Every school year, the Royal Regiment marching band here at NHHS hosts band camp during summer. Band camp is known as a fun and rigorous experience – it’s a chance for freshmen to meet and form friendships with current students, and to learn how to march. It’s a time of connection and collaboration to kick off the marching season in the fall. But what does band camp actually look like?

Band camp meets weekdays from 8:00am to 3:30pm during the last two weeks of summer break. Graduating senior and band member Skye Salce-Weaver describes band camp as “one of the coolest high school experiences…a good two weeks where you get to experience this heightened level of band, and nothing but band.” 

Graduating senior and band member Kira Torres recounts their experience as a freshman in band camp, saying “I was met with such overwhelming positivity and friendliness. I quickly bonded with a lot of people there and made friendships that lasted years.” 

Band camp consists of a mix of teaching and marching practice, as well as bonding games and relationship building. “Spirits are high with all of the bonding activities, but they get higher throughout the year with football games and competitions,” Torres says. 

They note that the friendships made at this time could be with people you wouldn’t have gotten close with otherwise, explaining that, “Band camp also has you bond with people from other sections, but with regular band you bond with your own section a lot more.” In this way, band camp strengthens the community, and subsequently the collaboration and talent of the band.

In addition to the two weeks of band camp, the percussion-specific program Summer Drummers is hosted from July 5th to July 26th. Salce-Weaver, a member of the Indoor Drum Line, describes Summer Drummers as a more academic program.  

“From anybody I’ve talked to about it, as they leave [Summer Drummers] they realized they actually picked up a lot of skills outside of percussion, whether that be leadership, or scale familiarity, or rhythm reading. Summer Drummers is really cool, but I feel like it’s a more business-structured form of band camp, where it’s not about fun and bonding, it’s more so an introduction to the work side of things,” he says. 

The Royal Regiment Marching Band is under the instruction of Director Robin Sharp. He explains how important it is to develop the band before school starts, because so much time is needed to refine the group. “It’s impossible to organize such a large ensemble in a single class period,” he says. “[Band camp] helps us organize the ensemble and boost morale to start off the year.”

Torres summarizes the energy and purpose of band camp succinctly, saying “It made me fall in love with the Royal Regiment.”