EASTON, Pa. — The Easton Area High School marching band is preparing for the upcoming football season with a week of heat acclimation practices.<\/p>\n
The band is working to get students accustomed to performing in hot and humid conditions before the season begins.<\/p>\n
Marching band director Chris Ballentine says the uniforms can make performing in August especially challenging.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a wool coat, and so you put that on in an August football game in 80-degree weather,” he said. “You have to train your body to handle that, or else you\u2019re not going to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The band takes regular water breaks and keeps water guns available during rehearsals to help students cool down.<\/p>\n
Senior drum major Lila Da Re says the band is also trying a new rehearsal schedule this year, with 20-minute practice periods followed by longer breaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were trying this new technique this year where we have 20-minute chunks and then we take bigger breaks, which I think has really helped our motivation throughout rehearsals,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ballentine says the \u201cBeast from the East\u201d has 340 students this year, an increase of 32 students from last year.<\/p>\n
Senior drum major and flute player Cassie Schleich says the band\u2019s size and diversity are part of what makes it special.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best part about the band is that there are so many different people from different backgrounds who can come together and share their love for music,” Schleich said. “So, if you love music, you have a place in the band, and it\u2019s really something special.\u201d<\/p>\n
The band\u2019s first performance of the season is scheduled for Aug. 28 during Easton\u2019s first football game.<\/p>\n
Beyond the high school football season, the band is also scheduled to perform at MetLife Stadium on Nov. 1, when the New York Jets host the Las Vegas Raiders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EASTON, Pa. — The Easton Area High School marching band is preparing for the upcoming football season with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,6290],"class_list":["post-265098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-easton-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}