For the 2025-26 school year, Midtown´s marching band, the Marching Midknights, grew to have over 60 members, with a majority of new members being freshmen.
With the new influx of members, the Marching Midknights now have a strong brass and percussion section, which was a challenge to achieve in previous years. The director of the Marching Midknights, Carlton Williams, believes that the brass section, especially in a marching band, is the most crucial component.
“You have All-State [Band/Orchestra] woodwind players but at the same time, no matter how well they play, they would never measure up to the volume of what a brass player can do outside,” Williams said. “It comes to just sheer volume and what an instrument can do. I think when you see brass instruments out there, it sort of makes you think [of a] marching band. You have Drum Core International bands that are 100% brass instruments, but in high school marching band, you’ve got your woodwinds, but the brass players really set it off.”
Williams also believes building a solid brass section in high school starts with elementary and middle school, when students first begin playing their instruments.
“I think in elementary [school], there are so many woodwind [players] and percussionists,” Williams said. “The elementary bands don’t start tuba players, they start trumpets and what happens is the ‘seventh grade burn out.’ The data shows that when a kid starts band in fourth grade, by the time they get to seventh grade, they are a little burnt out. The drummers and the woodwind players are not burnt out, so I get them. The brass players are at the age now where they can do sports.”
Over the last two weeks of summer, members attend band camp at Midtown, where new members learn how to march and begin practicing music.
“We spent a great deal of band camp getting [the members] back acclimated [to] playing because this is Atlanta and a lot of kids don’t practice over the summer,” Williams said. “We spend a lot of time drilling, [playing] technique essentials, getting good tone out of the instrument [and] getting back used to playing instruments. I don’t want to call it a hard reset, but in a lot of aspects you are resetting.”
The Marching Midknights drum major, junior Amauri Perrier, is tasked with leading the marching band during games and performances, which includes marching in front of them and conducting. Perrier has worked to expand his role and make a greater connection with the new members.
“[The drum major] is a role where you’re meant to know everybody, and just be able to have a relationship with everybody,” Perrier said. “It’s been harder [with more people], but it’s been something I’ve been managing. It’s a really great group of kids; a lot of the new people in the band are freshmen, and most of the band is new people, so they’re joining the family we’ve created over the past few years.”
The percussion section of the Marching Midknights is expected to conduct their own practices and write new pieces, forming a band within the band. Because of this, one of the percussion section leaders, junior Ramona Muse, has also had to expand her role to account for the new percussion members.
“Me and Dilla [Jackson] are the two section leaders, and the only other upperclassmen in the group is Nevaeh [Hambrick], who is a leader in the band as well, and Jordan [Davis],” Muse said. “Other than us, everybody else is either a freshman, an underclassman or a new member. There’s a lot of people in places they haven’t been before and it takes a lot from me and Dilla to be able to teach everyone what their parts are going to be, especially for percussion when we come up with parts on the spot and have to teach it to each other very quickly. That takes a lot of practice that they’re still getting the hang of.”
By the end of the year, Perrier hopes to develop stronger connections and confidence within the Marching Midknights.
“Obviously I want the band to be confident in themselves,” Perrier said. “I want us to perform without any jitters, I want us to perform at our best throughout the year and especially towards the end of the year. I want to see more relationships grow out of band, [and] more friendships grow. We have a very long time so I’m sure these things will happen, but it’s exciting to see how everyone’s growing; it’s just the beginning and everyone’s going to get better.”
