Jude Binkley is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Mesquite for AZPreps365.com.

In the wake of COVID-19, the Mesquite marching band has found opportunities and ways to keep the music going and improve its sound.

All competitive events were canceled for the fall season. Band director David Willers, who has been with the program for five years, still wanted to give the 70 students in the band program a chance to showcase their skills.

Instead of field competitions, the band shifted to working on a marching-style show on an auditorium stage. The 40 students involved in the marching band have closely finetuned their marching for a smaller area.

“The stage is a little smaller so we can look and sound bigger there than we can on the field,” Willers said. “This has let us really get into detail about the technique and really try to establish some good habits going forward.”

It’s possible that some events will return in the spring, but they would be virtual. The band would record a field show remotely and then send in the tape to be judged.

This year the band still has had the opportunity to liven the atmosphere at all home football games.

“We see it as our responsibility to provide that school spirit and bring that whenever we can,” Willers said. “The home games have been really good for the morale and just keeping us all focused on the positive as much as we can.”

Capacity at football games has been limited to 25 percent. Some games have felt less lively for the program, and they’ve missed doing meet-and-greets at games with other bands. Willers sees the games as “a little flavor of the normal life for the kids.”

Gilbert Public Schools started the school year off with remote learning. Willers took the opportunity to collect resources from his days playing in college and turn online classes into rehearsals at home. The band also spent online classes learning about the history of marching and watching videos of some of the best groups across the country.

“They handled them really well,” Willers said. “Even going into last year from the beginning of this whole thing, we’ve just kept telling them be flexible, be adaptable and just stay engaged and involved. You can definitely see, especially with the competition things, it’s kind of taken a toll, but on the whole they’ve responded really well to it.”

Looking forward, the band program plans to continue with the indoor seasons of winter guard and winter percussion, as well as ramping into the concert band season. The program will continue to prepare shows for competitions, even though the possibility of them happening remains uncertain. Jazz band also will start up in the spring semester as the program shifts its focus into the new year.

The band also plans to hold a winter concert. If it can't safely perform in the auditorium, the band has considered doing a drive-in style concert, an idea Willers got after watching the practice be done by comedians and other live events.

“I actually kind of like what I’ve seen with instead of applauding, you turn your lights on or you honk, stuff like that,” Willers said. “I think it’s a little strange, but it creates its own unique little environment...That way we do have a performance and we could show the community what we’ve been working on.”

With all the turbulence and uncertainty during the pandemic, Willers has been thankful for his senior class, which has persevered for the program and helped keep the band enthusiastic and motivated.

“I’ll always want to throw in a thank you to the seniors, they’ve been really awesome throughout all of this,” Willers said. “Starting this year and ending last year, the class of ‘21 has just been superb.”