They're not a lost cause. The director needs to take a day or two to focus on fundamentals.

Calling a middle school concert band “the worlds worst concert band” is like handing a trombone to a toddler and insulting it for not knowing what to do.

this is definitely practice, where you record the band playing it for the first time lol

Collegiate music student here. They’re not that bad. I’ve heard much worse. Listening to individual parts, I’m hearing some great tone quality, note accuracy, and articulation. Clarinet with the melody is especially killing it (maybe open your vowel shape a little, ease off the Reed). The two biggest problems are group timing and balance, which are things that every band has to work on until the day after the concert. I don’t know where they are in the terms of how long they’ve had the music. But if it’s the first week with this piece of at least 124 measures? Heck yes! Doing great! My college band sightreads from time to time, and we can sounds worse than this on a first reading. Other issue: talking. Seriously? You’re in rehearsal. Not chatting. Also a universal problem around the world though. Edit: Can we be a little nicer down in these replies? @The Dude is getting a lot of hate for his initial comment, which looks like he took down. This person doesn't deserve this much negativity thrown at them. I appreciate those of you backing me up but let's not push others down to do that :)

The fact that you can tell what song they're playing means that they're not the worst band

How do they have awesome tone but repulsive everything else??? They sound very good they just aren't together... Ever... It's strange. But I'm serioua when I say they have exquisite tone on their instruments

Having just come out of the "Jingle bells" video this sounds like hallelujah

0:26 to 0:30 has my ears utterly confused, but otherwise this wasn't even close to the worst thing I've heard as a former band kid lmao.

lol that "UH" at the end

as a flute who has gone through middle school band, maybe mine was just worse than average/you can’t hear the true extent of their tone, but the flutes here sound pretty good for middle schoolers. Are they together? ha. But is their tone airy and unclear? not much actually. Are they out of tune? Definitely am used to much worse from middle school flutes. All in all 6/10 id give them another 2 or 3 points if they just learned to look at their director

The director needs to teach the students how to play together and the main basics

people who groan obnoxiously loud at the music are almost never the best player in the room either

0:27 that saxophone or clarinet sounded h0t

Still not that bad compared to other videos on the internet.

This is far from the worst concert band. Sounds like they're still learning it.

I was part of my HS band, some really fond memories were made during our performances. We'd just finished a performance one year and felt pretty proud of ourselves. Our conductor/teacher was also telling us how proud he was of us and how well we sounded. He said because the concert was recorded, we could actually listen to ourselves play. It sounded something like this...

This teacher has no control of his class. Once at attention/ready position no should be saying a word.

That one clarinets is absolutely killing it

there are some good people in there, just needs practice lol

Our middle school band is doing this and we sound better

We are playing the same song in our concert band that is also playing with the middle school, and this is what it sounded like when we started playing it. I would be interested in seeing what it sounded like when it was performed and what improvements were made

Seeing the kids talking over the director, playing without being queued, and overall disrespecting him is unheard of at my school @_@ Even at the middle school level we were taught discipline and respect when we came into the band room.

my band director would never let this happen 😭

Music teacher of 7 years with experience teaching all ages. This is an extremely inaccurate caption. I see you’re in the percussion section, so I could understand the confusion since you guys might not understand how much more difficult starting on a wind instrument is. No disrespect to percussion, but it is MUCH easier to start on a drum then making a sound on a Flute. Focus on improving yourself as a percussionist before mocking your colleagues. Learn YOUR fundamentals: rudiments, check patterns, mastery of melodic percussion supplemented with knowledge of piano. It’s been four years, so maybe you’ve looked inwards since the time of this recording. I can only hope. Hell, I teach middle school, and it sounds like you guys were working on pretty cool stuff and had some really strong players in this band.

Ahhh that timpani bang was louder than half the band. AND I CAN BARELY HEAR THE TUBA

They sound decent definitely not the worst As a percussionist I can say drum set player sounds good, timpani too The one on cowbell probably need to work on counting their rhythms And if what I read in the comments about this being one of their first couple run-throughs then it's fine

Anybody else hear the cowbell in the backround and wondered if they were even playing the notes

I’ve seen way worse, but by the way I could tell that they were playing “under the sea” proves that they aren’t that bad. “✨It just needs a little shaping✨” all they needed was to stay in time, all together, it’s as if there were two singers (or more) to your favorite song, one can’t be singing to the second part while the other one just started, for example: your favorite song is “jingle bells” and there are three singers, one starts at “jingle all the way” and then another comes in barely starting and overlaps it and then another one is confused so they sing “oh how fun..”. That can’t happen because then it’s all just a huge mess of voices, doesn’t mean you can’t tell what it is (most of the time) just means that they need to stay in time together. I would never dare to call this the worst band ever, just a good band that needs to stay in time :)

Egyptian Military Band : Hold my beer

Some of them sound really amazing, but the students need better musicianship and discipline.

It took me two replays to figure out what song this was..

This is the definition of a terrible band. The teacher didn’t even stop

A common practice for teaching band is to sightread a piece of music without rehearsing it. It helps with future sightreading. My guess is that's what this is.

😅👍 the director needs to take alot more control I'm only in middle school and are band directors are so strict... The secend he hears someone talking during the concert he will stop the whole thing..... Good luck 🍀

It took me sometime to realize that the song they're playing is "Under the Sea"

UPDATE FOR CONCERT BAND IN THIS SCHOOL! There's a new band director, and he's much better than this one. He keeps the band quiet, while also giving them fundamentals to learning music. If you'd like to see a video of the new concert band, email me!

they could just be sight reading for all we know. Honestly a great and easy quick-fix solution would be to initiate a blood sacrifice. My marching band did it and now we are considered Floridas best powerhouse marching band in the swamp region. Satan does wonders I tell you, wonders she does.

it's giving the beginning of Soul

I was in a violin group for a couple years and believe me we sounded worse than this sometimes😂😂 We could usually pull it together before a concert though

As the line viola player in middle school the teacher didn’t know what to do with me. I ended up stuck between the timpani and trumpets. It was such a relief to get to high school.

Mine honestly was worse than this when I was in high school, which is really hard to believe but yeah... major PTSD lol.

This is the result of undisciplined kids

for our first winter concert, every section played a different song ( we’re trumpets, played roudolph) and the oboes were so bad, they couldn’t play it

To be fair, as someone part of concert band.... that's how most bands will sound after learning a brand new piece for the first time... 😭😭😭

They have AMAZING potential! I wouldn’t say they’re the worst band, that’s for sure. Just need to have patience, it is worth it in the long run! They are also young so they can practice more and more. All it takes is heart and soul!

Gotta love the painful *AW* at the end

As a person in middle school band, lowkey sounds like us practicing in first quarter they just need time. We got better, they can get better.

Is that “Under the sea” from the fish lady and “Toy Story” from the toy store from China and mix it together it became this my bruda?

They need to keep a tempo the whole band is comfortable with and then that will make it sound way better.

Honestly they aren’t that bad all they need is some extra practice and their sounds quality in individual parts were amazing the only Thing I could see wrong was some timing issues I find playing a recording of the song or getting the band to count and or sing there parts rly helps and working with i individual sections in sectionals and also the bass drum player was striking it with way to much energy causing a very loud sound that is unsettling what my band instructor always said is that you want to feel the bass drum not hear it

You can tell what song they are playing. This video was also around the time I first picked up an instrument, so I have fresh memories of 6th grade band sounding bad. Idk what grade you all were at this time, but honestly, the only real issue is not everyone seems to be on time. Every conductor I have had has stopped us the moment he/she found a mistake, which is something I hope this conductor has learned to do since.

was the song under the sea from the little mermaid i feel like if you can tell what the song is they aren’t bad

“Maybe if we play loud, they will think we are good 🤔😀”

Are we sure they aren't playing different pieces?

shout out to my tuba player in the back holding it down

This looks like a sight reading and at least you can tell the song

With a little more practice, and more listening to eachother they will get it. It sounds like they all got it down they just aren't together and listening to eachother.

Any concert band is better than no concert band

I definitely dont think people should be using words like worst to describe anyone online bc I dont think they would appreciate that if they saw this. As a musician myself, they are obviously practicing and training musicians and they will improve. I hope people will realize this and try to use more encouraging words next time.

It took me the whole song to figure out it’s under the sea

Oh goddd the tempo is so saddd

Assuming "bad playing" as part of your identity will leave less room for improvement in the future. Everybody starts somewhere and it takes collaboration to get somewhere everybody wants to be. So pay attention and practice correctly and you might be surprised as to how far you got when you assess how good/bad a band you are for the first time in months. Also, like others are saying, it's not as bad as it looks, I don't wanna get into why that is, others here are doing a fine job. The reason people might think this is terrible is because they don't have context, their context is legendary Carnegie Hall performances and pop artists in the studio or cherry picked good moments on KZfaq, that is dramatically unrealistic when compared to a public school band. Keep it up, see if you can make that the worst run you'll ever do, then repeat.

So when is was like 13 I was in ib and we HAD to play in a band and half of the people didn’t want to be there I promise you it sounded like a nightmare, literally horrific, I still have chills thinking about it

Isn’t that mermaid song in Disney “under the sea?

Director desperately needs to impose some discipline.

I’m actually surprised on how good this was I’ve heard bands so bad that I couldn’t even make out the music for a very long time but this is actually pretty good reminds me of when I first started playing for middle school band and we sounded similar. Rome wasn’t built in a day. They will improve. Serena Williams wasn’t born knowing tennis.

I’m so glad you could actually hear the clarinets cuz we definitely can’t in mine. 💀 We’re a high school band for reference.

Sounds like you gave a beginning band a level 5 concert piece. It's gonna sound bad, however with hardwork put in during every practice it will come off as easy after while.

It’s not bad at least you guys are knowing what you’re playing

I remember when my band played one of ours songs for the first time. It went horribly. This is probably around the band’s first time playing this song, so don’t call them ‘the worst band’. They just need to practice.

How did the triangles mess up bro

Yep that sounds like my highschool band. They’d give you the sheet music (I was on bass or guitar but couldn’t read music only played by osmosis or tabs) and then they’d say “alright kids play this thing you’ve never heard by reading the music, you can all read music right? Yep great don’t answer that truthfully, let’s hear it” and yeah it would always come out like this. Somehow everybody would get their shit together when it came to concert time and everyone would play excellently, but boy those practice sessions, my ears.

not actually that bad

I’m so glad that my elementary school and middle school band didn’t suck. I am a freshman in high school, and my concert band better NOT suck for my next three years like this concert band does. As of right now, my high school band sounds really GOOD! To be honest, this concert band does suck.The band director should go back to music school to learn how to conduct and to help people with their parts.

Literally every time I play a piece for the first time cause I CANNOT sight read very well *it's tragic just take my word for it*

My schools band is like this but most students don’t even show up at practice after school

POV: you have to do sight reading in band

What type of baton is that it looks small

Is this for the school’s Little mermaid musical or it just Under the Sea? Honestly Musical music is really hard to read for the first time.

They were trying to play "Disney at the Movies" at 2:56 (Under the Sea)

It took me just at the end to realize the song they were playing.

This is definitely one of the cases where its their first time seeing this song, happens with every band thats not doing it professionally

Not trynna change the topic but what’s the name of this song?

This is why I’m happy that my band teacher is older with experience and able to deal with us(in middle school)

DUDE THAT IS MY FREAKING MIDDLE SCHOOL MUSIC TEACHER OMG I NEED TO SHOW HIM THIS.

I played this exact song for my middle school band on the drum set and we did so good

What piece were they playing?

🍀Since this video was posted in march, I'm assuming they were just given their spring music, and this was probably one of the first few rehearsals. If that was the case, the video could've might as well been taken from the honors band, and still sound "unsatisfactory". 🍀

The only issue here is balance, articulation, and control in which every band goes through. It may take like 20 times; Even the band I'm in has a room full of trophies still go through the same struggle because it takes time. Once you listen closely, you realize it is just mostly control and balance here. They got most of the notes in, but they just have to control their breathing and that's really it (which also takes care of the articulation part).

Is this supposed to be Sir Duke? I only recognize it from the Tuba

This is so amazing. Y’all got ibs too?

I understand that some kids are very hard to discipline these days, but that band director desperately needs to gain control over his classroom. My director would never have tolerated all that talking and playing around when we're supposed to be listening to him or getting ready to play. That being said, there were some good things coming from that band. The timing was terrible but the flutes and clarinet / saxophones had some good notes in there and put together some good runs. The rest of the band just sounds very lost. But, these kids need to understand that they do not run the band room. The band director does

The way I’m playing this arrangement in band

the "AWUGH" at the end was the best sounding thing in this whole video.

You realize that these are kids, trying their best to just fit in. They love what they do, and if you don't like it, don't listen to it. I personally think that they are great.

It took me until the end of the video to realize this was under the sea

This sounds like probably every band (including mine) when we are starting on a piece we have never played or heard before. Especially the ones that feel really slow

I love how this is being recorded from the crash cymbal stand

good tuba section

The fact that the recorder was recording from a crash cymbal stand just makes it even worse.