5-Minute Read: Cleaning Your Halftime Show? Work Backwards!

Have you reached the "cleaning" phase of your halftime show?  If so, you know that it can be hard to keep students, and yourself, focused on that task.  We all love learning new things, be it music or drill.  But getting into the nitty-gritty details of cleaning can be grueling and frustrating.  One great tactic to shake up this process and get more done? Work backwards!

The Diminishing Returns Trap

We all face the law of diminishing returns.  Students and teachers alike get mentally fatigued over time, and later parts of our rehearsal/season can become less productive as a result.  But there's another part of the law of diminishing returns that we don't always notice.

Think about learning drill or music.  Typically, we tackle those tasks in a linear, chronological order.  Like so:

• Set 1
• Set 1 - 2
• Set 1 - 2 - 3
• Set 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
• Set 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
• Set 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - etc.

Or like so:

• Opener introductory phrase
• Opener introductory phrase - theme 1 phrase
• Opener introductory phrase - theme 1 phrase - bridge phrase - etc.

Notice how often "Set 1" and "Opener introductory phrase" occur?  While it's only natural for us to teach music and drill in chronological order, it does result in the students getting far more repetitions on the earlier material than the later material.  Thus, as the music and drill proceed to their conclusion, the students become less familiar with the task at hand.  That's diminishing return!

Work Backwards!

So, we can combat this diminishing return by cleaning our music and drill from back to the front.  Take music memorization for example.  If you do group memorization ("play phrase 1 with your music, now without, etc."), try working from the end of your last show tune, to the front.  Like so:

• Closer: Measure 51 to the end with music
• Closer: Measure 51 to the end without music
• Closer: Measure 43 to the end with music
• Closer: Measure 43 to the end without music, etc

Or with drill like this:

• Set 45 - 46
• Set 44 - 45 - 46
• Set 43 - 44 - 45 - 46
• Set 42 - 43 - 44 - 45 - 46 - etc

Now the longer your rehearsal goes, and the closer to the end of the music or drill your group gets, the more repetitions they've had on that material.

This tactic not only focuses your group's limited time on material they know the least, it also shakes up what can be a repetitive and monotonous process of cleaning.  So remember: when cleaning your halftime show, try taking a step backwards!