During halftime, the band marches out towards a crowd of Tinley students, parents, and sports fans to perform their halftime show. Much like the football team, the band requires weeks of practice to nail down their halftime performance. Music, movements, music parts, uniforms, and much more go into this show. While it may look effortless, it takes the hard work and diligence of each band member to perform the show. Every musician needs to be in the right spot at the right time, playing the right music. While the weeks of practice are long, the end result is a great show for our school.

    Weeks prior to school even starting, the band fills an empty Tinley Park High School to gather and practice for the football season. This practice continues for two weeks, and even into the school year on select days. The first week of this practice camp is dedicated to learning and memorizing the music for the show. Not only halftime music, the band is responsible for the star spangled banner, school song, and music to be played in the stands. This music will be learned and memorized during the first week. Typically the first two days will be used for learning the music and being able to play it properly. After the music has been learned, musicians will slowly memorize the music measure by measure, to understand what notes are played when. This gradual memorization technique proves to be effective in memorizing long pieces.

    After all the music has been learned, memorized, and up to standards, the band is able to move outside to learn the movements which accompany the music. This next step is typically done at the start of the second week or end of the first. Every musician receives a booklet of paper assigning musicians to numbers to show where they will move on the field. Colors will be assigned to each move, as plastic circular chips are placed down for each move to memorize where each musician will stand. The learning process with the movements begins with just placing the colored chips down, starting with the first few moves to nail down the movements. Once all the movements have been learned, memorized, and performed up to tempo, the music will be played with the movements. 

            Two specific individuals conduct the band to maintain proper tempo and movements: the drum majors. This year, these individuals are Jodi Newtoff and Dylan Costello. Both of these musicians had to audition for this spot in front of the entire band and write why they are a good fit for this position. Given the importance of this position, this selective audition process ensures that the best suited musicians will be chosen for this spot. Ultimately every musician plays a crucial role in executing an amazing halftime show and music for Tinley Park High School. With the talent of all musicians involved and the leadership of the drum majors and the band director, Vince Aiello, the halftime show always turns out successful.