Columbia University Marching Band

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Columbia University Marching Band (CUMB)
The Columbia University Marching Band (CUMB).jpg
CUMB on the field at Wien Stadium, November 17, 2018
School Columbia University
Location New York City, US
Conference Ivy League
Founded1904 (defunct in 2020)
Fight song"Roar, Lion, Roar"
Motto"The Cleverest Band in the World"
Website CUMB

The Columbia University Marching Band (CUMB) was the marching band of Columbia University. Founded in 1904, it claimed to be the first college or university marching band in the United States to convert to a scramble band format, making the switch in the 1950s. Today, all of the Ivy League bands (except Cornell), as well as the Stanford Band, William & Mary Pep Band, and Marching Owl Band have adopted the scramble band style.

Contents

The CUMB had a reputation for edgy humor and is often thought to be the most controversial and irreverent of the scramble bands. Since the 1960s, national news outlets have covered the band's most infamous pranks. CUMB billed itself as "The Cleverest Band in the World." In September 2019, the band was officially banned from Columbia athletic events and its funding revoked, [1] with many pointing to the administration's distaste for the band following the Orgo Night controversy. [2] On September 14, 2020, following allegations of inappropriate behavior, the band voted to disband. [3] [4]

Performances

In addition to playing at every Columbia football game, the band played in the stands at Levien Gym for Columbia basketball games, and at various other events. These have included the New York City Marathon, the Walk Against AIDS, and at New York City's 34th Street post office on Tax Day. The CUMB appeared on many television programs including an early episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, the Late Show with David Letterman, The CBS Morning Show, MTV's Total Request Live, The Howard Stern TV Show (on WWOR), and Columbia's student run television station CTV. CUMB had also been featured in the films Turk 182! and Game Day. In the final years their musicianship had improved exponentially, and they have been invited to perform at New York Fashion Week, birthday parties, and Good Morning Tokyo.

Orgo Night

In one of the school's longest-lasting traditions, begun in 1975, [5] at midnight before the Organic Chemistry exam—often the first day of final exams—the Columbia University Marching Band invaded and briefly occupied the main undergraduate reading room in Butler Library to distract and entertain studying students with some forty-five minutes of raucous jokes and music, beginning and ending with the singing of the school's fight song, "Roar, Lion, Roar". After the main show before a crowd that routinely began filling the room well before the announced midnight start time, the Band led a procession to several campus locations, including the residential quadrangle of Barnard College for more music and temporary relief from the stress of last-minute studying.

In December 2016, following several years of sporadic complaints by students who said that some Orgo Night scripts and advertising posters left them "triggered" and "traumatized" and called for the show to be canceled, [6] as well as a New York Times article on the Band's treatment of sexual assault on campus, [7] University administrators banned the Marching Band from performing its Orgo Night show in the traditional Butler Library location. Protests and accusations of censorship [8] followed, but University President Lee Bollinger maintained that complaints and publicity about the shows had "nothing to do with" the prohibition. [9] In subfreezing weather, the Band instead performed—at midnight, as usual—outside the main entrance of Butler Library.

The Band's official alumni organization, the Columbia University Band Alumni Association, registered protests with the administration, [10] and an ad hoc group of alumni writing under the name "A. Hamiltonius" published a series of pamphlets exhaustively addressing the issue, [11] but at the end of the spring 2017 semester the university administration held firm, [12] prompting the Marching Band to again stage its show outside the building. For Orgo Night December 2017, Band members quietly infiltrated the Library with their musical instruments during the evening and popped up at midnight to perform the show inside despite the ban. [13] Prior to the spring 2018 exam period, the administration warned the group's leaders against a repeat and restated the injunction, warning of sanctions; the Band again staged its Orgo Night show in front of the library. [14]

Miscellaneous Instruments

One innovation of the CUMB was the introduction of the "miscie," which rhymes with "whiskey" and is short for miscellaneous. While many of the band members carried a musical instrument onto the field, the band's miscies carry whatever they choose. Some miscie instruments of the past have included a washboard, spoons, juggled balls/pins, the Game Boy Advance, the ROLM phone, beer bottles, spare tires, steel mailboxes, condom harp, football stadium bench (no longer attached to the stadium), passenger handle from the interior of an MTA Redbird subway car, unicycle, and kitchen sink. Towards the end of the Band, the miscie section had a toilet seat player. Other, slightly more melodious, instruments have included the shofar, the E♭ contrabass sarrusophone, a didgeridoo (the didge), and the B♭ lenthopipe (an 8-foot length of electrical conduit, with rubber hose and horn mouthpiece at the bottom end, and funnel at the extreme end).

Band members had a long history of raiding competitive Ivy League schools and other institutions for memorabilia, including flags of Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and University of California, Berkeley and the outsized stick used to beat the Harvard University Band's iconic giant bass drum. In a guerrilla action, the band once surreptitiously switched its regular dress for the dark blue of Yale University and appeared in the Yale Bowl as the Yale Precision Marching Band.

Controversies

The band regularly stirs up controversy due to its irreverent sense of humor.

Related Research Articles

Columbia University Private university in New York City

Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, Columbia is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and is considered one of the most prestigious schools in the world. It is one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence, seven of which belong to the Ivy League. Columbia is ranked among the top universities in the world.

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The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term Ivy League is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools as a group of elite colleges with connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism. Its members are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University.

The Virginia Pep Band was a student-run musical ensemble at the University of Virginia (UVa), officially known as "The Award-Winning Virginia Fighting Cavalier Indoor/Outdoor Precision(?) Marching Pep Band, & Chowder Society Review, Unlimited!!!". In the tradition of scatter or scramble bands, like those at Stanford, Rice and the Ivy League, the Pep Band preferred irreverent humor and individuality to marching in uniform formations. Founded in 1974, this group of students served as UVa's band supporting athletics in an official capacity until 2003. After being banned from official athletic events in 2003, the group continued to perform at sporting events such as swimming, field hockey, and ice hockey. The ensemble has also performed at Charlottesville community events including the Charlottesville 10-miler, the Alzheimer's Walk, and the United Way Day of Caring.

Fordham University Private university in New York City

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Columbia College (New York) Oldest undergraduate college of Columbia University

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A scramble band - also known as a scatter band - is a particular type of field-performing marching band with distinct characteristics that set it apart from other common forms of marching bands; most notably, scramble bands do not normally march. In fact, the name comes from the way in which the band moves between formations – members run to each form without using a predescribed path; this is known as scrambling or, in the western half of the United States, scattering.

Lee Bollinger American lawyer and educator

Lee Carroll Bollinger is an American lawyer and educator who is serving as the 19th and current president of Columbia University, where he is also the Seth Low Professor of the University and a faculty member of Columbia Law School. Formerly the president of the University of Michigan, he is a noted legal scholar of the First Amendment and freedom of speech. He was at the center of two notable United States Supreme Court cases regarding the use of affirmative action in admissions processes.

Harvard–Yale football rivalry American football university rivalry

The Harvard–Yale football rivalry is renewed annually with The Game, an American college football match between the Harvard Crimson football team of Harvard University and the Yale Bulldogs football team of Yale University.

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The Yale Precision Marching Band is the official marching band of Yale University. It is a scatter band, as distinct from university marching bands that emphasize precise movements and geometric field formations. Band members refer to themselves as "The Members Of...", which is derived from their introduction at Yale events.

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2004 Harvard–Yale prank

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The Liberty Cup is a trophy awarded to the winner of the college football game between Columbia University and Fordham University, two National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I football programs in New York City. The cup was awarded annually from 2002 to 2015, but the two teams have not met since then.

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References

  1. Witz, Billy (2019-10-01). "Columbia Silences Its Marching Band". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-10-04.
  2. Bellafante, Ginia (2019-02-01). "And the Band Played Until Someone Complained". The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-10-04.
  3. "Columbia University Marching Band votes to disband after 116 years".
  4. Kilgannon, Corey (15 September 2020). "Columbia Marching Band Shuts Itself Down over 'Offensive Behavior'". The New York Times.
  5. "Columbia Cram Session Can Be Fun, Too". The New York Times. 1975-12-20. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  6. "If you go to Orgo Night, you're part of the problem". Columbia Daily Spectator. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  7. Taylor, Kate (2015-05-09). "This Year, Columbia Event Finds Joke Fodder in Sexual Assault Debate". The New York Times. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  8. "University denies marching band access to Butler Library for Orgo Night – Columbia Daily Spectator". columbiaspectator.com. Retrieved January 20, 2017.
  9. "Bollinger defends University's decision to ban Orgo Night from Butler – Columbia Daily Spectator". columbiaspectator.com. Retrieved January 20, 2017.
  10. "Orgo Night!". columbiabandalumni.org. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  11. "In Defense of Orgo Night" . Retrieved January 20, 2017.
  12. "University stands by decision to ban Orgo Night from Butler as alumni pressure mounts - Columbia Daily Spectator". columbiaspectator.com. Retrieved July 11, 2017.
  13. Piper, Greg (2017-12-21). "How Columbia's politically incorrect marching band outwitted the administration's censorship attempt". The College Fix. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  14. "Orgo Night Spring 2018 Liveblog". 2018-05-04.
  15. Carlinsky, Dan. "Ha Ha Ha Goes the Piccolo". Sports Illustrated Vault | SI.com. Retrieved 2022-08-19.
  16. 1 2 3 "Marching Band Stirs Fans, Controversy". Columbia Daily Spectator. March 6, 2008. Retrieved 2022-08-19.
  17. 1 2 3 John, Warren St (2002-09-29). "And the Band Misbehaved On . . ". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2022-08-19.
  18. "Columbia Marches to a Different Drummer". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2022-08-19.
  19. Zinser, Lynn (17 November 2011). "Lyrics Briefly Draw a Penalty After a Columbia Loss". The New York Times.
  20. Darcy, Kieran (17 November 2011). "Columbia band banned from home finale". ESPN.
  21. Davidson, Jake (13 December 2012). "Shollenberger criticizes Orgo Night posters (UPDATED)". Columbia Daily Spectator. Archived from the original on 11 December 2013. Retrieved 18 September 2020.

Bibliography