Complete Marching Band Shows 2013 Wednesday, June 12, 2013
While most band directors enjoy the creativity of planning marching band shows with specific themes, music styles, or by specific artists, and our marching band webpage and Listening Library are designed to help with this, publishers usually release 1-2 complete shows each year. Aside from taking some of the thought out of mixing and matching tunes, and deciding what should be an opener, production number, closer, etc., these shows usually consist of program material that isn’t available any other way, are arranged with a program order in mind, and often include introductions, transitions, and reprises that just aren’t done in “stand-alone” arrangements, giving the show a musical beginning, middle, and ending. There are three unique complete shows available this year, and each one is worth a listen! Visit our marching band webpage and Listening Library for more show planning ideas, and shop Stanton’s for all your marching band sheet music needs.
How to Train Your Dragon
From Hal Leonard we have a complete show featuring John Powell’s popular score from DreamWorks Animation studio’s How to Train Your Dragon. The concert band arrangements from this film have been particularly popular, and the film-score quality translates well to the marching band field for directors looking to balance a popular theme with a more “symphonic” sounding show.
How to Train Your Dragon, Part 1 (This is Berk)
How to Train Your Dragon, Part 2 (Dragon Battle/This is Berk)
How to Train Your Dragon, Part 3 (Test Drive/Coming Back Around)
redHOTradioCITY
Arrangers’ Publishing is offering a creative take on some alternative rock tunes from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, and Owl City, hence the show title. By taking one of the best tunes from each of these bands, creating show-style arrangements of them, and putting them in Arrangers’ Reduced Instrumentation series (fewer parts and range demands than typical Arrangers’ arrangements), Tom Wallace has produced one of the most creative complete shows in recent memory that is sure to hit home with your 30-something parents!
Sir Elton John
The other Arrangers’ Publishing complete show features 4 of the most well-known songs by Elton John focusing on his classic Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album. The show opens with sound effects and the orchestral quality of Funeral for a Friend and Love Lies Bleeding, moves to the driving rock in a hard-hitting arrangement of Saturday Night’s Alright (for Fighting), and closes with the touching Your Song, which is a perfect Homecoming selection, as well.