Aliens Must be Among Us: Pit and Drumline are Together!!!!!!

This is a marching band joke. Most of the time, the drumline is in the back half of the field( from the perspective of the audience) and the pit is in the very very front, right in front of the drum major. This distance causes some delay issues. Sound travels at a constant speed in all directions through any given medium, in this case, air. If you have two groups playing at the same time from two different places, the sounds from the two groups will reach any given point at different times. This delay sounds horrible. Great lengths are taken so the entire band sounds all together with the front half of the field listening back(playing with the sound they hear coming from the band members behind them,) and the back half watching the drum major in the front of the band. This sounds like a great idea, but is hard to actually carry out, especially in high school, so pit and drumline aren't always together. Pit is expected to match whatever tempo they are given. The hardest part, which very few people give credit for,  is when there are several tempos within the band. No matter which one you follow, you will be yelled at because you weren't with "the band". I'm in pit in my marching band, and our reply when someone (other than the drum majors or directors) gives us a hard time about it is "well, when the rest of you give us only one tempo back there for us to follow, we will." (our marching band isn't always together within the winds, let alone everyone else).