The sun was just coming up, and students in Hurst's L.D. Bell Blue Raider Band were on the practice field.
"Set up! Same assignment," Senior Drum Major Nathan Lum said looking over the band atop a ladder.
The goal of practice is to make a hard performance look easy. "So you're talking about marching in time, playing in time, dancing in time, while also memorizing all the movement all of the music."
The marching band is preparing to perform at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2025. That's more than a year away, but practice starts now.
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"It just gives me chills sometimes, you know," trombone player Nicolas Barrientos said. "We're going all the way from New York over here from Texas!"
The 'Bell Band' is one of about a dozen high school marching bands chosen to perform in next year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the only band from Texas.
"Which is a huge honor, because Texas has many of the best band programs in the country," L.D. Bell High School Director of Bands Suzanne Dell said. "This is just gonna be an opportunity to just go and perform and have a great time doing something at a really high level with all of your friends at one of the most iconic events."
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Getting there costs money. The band has already started a fundraising campaign for the trip.
"Because it's obviously a pretty big financial commitment to get to New York City, spend a week there," Dell said. "I mean we're not gonna just roll in and do the parade. It's the chance of a lifetime for a lot of these kids to get to go to the city...we want to be able to take them to a Broadway show, fly them on airplanes out there, all the bells and whistles. Get a good New York experience!"
Last year's parade set a record with more than 28 million people watching.
"The fact that we got chosen to be in something so huge," Percussion Captain Penelope Bush said. "It didn't feel, like, real!"
"I want people to feel the joy of the Bell Band that we feel whenever we're playing," Barrientos said.
