- Marching Season - The months of August, September, October, November and part of December. During these months The band is preparing for field show competitions, parades, and football games.
- Marching Shoes - Shoes that are ugly, cheap, mandatory to wear at performances, yet surprisingly comfortable
- Mark Time - A type of marching in place by only moving the heels while keeping time to
- Melody - The main part of a song that is usu. played by the trumpets, piccolos, or other screachingly loud instruments
- Memorization - The act of learning the melody of a song by memory so that you can play the cool part instead of your own part.
- Mezzo-Piano (mp) - The loudest dynamic reachable for any woodwind excluding the piccolo.
- Motivation - Cruel torture.
- Mouthpiece - Useful to mark positions in pictures.
- Music - A sound other than noise and therefore never created during marching band; sheets of paper covered in lines, dots, and other weird symbols that in theory are supposed to tell the player what the noise coming out the end of their horn should sound like.
- Newbies - People new to the band whether freshmen or transfers; more fresh meat
- Notes - Dots with lines and flags sometimes attached to them that represent the pitches trying to be attained by a player.
- Oboe - Double-reeded instrument that sounds like a mosquito.
- Orch Dorks - Members of the evil stringed orchestra.
- Orchestra, Stringed - Arch enemy of the band that uses stringed instruments like violins.
- Pads - Something that swells and falls off woodwinds when wet and causes air leaks.
- Parade - Torture used even in hell that consists of marching miles and miles while only playing one or two songs
- . Parade Rest - Form of attention where everyone talks
- Peanut Gallery - Non-bandie student body
- Pep Band - A small group of band members that for some unknown reason travel with the football team
- Pep Rally - Another excuse to play the fight song and act like animals.
- Percussion - Any instrument that is played by hitting one thing against another. ex. snare drum, bass drum, bells, cymbals, marimba, heads.
- Performance - See Concert
- Piano - A string instrument; a dynamic where the director asks that only 1/3 of the band actually play while the rest fake it.
- Piccolo - A flute type instrument that, unlike its lower counterpart and other woodwinds, is so high that you can actually hear that it's out of tune.
- Pit - People, mostly percussionists, that can't march and therefore stand on the sideline.
- Plume - Dead bird that adds 9 inches to a hat.
- Power Trip - When a person THINKS that they are
- Practice - The continual repetition of a sequence of notes in an attempt to become more skilled; a form of torture for a band member's family
- Practice, Home - Something no one does
- Practice Field - Place of much work and sweat; place made entirely of mud, rocks, and holes.
- Practice Room - Place to smooch.
- . Prance - Something the guard tries to do
- Preset - Start point of a drill
- Preset, Back to - Different depending on sections. Woodwinds: walk slowly while mumbling complaints. Brass: complain loudy, curse, and storm to their spots then yell
- Rain - Nature's way of telling a band that they need to go inside to practice their music.
- Reed - A thin piece of wood fixed to the mouthpiece of most woodwinds that causes noise when vibrated; a great excuse for bad sound and/or squeaks. Usage: Sorry, my reed is new and Oops, my reed just broke; something to plug up a clarinet players's mouth.
- Rehearsal - Attempt to get better before a performance.
- School - Place bandies attend only because they must rest between marching practice.
- Section - Group of people that play the same instrument and consider it the best instrument to play.
- Section Leader - The oldest and/or best player in the section that has the right to boss around people in their section. No leadership qualities are necessarily required.
- Senior - A person that thinks they know everything and won't shut up till they have told you all of it
- Senioritis - The condition of being a senior. Symptoms include being lazy, procrastinating, and calling seniority whenever possible.
- Seniority - The right to harrass bandies of a lower grade and skip them in the water and bus lines
- SFZ p Crescendo - BLASTING, silence, BLASTING
- Shoe Polish - Something bandies have never heard of
- Show Tunes - Songs and marching drill practiced for football halftime shows and marching festivals. see also festival tunes.
- Sleep - Something we like to day dream about; what we do in class.
- Slouch - What flutes do during concert season
- Shut Up - If you make any type of noise you will be dragged out into the street and beat with a large blunt object by every other member of the band until you are a bloody corpse.
- Snare Drum - Drum used primarily to keep the beat (whatever that is).
- Socks - Absolutely, positively must be black, but gray will do if no one sees them. As a matter of fact, white is also acceptable.
- Sophomores - People that try to make up for being picked on as freshmen by picking on this year's freshmen and eighth graders as much as they can and thus continuing the cruel circle of punishment.
- Squeak - The only sign that a woodwind, other than a piccolo, is playing.
- Stands Tunes - Funny tunes played in the stands that are played too loud and rush.
- Star Spangled Banner - Song played before home games when, for once, the people in the stands are quiet (o.k., maybe not).
- Steady Beat - Beat that is unheard and therefore no one can hear or feel.
- Student Body - Non-bandies who claim they don't give a care about the band while we bandies know that they secretly wish they were one of us
- . Summer Band Camp - Excuse to play around, act like animals, and pick on eighth graders; cruel and unusual torture.
- Teachers - School personel other than the band director that fail to understand the commitment of a bandie to the band.
- Tempo - The rate at which the mistakes occur in a song. Doubling the tempo quadruples the rate of mistakes.
- Traditions - Scary things done by the band just because
- Trombone - An instrument that makes notes by changing the size of a long slide that is unable to tune; an instrument used to propel spit while hitting people with the slide.
- Trumpet - An instrument designed to be so loud that the rest of the band is drowned out along with their mistakes except for the mistakes of the trumpet players; players of which think they are God himself reincarnated into human form.
- Tuba - Makes up the bass line; person who mindlessly chose to play the biggest, heaviest, and smelliest instrument
- Tune (In Tune) - When all the instruments in the band are within a half step of each other; something flutes and mellophones can not do.
- Under Classmen - eighth graders, freshmen and sophomores that wish they were upper classmen.
- Uniform - Hot, smelly clothing that makes you look fat and is twice as heavy when wet
- Upper Classmen - Juniors and seniors that think they are the rulers of the world and therefore boss the under classmen around.
- Valve - An essential part of a brass instrument that always sticks during important performances
- Valve Oil - Liquid that doubles as a projectile