It really isn’t all that surprising, but the Tiger Marching Band at Ouachita Baptist University is trying something different for its halftime performances at Cliff Harris Stadium in Arkadelphia this year — gospel music.
“We are doing something no public school could do,” said Craig Hamilton, director of bands at OBU. “We were trying to find something that would resonate with the students beyond your everyday kind of band music. Dr. Ryan Lewis suggested a contemporary Christian halftime show with praise singers from area churches and special soloists.”
Hamilton and Lewis, an assistant professor of percussion and director of the marching band’s drum line, contacted area churches and got to work on some music.
“Of course there are no band arrangements for these songs,” Hamilton said. “So I started working on the horn parts, and Ryan arranged the percussion parts.”
The idea premiered Sept. 13 at halftime of the OBU Tigers’ season opener against Southern Nazarene University from Bethany, Oklahoma. The home stands were filled, as the game also marked the opening of Cliff Harris Stadium at Ouachita Baptist.
“It went really well. It brought a different connection to the audience at the game and with the community,” Hamilton said. “The band pulled it off. We could not get out on the field to practice because of the construction at the stadium and the rains we have been having.”
Yes, Hamilton said, the band always works through any problem.
“We stay true to our motto, Semper Gumby — Always Flexible,” Hamilton said
Gospel music will be the theme of the halftime shows for the band all season, the director said. The band was scheduled to repeat the program at Saturday’s game. There will be a more traditional halftime on Oct. 4 for homecoming, Hamilton said, then the show will return for the last two home games on Oct. 25 and Nov. 1.
“Each performance will have different singers from different churches in the area,” he said. “We reached out to all the churches in the community. The Baptist churches responded, of course, as did an Assembly of God church, Methodist churches and the AME church.
Along with playing the music, the band will be marching on the field, creating special displays such as a cross and the fish symbol that has been used since early Christian times.
“We still do the marching, and we want to play tunes for the audience so they can sing along,” Hamilton said. “Sometimes bands can get into all the drills and pageantry of drum corps, and while it’s impressive, some of the things are lost on the audience. The programming is not for the audience but for themselves. We want to play for the people in the stands, especially the students.”
Putting together the halftime performances and playing before, after and during the games is a complicated process, Hamilton said.
“A marching band is not just a bunch of kids that get together and play some tunes,” he said. “There is a ton of stuff going on.”
Beyond teaching the music and the marching, the band directors have to keep an eye on the game, and the idea is to play music between plays that match the action in the games, who’s on offense and defense, and then match the mood of the crowd.
Each musical piece, or even a phrase the band plays, is preselected by the director and passed along to the students, using a series of speakers set among the band members seated in the stands. The drills for marching on the field are drawn up by computers and sent to the students as a file.
“At the early practices, students bring their smartphones to follow the drills,” Hamilton said. “The use of technology is the biggest change I’ve seen in the 30 years I have been here.”
This is actually the 31st school year Hamilton has been at Ouachita Baptist, and the 30th season he has been director of bands. Leading the Tiger Marching Band was not why he came to the school in 1983; it just evolved into his job.
“I came to Arkansas to play the trumpet,” the Florida native said. “I was playing with some orchestras in Mississippi and with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in Little Rock. This gig came open here to teach part time, and I took it. At one point, I had to step in for the band director, and the next year they asked me to come take the band full time.”
Born in Pensacola, Florida, Hamilton’s father was a Baptist minister who had once played the cornet in a Salvation Army Band.
“He had written out the positions for playing scales, and I learned to play scales,” Hamilton said. “When I was in sixth grade, I played the scales on a trumpet, and I was in the band.”
He played in the high school band but was further interested in playing in a more classical style.
“I wanted to play the trumpet with symphonies and brass quintets,” Hamilton said. “I majored in music education as a fallback profession.”
He attended the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, then earned a Master of Music degree in trumpet performance at Arkansas State University. He later earned a doctorate in music education from the University of North Texas in Denton. Along with being director of bands at OBU, he is The Lena Goodwin Trimble Professor of Music, coordinator of instrumental studies and chairman of the music education department in the university’s division of music.
Along with the marching band and his trumpet students at the university, Hamilton leads the brass and wind ensembles at the school, as well as the Ouachita Baptist University Jazz Combo. He took that group to the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles Festival at Liverpool Hope University in November 2012. He also conducted a clinic on jazz improvisation for a variety of English jazz bands at the university during the trip.
“We had a blast,” Hamilton said in an interview with the Tri-Lakes Edition when the group returned. “The people were phenomenal, our students were great and made us proud, and we got all the equipment over and back safely.”
Whether it is on the football field at halftime, in the classroom or on stage around the world, Hamilton said the music students at OBU continue to impress him.
“It’s always been great. Every year there seem to be more students, and they are more talented,” he said. “They’re why I stay. The band kids run the school. They are in student government, honor society, everywhere in leadership roles. It is rewarding to see the metamorphosis as students come in as kids and leave as adults with character.”
What does Hamilton do away from school? He is involved
in the music program at First Baptist Church in Arkadelphia, and he is the conductor of the South Arkansas Youth Wind Ensemble, and music director and conductor of the Hot Springs Community Band, a volunteer band that plays concerts in Hot Springs’ Whittington Park in the summer and will hold a fall concert Oct. 12 at Woodlands Auditorium in Hot Springs Village.
Several times a year, Hamilton trades his conducting baton for a fly-fishing rod and goes after rainbow trout.
He does not want to say where he goes fishing, afraid others would move into his favorite fishing hole, but he said it is in Pike County.
Like any good Florida native, Hamilton said he also enjoys taking his family to the beach.
This year he is also involved in a search for a new band director.
“We are looking to get someone to take the band next year,” he said. “I am going to give it up.”
Hamilton wants to spend more time playing, teaching his studio students and overseeing the jazz bands.
“The marching band is our most visible assembly of musicians, and it is time to share the load,” he said. “We have a good brand out there with our other wind ensembles, and I want to turn my full attention to them.”
Hamilton wants to be there for his music students, and as he often tells them, “The first step to success is to show up.”
Staff writer Wayne Bryan can be reached at (501) 244-4460 or wbryan@arkansasonline.com.