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The Big Red Marching Band is full of traditions, many of which you can read about here.
While several of them are universal, individual sections help establish a personality by keeping up their own unique traditions.
Sax Pyramids
The Call Me Al Dance
Heel Clicks
Sax Cheers
Minty Cocoa
Sax-Tuba Wine & Cheese
Sax-ups
Rank Lizard
Saxhenge
The Sax Tattoo
First Night Verses
Be sure to read some stories too!
Sax Pyramids
Every year at the annual Stewart Park Picnic each section poses for a group picture. The saxes always make a pyramid!
The 2010 pyramid:
Past Pyramids
2002 •
2003 •
2004 •
2005 •
2006 •
2007 •
2008 •
2009
The Call Me Al Dance
Call Me Al is one of our favorite concert songs. We love it so much that during the middle of every performance we form a huge line (sometimes two!) and show off our own rendition of the dance featured in Paul Simon's music video.
Heel Clicks
From our loud chants to our wacky horn moves, the saxes always parade in style. One of our most noteworthy parade moves is the heel
click, during which the entire section synchronously leaps into the air to click our left heels with our right ones, and all while
carrying our saxes too! We perform two heel clicks per run-through of the drum cadences.
Cheers
Everyone loves the sexy sound of a sax ensemble, so during the 3rd quarter of every football game the saxes break away from
the rest of the band to play cheers all around the stands. We even go all the way to the top of the crescent where President Skorton
usually resides during the game. Our repetoire as a section is now quite large thanks to many talented
arrangers in our section. Some of our standard fare includes 'Night Train', 'Sax Polka', and old favorites such as 'Saxel F' and 'Build Me Up Buttercup'.
Minty Cocoa & the Sax Wagon
Ithaca is COLD, especially during Tuesday Night rehearsals later on in the season. Other sections simply endure
the cold for two hours, but the saxes always bring a red wagon equipped with hot water, cocoa, and mints. It's
the perfect way to stay toasty!
Sax-ups
The Big Red Saxes are always at the football games to support the Cornell Big Red. Every time the team scores we show our
enthusiasm by counting off the team's points while lifting our saxes into the air. Other sections of the band have similar traditions, but none are as awesome as doing sax-ups with a bari sax!
Sax-Tuba Wine & Cheese
Our final happy hour of the fall semester is always Sax-Tuba Wine & Cheese, the classiest happy hour of the year. During this fine
evening we dress our best and enjoy a formal social gathering with the Tubas while sampling both commonplace and exotic varieties of
wine & cheese.
Rank Lizard
The saxes currently have five primary ranks: J, L, &, $, and #. No, not rank L. Rank Lizard. Members of rank Lizard proudly represent themselves
by attaching a toy lizard to the bell of their saxophone. You can read about the origins of Rank Lizard here.
Saxhenge
Outside of Harvard's football stadium there's this big old rock near where we sit to eat lunch. Every other year when we travel to the game
we decorate this boulder with our saxophones. This biannual work of art is known as Saxhenge. Pictured to the left is 2004's rendition.
The Sax Tattoo
The Sax Tattoo, two eighth notes, is a lifetime mark of saxiness created by Gerry Adamski in 1991. Over the years,
only a select few legendary saxes have adorned themselves with the legendary sax tattoo, including Gerry Adamski '91, Praveen Anumolu '01, Kristen Rothman '01, Kathryn Bach '04, Greg Rosensteel '05, and Chris Payne '05.
First Night Verses
During First Night every year the band gathers together and sings many songs, one of which is the Song of the Classes. After each class sings their verse each individual section takes a turn as well.
The 2010 verse:
Oh, we are the saxes, too many to count.
Our dances and horn moves you cannot surmount.
We'll blame it on Pickles when all is not well,
And best of all saxes are sexy as hell!
Past verses
Please email the webmaster if you know the origins of any of our traditions or would like to submit one that we have forgotten.
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