Fightin' Texas Aggie Band
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band (often just called the Aggie Band) is the precision military marching band of Texas A&M University. The Aggie Band is composed of approximately 350 men and women from the school's Corps of Cadets and the group is the largest military marching band in the United States, performing at all of the school's football games and in other special events, such as inaugural parades for presidents and governors.
[edit] Joseph Holick and the beginnings of the band
Joseph Holick, age 22, and his brother Louis, rode in an empty boxcar to Orange, Texas, so that they could get lumber mill employment. However, the two stopped off in Bryan, Texas, and young Joseph began to doubt his choice. "I was a small boy and couldn't do lumbering work" said Joseph once, and so he stayed back and worked under Raymond Blatherwick, owner of a prominent boot shop. According to the Holick family, Lawrence Sullivan Ross, the first successful president of TAMC, stopped into Blatherwick's boot shop and noted how inconvenient it was for cadets to go to Bryan for their boots. Holick was requested to be stationed at the college, and there he went to do work for the young university.
Shortly after he moved to work at A&M, the staff discovered his musical talents, and requested him to play the bugle. For $65 a month, he was assigned to play "Reveille" and "Taps." Thinking that this was an impressive amount compared to his previous work, Holick wanted "to get more than just two tunes for its money, and when he had established himself as the bugler, he asked the commandant for permission to start a cadet band." When the commandant agreed, they went about finding the proper resources to start up the band, and Joseph Holick was named its first bandmaster.
[edit] Facts and trivia
- The combined band is composed of the infantry and artillery bands.
- Seniors in the band wear distinctive boots with their uniforms.
- Some of the Aggie Band drills, including the "Four-Way Crossthrough" require band members to actually step between each other's feet in order to complete the maneuver. When these drills were run through the drill program on the computer, an error was returned stating that the drill was impossible because it required two people to be in the same spot at the same time. For this reason, these drills must be written by hand.
- The Aggie Band claims to be the only university or college band with its own television show.
- The Aggie Band was the 2001 recipient of the Louis Sudler Trophy for collegiate marching bands, administered by the John Philip Sousa Foundation.
