One of the most frustrating things about blogging/the internet/globalization is that bad information travels just as fast and to as many people as good information. Many of you are so embarrassingly far out of your element. Others seem to have such selective memories that trying to change their minds is likely impossible. I will try anyway.
Until about four years ago, the band was situated on the field facing the student section. I'm not sure whose decision it was to put the band in the stands, closely surrounded by thousands of bodies, but I would wager that the "band administration" was not too involved in the decision. No matter whose decision it was, it can't have helped the band sound any louder. As someone, who sounded comparatively quite intelligent and probably shouldn't have based on the obviousness of the comment, said earlier, bodies absorb sound. Moreover, I believe it was written with incredulity in the original post that the student section can't hear the band very well. That's odd considering the band faces the opposite direction. Nix's MMB faced the student section and wasn't surrounded by bodies on three sides. Additionally, Nix was as intolerant of crass sounds as Prof. Boerma, and in his final years as director, Nix's MMB was about 50-100 members bigger than the current one (I was in the band under both directors). So if you found yourself nodding in agreement when reading what Brandt Goldstein and Steve sent to Brian, maybe having simply thought about how the band's situation has changed will help you along to some form of understanding.
To those of you completely out of your element: clarinets and piccolos (we don't have flutes) have a completely unique part in the Victors. It is fast, high pitched, and has large note intervals. This means that brass instruments alone, despite collectively representing bass, baritone, tenor, alto, and maybe soprano voices, would have much more difficulty playing the real version of the Victors as well and with as much ease as an MMB with piccs and clarinets. Piccs and clarinets also provide overtones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone) that make the MMB sound distinct from (some-knowledgeable-people might say better than) all or mostly brass bands like those at OSU and MSU.
People respond to PIM not because it is loud, but because it is music. The MMB is not amplified by microphones and so is not magically transported to every corner of the stadium. If you, like Brian, simply want to hear loud and not music ("What's the point of a marching band? To be audible outside in a stadium of 110,000. If you want musicality, there are a dozen other bands on campus you can join."), then neither PIM nor the MMB are for you.
Basically, I think most people appreciate mgoblog's opinions and information on football. I wouldn't expect to come on here tomorrow to find nonsensical opinions about Tort Law or Shakespeare. You're as far from a legitimate understanding of these two topics as you are music/the MMB.
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