Band geek
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The term "band geek" refers to a division of high school and college subculture, primarily in the United States, which involves the students who are heavily involved in marching bands and concert band.
Band geek culture develops around the students' schedule of rehearsals, performances, and competitions. Also, band geeks can participate in other groups, such as jazz band, winter drumline, and winterguard. Additionally due to the amount of time spent together Colorguards have also been included into the "band geek" group, although some prefer the term "flag nerd."
Band geek can also be used as a blanket term for any student in middle or high school who plays an instrument, including students in the orchestra, or even those who play an instrument outside of school (assuming it's an instrument typically found in a concert band or orchestra). However, as the number of school strings programs have increased over the past few decades, more and more string players are preferring the more specific term "orch dork".
[edit] Band geeks in popular culture
On an episode of Spongebob Squarepants titled "Band Geeks", Spongebob and his crew are animated performing a song written specifically for the show by a band credited with the same name as the title- Band Geeks. The song, entitled "Sweet Victory", is a mix between classical rock and a power ballad, incorporating heavy use of electric guitar, electronic keyboard, and drums and minor use of bass guitar. The characters are drawn wearing traditional band uniforms, with high brimmed hats and tassles. The song has received a decent amount of praise from Spongebob fans, warranting enough popularity for copies of the clip to spring up in various places on the Internet.
The 1999 movie American Pie popularized band geeks and band camp with the catch-phrase delivered by Alyson Hannigan: "This one time, at band camp...".
The 2002 movie Drumline showed a different marching style known as high-stepping. While this is not the norm for all high school and college bands, many adopted it after the movie's release. Drumline also showed some of the stereotypes in marching band including the egotism and competition between the sections and certainly other bands. Conversely, Drumline has also led to a resurgence of interest in marching band culture and left its imprint on the young musicians themselves. Also, interest in marching band as an athletic activity has led to increased competitions to place drum corps competitions on ESPN.
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