting to re-visit what, for many, is untouchable even as questions circulate about the implications of competition or the ethics of how budgets are prioritized.
However, After Marching Band is not about marching band or about marching bands going away. Rather, this story explores what could happen when we support learners in exploring interests through project-based learning and imagine possibilities of music education having a positive impact on society.
Possible Futures Themes in After Marching Band
- Climate change
- Robotics and technology
- STEM/STEAM and music
Curricular Concepts and Themes in After Marching Band
- What constitutes musical engagement?
- Values and metrics of success
- Project-based learning
- Music for social change