When all the girls and boys in the neighborhood take up musical instruments, at first they produce awful tones, but after much practice they are able to come together as a marching band that brings brassy, classy fun. Full-color illustrations.

Markworth, former director of bands at Centerville High School in Centerville, Ohio, offers tried-and-true suggestions and information on the exciting world of contemporary high school marching band. (Music)

"Kristen Laine went back to the heartland-- to the America so many of us fly over without blinking an eye-- and uncovered ... a world where salvation and ambition and teenage angst collide in strange ways no outsider could ever understand, unless you read American Band." --Michael Bamberger, author of Wonderland: A Year in the Life of an American High School Every fall, marching bands take to the field in a uniquely American ritual. From the stands, it looks easy. You don’t see them sweat. For millions of kids, band is more than a show. It’s a rite of passage—a first foray into leadership and adult responsibility, and a chance to learn what it means to be part of a community. Nowhere is band more serious than at Concord High School in Elkhart, Indiana, where the entire town is involved with the success of its defending state champion band, the Marching Minutemen. In the place where this tradition may have originated, in the city that became the band instrument capital of the world, band is a religion. But it’s not the only religion, as director Max Jones discovers. After four decades, Jones’s single-minded devotion to musical excellence has fallen out of step with a younger generation increasingly focused on personal salvation. In what his students do not know is his final season of directing, he has assembled his most ambitious show ever, for the strongest senior class he has ever directed. Amid conflicting notions of greatness, the band marches through a season that starts in hope and promise, progresses through uncertainty and disappointment, and ends, ultimately, in redemption. AMERICAN BANDis an unusually intimate chronicle of life, in all its triumph, disappointment, and drama, in the kind of community in which most of America lives. It is an especially timely portrait, capturing as it does the spirit of the heartland at a time of profound change. If you have ever been—or yearned to be—part of something bigger than yourself, you will be rooting for the kids whose voices fill this book.

(Meredith Music Resource). Have you ever wanted to know the secrets to success of today's top marching bands and drumlines and how they achieve excellence? This extraordinary study takes you onto the practice field, inside the meeting room, and into the stadium including the "Five Factors Influencing Excellence" valuable to any high school or college band program. The leaders of eight outstanding organizations reveal their goals for success including: expectations, values, leadership styles, motivational techniques, practice habits, and recruiting strategies. A must-read for band directors, percussion educators, students and anyone pursuing excellence in leadership. (a href="http://youtu.be/-NNaXbjaX08" target="_blank")Click here for a YouTube video on Marching Bands and Drumlines(/a)

This book can be used as an accompanying text for the collegiate marching band techniques course and to help build a successful marching band program at a high school. Topics include everything from developing a program handbook to student leadership and adult staffing, budgets, rehearsal techniques, sample forms, and basic information regarding the development process of a marching band show, as well as basic drill design techniques. It also addresses typical mistakes made by young teachers and offers suggestions on how to avoid/handle those mistakes. Finally, workbook-style activities at the end of each chapter help support and reinforce the material presented. - Back cover.

This drill book for marching bands is meant to be used on the field by the student while learning their sets. Each page has a field for the set number, the counts and notes. The blank pages can also be used for notes if the student needs it.