Mississippi State band camp is back and larger this year

It's time to crank up the tunes for band students at Mississippi State

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – It’s time to crank up the tunes for band students at Mississippi State. Band camp kicked off Monday for the Bulldogs and goes on all week.

Just like the Bulldogs Football team, the Famous Maroon Band has to put in time on the practice field before they hit Davis Wade Stadium for the first time on September 2, 2023.

Monday kicked off band camp for students and there’s a lot of excitement buzzing around the band hall

“We actually added another show so we’re doing three shows instead of two so I’m excited to see the new dynamic on the new speeds on how we’re going to have to learn things. We have 150 freshmen which is more than we’ve had we’re back in the 400s for our membership so I’m excited about that,” said drum major Madeline Kelly.

“I’m so excited to get up on that stand and hear the full blast of 400 individuals playing straight at me and at a stadium with even more people,” said drum major Christopher Jalavette.

This year there will be a little more for students to learn and several new faces that have joined the family.

“It’s a lot of hard work, we’re outside most of the time obviously we’re inside when we can be it’s a lot of marching a lot of getting used to the music, and our music this year is really hard and so trying to teach you to know people who are coming from small high school bands how to play music for a 400 player band is one of the main challenges,” said Kelly.

The band will practice all week and learn the first halftime and pregame show. Every day of practice will be different some sessions will go from 7:30 a.m. until 9 p.m.

This year, gameday will be different too.

“It’s a bunch of new things this year McCarthy Gymnasium got torn down so we’re going to have new traditions starting up,” said Kelly.

Students are excited to hit Davis Wade in a couple of weeks and can’t wait to showcase all of their hard work.

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