The first question on most people's minds when they talk about Cal Percussion is, "What's a glockenspiel?"

Anyone who is familiar with the marching percussion world recognizes the importance of the mallet percussion section, usually called "the pit," which typically does not march and performs off the field, auxiliary to the marchers on the field. Mallet percussion adds a different and significant musical element to the percussion section, since the capacity for melody on a mallet percussion instrument far outweighs that of any marching percussion instrument (that is, it goes without saying that you can play a lot more tones with mallet percussion than you can on those five tenor drums of yours, for example).

Due to its nature, however, with high-stepping and a gridded show charting system, the Cal Band was never able to incorporate a pit section. Instead, the essence of a mallet percussion section has been captured in the Cal Band with the usage of the marching glockenspiel, a portable instrument similar in structure to the xylophone or bells, and played with a single mallet. (As a tangent, it is not uncommon to find larger glockenspiels in a contemporary pit percussion section.) Although the marching glockenspiel is but a smaller version of what a larger mallet percussion section might bring to a band, our Cal Glockenspiels (or Glocks) have an almost momentous and completely honorable status in the Cal Band, seeing as how they represent the whole of mallet percussion, bringing the substance of so many percussion instruments onto the field in the form of one instrument.

In addition, the Cal Glocks serve a more profound purpose in Cal Percusison. The use of glockenspiels in marching bands has essentially dissolved; the only other college band to still use the marching glockenspiel in an area somewhat local to Cal is the Cal Aggie Band-uh!, our sister band at UC Davis. This is unique amongst the other Cal Percussion instruments, which have changed over time to move with the flow of the contemporary marching percussion world. As such, the Cal Glocks are the carriers of an instrument somewhat untouched by time, remaining one of the few links to the early history of Cal Percussion and, furthermore, as a constant and present reminder of the culture of traditions that makes Cal Percussion as great as it is, connecting us to our forbears and to our successors. For example, one of the greatest and most humorous Cal Percussion traditions in recent years is held by the Glocks: every year at the Cal/USC game, a Cal Glock carries a set of numbers serving as a scoreboard, enumerating the amount of times the USC Trojan Band has played "Tribute To Troy" (which, if you didn't know already, they play a lot; one year, the Glocks had a count of 70+ by the end of the game).

Equipment:
The University of California Glockenspiels would like to make it known that statistics and specifications on their equipment would not only be pointless, but also impossible since the glocks are really old and they can't seem to find any documentation on them at this time. Thank you.