Create Your Own Marching Shows

Q&A with bluesky94

bluesky94 joined MML in late 2008, and has clearly become the most productive member in the community.

With nearly 500 shows, he currently holds the record for the most shows published on MML, most of which have been featured on the front page.

My mother was in marching band in high school and so growing up, whenever the field band was practicing or having a show, she would take me to see it. She says that I jumped around in the bleachers and "conducted." The director walked up to us and asked her, "Future member?" And that is when it started.

By seventh grade I had no interest in running around on a sweaty field all summer. But I was forced to attend a band camp run-through and I fell in love and joined the next day. Since then I have discovered the world of the marching arts.

From the song "Her Eyes" by Pat Monahan. I love the lyric "...That’s where blue skies, meet the sunrise..."

I was looking up field band videos on YouTube one night and came across the site.

Music. Most of my shows started out as just listening to music and writing random drill and then they evolve... usually 5 or 6 times until I get on the right track for a good show. Some people need a theme in order to write; I’m a believer in letting the theme come to you after you start writing the show.

If the drill looks skittish and awkward... play with it until it doesn’t. It should be fun, but fun is sometimes stressful until you learn your own style.

I usually can’t sleep, so I stay up until 2 a.m. working on a show. Then I wake up the next morning and say to myself, "What the heck was I thinking last night?" and then I make the show actually look good.

It's important to remember that designing is about quality, not quantity. But when you have so many ideas, and can get both quality AND quanity... that's when you hit 500 shows.

My show Africa. I hope to get a degree in Music Therapy and travel to Africa for a few years. The nature is beautiful over there and there are so many people that need help, and I feel like music can help create a start to healing in Africa. Plus... I love elephants :-)

Oh gosh, there are so many. The ones that I look up to are Tellesus, pedazos, Fran, and Feliciano.

As much as I would like to say yes, I don’t think so.

We’ve all been there. Watch tons of shows, remember that not every show you make at first has to be published, and if you run out of ideas... YouTube or Fan Network is the Bombdiggity for a pick up.

I play the game of LIFE every day! And I don’t think of MML as a game... it is far too advanced and amazing to be considered merely a "game."

The ability to freeze time; I’d love to travel the world with everyone and everything frozen in time and see what was happening that second. Plus maybe the ability to unfreeze a few things at the same time... riding an elephant in downtown NYC without traffic moving would be pretty sweet.