Band Director Issues Fun ‘Marching Orders’ Amid Pandemic
Tiff Wurth, Director of Athletic Bands, is keeping her students motivated during an online semester through a unique photo challenge; students are sharing photos of themselves practicing their instruments wherever they are for the remainder of the semester.
While the weather was decent, the month of March left like a lion in many respects as the coronavirus closed schools and businesses across the country, bringing activity to a halt.
Buena Vista University students, staff, and faculty felt the blow, as the campus in Storm Lake effectively closed and students headed home. After an extended spring break, classes resumed online on March 30.
And that’s the day Tiff Wurth, BVU’s Director of Athletic Bands, came up with a new line of “marching orders.” Wurth challenged students to take a photo that showed each of them practicing music at home, or wherever they were spending the rest of the semester. Each student was to then challenge a peer to do the same.
The results have been curious, interesting, and downright fun.
Tyler Mandernach, a freshman majoring in business management, positioned himself between his John Deere tractor and a giant round bale of hay, getting a photo as he played his trumpet.
“It means to me that you can practice in the weirdest places and still have fun while practicing,” Mandernach says.
“She gives me motivation and reason to be a better musician every day. If Tiff says she won’t settle with mediocrity, I won't either.”
Joshua Bohner
Joshua Bohner took his trombone to a bridge while Emma Fuerstenberg coerced her pet dog into waving a flag, doing her part as a member of the BVU Marching Blue flag corps, a group that, along with the band, will welcome back 50 or so members next fall.
Freshman Logan Dotter played his alto saxophone in front of a 12-foot tall mouse eating a five-foot cheese wheel outside Eichten’s Cheese-N-Bison in Center City, Minn.
“We started this the first day of online classes,” says Wurth. “My thought was to have our students do something fun. It’s a positive, quirky way to get our minds off the virus.”
There’s more to it, of course, as any coach knows. “I also had the thought that if they had their horn in their hands for a photo, they might also do a little extra practice!” Wurth admits.
BVU band members send their photos, which are shared on a variety of social media outlets. A positive email from Wurth each day helps reinforce what she and BVU attempt to build with a program that has seen a great uptick in participation in parades, on Peterson Field within J. Leslie Rollins Stadium, within Siebens fieldhouse and more.
“Remember your long-term goals?” Wurth asks in an email. “Take a second today to think about those goals. Where do you want to be academically at the end of the semester? Personally? Professionally? What will you do this week that will help you get to those long-term goals? Those steps just became your short-term goals.”
“She gives me motivation and reason to be a better musician every day,” says Bohner, a freshman computer science major and music performance minor whose picture shows him playing trombone on a bridge over a creek that joins the Cannon River in Morristown, Minn. “If Tiff says she won’t settle with mediocrity, I won’t either. In addition, her emails are a constant pointer to the season ahead and its music, drill, and shows. I don’t know what I would do if we had a different director!”
And while Wurth, a tireless recruiter whose bands feature students from five states, says she’s also adjusting to a world whose cadence has been jarred in the midst of a pandemic. Her near-daily BVU-commitment photos with students in high school across the Midwest have disappeared, if only temporarily. Instead, Wurth keeps tabs on current and prospective students via Twitter, email, and other forms of communication.
“There are a lot less miles on the car this spring,” she says, “but a lot more miles on the fingertips.”
She smiles as another practice photo shows up on her phone. Wurth responds to the student and keeps pouring on the encouragement. Each day, she says, is another day closer to winning this battle. And, another day closer to the opening of fall band camp and the realization that beautiful music from young musicians will again make its wondrous way around the lakeshore campus.
“Only 132 more days,” Wurth says with a laugh. “But who’s counting?”
