My journey with Marching Band arranging started with my own program. The first school I taught at was a private school with a diminishing Band Program. I had 14 students, with only 10 being winds. Each stand tune was a challenge in terms of blend, balance, and each part being covered. I used what I learned in college and improvised and started adapting every piece of music we had. I was able to achieve a full band sound with limited instrumentation.

After moving to my current school, I began teaching Band at a competitive level, but the size of my Band was still very small. We are in the smallest class at every competition we go to, sometimes even competing outside of our class. A good percentage of my band is made up of Junior High students, who are only in their 2nd or 3rd year of playing. After 2 years of playing stock arrangements I found online, and receiving underwhelming scores, I looked for a better solution.

I finally got brave enough to arrange my own Marching Band Shows completely from scratch. The results spoke for themselves. Superior ratings, Best in Class awards, Best in Class Percussion awards. My students and I were finally satisfied and felt like our hard work was paying off. This was because I was writing specifically to the individual. I knew the ranges, skill levels, and number of players for each instrument, and wrote around those challenges. If you teach at a small school, you know the struggles of having to march any students you have, even if they are in 7th grade or play in several other sports and have to miss rehearsals. Let me help you overcome these obstacles.