Today is a day for college football bowl games, and that means half time shows. What does this have to do with Star Trek? Well one of the signs of the impressive return of Star Trek to the mainstream in 2009, was the music of Star Trek being played by marching bands at college and high school football games. Below we have some of the examples from this season.
Marching To Trek Music
These are some of the numerous high school and college marching band youtube videos available from 2009. Everything from Alexander Courage’s classic theme to the new music by Michael Giacchino is represented, with bands sometimes forming appropriate Star Trek shapes as they march. These marching bands are literally trekking to the music of Trek. Enjoy this collection of yet another example of how Star Trek has returned to the mainstream.
Missouri State performs the main theme from Star Trek 2009 and Nero’s theme
West Virginia performs the Next Generation theme at their opening game on September 5, 2009, and the band forms the words "To Boldly Go" and the "Delta Shield"
Red Mountain Marching Band performs selections from the 2009 Star Trek Soundtrack, interestingly including the sadness that is "Labor of Love"
Ocean Springs High School Marching Band performs selections from Star Trek: Generations by Dennis McCarthy (which is arguably the most played Star Trek theme by marching bands) and other Trek music. JJ Abrams would be happy with the flare lights.
Riverside King High School marching band played interesting selections: the themes to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock by James Horner and music from Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Jerry Goldsmith at a tournament this November
BONUS VIDEO – Patrick Stewart & Marching Bands
In 2006 to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek, Patrick Stewart was a guest of honor at a University of Michigan football game. The band performed the Next Generation theme by Jerry Goldsmith Stewart tells the crow to "make it so" and to boldly go beat the Buckeyes.
Whoa, the TOS theme at the top sounds awesome!
First? Cool music, really nice job by everyone. Happy new year to all!
Do you see what happens when Trekkies infiltrate the various sectors of society? AWESOME.
Hats off to the Michigan marching band, and especially to their director.
Correction, John – SIR Patrick Stewart!
DARN IT! I play trumpet and am (hopefully) going to MSU next year. Missed it by that much.
Michigan throws in a little TWOK too!
Wow! so cool! Now excuse me while I send my transfer papers to Michigan
Thats pretty sweet
Hits close to home as that’s what I do for a living. I wonder how much each of the respective schools had to pay to get the rights to the arrangements. Especially the new stuff from the movie. I did a Zeppelin arrangement for a friend last year that I’m still waiting on Alfred music to give it’s approval on. Some people are a little too possessive of their stuff. I like the Khan show. Good arrangements there. Especially for a high school group. That’s obviously a director who loves the source material. Good attention to detail. Good/fun article John.
LOL, except anyone who walked out before the end credits and isn’t a Star Trek fan, would have no idea that’s the main theme!
Actually this confirms what I though the first time I heard the score, it sounds like it was written for a marching band. And it proves there is no melody, just a hook that keeps getting repeated over and over. If not for those same few bars, that keep popping up again and again, yet don’t go anywhere, this music would be unrecognizable.
I played in the band at WVU back in the 90’s. Got my music degree from there. We played that show back in 1996 for the first time when First Contact was about to come out. We made the Enterprise and floated it across the field at the beginning and ended with the delta shield. Also played the Voyager theme. Fun times.
OK, it was a different show, but still the same idea.
See, now if I had gotten to do stuff like THIS, I would’ve taken the Music option in high school, but noooo, all the music teacher wanted us to play was “Tequila”…
*sigh*
These are awesome, especially the percussion version of TWOK. Is it my imagination, or did people yell “Khaaaaan!” at one point? :D
The top video is actually Missouri State University, not Michigan State.
They need to change the title of the last one to Sir Patrick :D And anyways, rose bowl today, hope Oregon puts in work. Go Ducks!
WOW that was was um….. Well all ican say is WOW it’s about time!!!
RE: Sir Patrick
to be honest, i dont see us always using the ‘sir’ in every reference to PS. To be fair to John he submitted this article before it was official, and PS was not a ‘sir’ in 2006
Great to see some renewed interest in Trek music by these bands. The last time I heard a great Trek marching band performance was a couple years ago at a competition. It was Goldsmith’s “First Contact Theme”. I’ve been trying to convince a couple band director friends and my own boss to include some Trek music in their shows. We might do one this coming season.
Today during the Tournament of Roses Parade I heard the theme music for Lost in Space (3rd season) and Star Trek played by one of the bands.
Cool stuff! I’m the drum major for my high school’s marching band and I tried to convince my band director to do Star Trek. Unfortunately he wouldn’t go for it.
Wow… the TWOK/TSFS was really well done by the Riverside King group! Excellent. Though, very mellow for a marching band! No?
Eeeww… MSU.. BAH! Nebraska University, USC, and Notre Dame for the marching band WIN! But I love seeing marching bands play, even if Riverside’s spacing was a little off at times. But they sounded really, really good.
Ocean Springs HS felt a little flashy for my tastes. But by the end I was really impressed. If I could, I’d send my regards to both high school band directors.
Sadly, a lot of judges frown on the use of popular selections for marching band pieces. But it makes it fun for the bands, even if they only go home with a Division II or something like that. Believe me, my band’s best year was when we did James Bond for a theme (I’m resisting a Julian Bashir joke here…) and everyone just loved that year. xD
All in all, thrilling to see marching band and Star Trek in the same article. Whooo!!!
Sounds like a trainwreck…hahahaha!!! Oh well…E for effort…
No I know they really shouldnt change the title, was more a joke than anything.
#23 :: Now, now, don’t say that. People never realize how much hard work, time, and effort goes into a single movement of a marching band show, much less the entire production! It takes physicality, concentration, and an insane amount of cooperation for a band to get ready for competition. Blame the recording equipment, not the bands. They didn’t spend zillions of hours out on the field for nothin’.
Wooo Trek in the mainstream!! star trek movies have been on tv every week since November in my city!!
In reciprocation, JJ should use “The Horse” or “We Are the Champions” as the main theme for the sequel.
Great stuff. I think I enjoyed being part of the secret Trek underground when I was a kid, but it’s also great to see it out there in the big wide world. Now, if EnsR will just build his Daddy a starship… before his Daddy also needs an android body to move into.
#9. – There is actually quite a few arrangements of Star Trek music out there that you need only buy the music. A couple of companies that I know have offered arrangements include Hal Leonard and Warner Bros. music. I’m sure there are other, but that would be a place to start. My Mom was a band director back in the late ’90s, and being a band director’s son, I was obviously in the band. We used to get a lot of demo music and catalogues from the companies that sold the music, and they always had arrangements of various music from popular TV shows and movies. I’d imagine the music from the new Star Trek movie is available from some distributor. And, technically, once you buy the arrangement, you are also buying the rights to perform.
Check out the link below. I found this on Hal Leonard’s site, and it lists all of their various Star Trek collections:
http://www.halleonard.com/search/search.do?subsiteid=1&keywords=star+trek
Actually, a little update to my previous post (#28), you aren’t buying the right to perform the music, but if you are with a school or church and the performance is not-for-profit, then you are free and clear. If admission is being charged, the money must be going towards educational use. So, if you are a band director or if it is school related, then you could buy one of the arrangements and use it as did the schools above.
My High School did a Star Trek Show in 1997.
They used the TNG theme and the suite form ‘The Inner Light.’
Cool! I have watched the halftime portion of CBS’ coverage of the Sun Bowl where the Oklahoma University band played the theme music rom the 1994 movie “Star Trek: Generations”, since “Star Trek” is owned by CBS, not just “America’s Most Watched Network” but its parent company CBS Corporation as well as CBS Television Studios. Happy 2010, everyone!
You can find the music -/ from piano to orchestral arrangements, at sheetmusicdirect.com.
STAR TREK and football??????
DOES… NOT… COMPUTE!!!
#25 Christine
Nebraska?… NEBRASKA?! Ewwwww.
LOL. This was a fun article that I am sending a link to friends. Their son is in college marching bad and all three of them are mad Trekkies.
Sending some cooler temps down I-29 for you tonight, CHristine.. forecast calling for -23 here tonight. Ouch.
Go Hawkeyes!
When I was in High School marching band none of my schools played Star Trek. I feel ripped off
It’s neat to see this stuff. I am a sophomore in high school, and had waited all my band career to play Star Trek until this fall, when our band played STAR TREK!! I was so excited when I saw the music on my seat… I pretty much had a fangasm right there. We played the exact same pieces that the Ocean Springs High School did, although I don’t think we sounded quite as good, as we were rushed in our preparation.
You can see us here, playing Michael Jackson’s Thriller at the same concert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PdOgKVnUR4
Fun article John Tenuto, but it’s “Michael Giacchino” and camera “flare” not “flair”.
I love this music, and I love that it’s being played in stadiums across the nation!
The Riverside King HS band’s renditions really appealed to me, by the way. They did a great job.
I doubt you could do any better. Troll.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
23. Captain Dingleberry The Magnificent – January 1, 2010
Sounds like a trainwreck…hahahaha!!! Oh well…E for effort…
The Pride of Oklahoma marching band from the University of Oklahoma was played the them from Star Trek Generations at their bowl game yesterday.
Way to go WVU! West Virginia native here!
#33 :: Ah, now, don’t be so surprised. In DS9, Sisko was an avid, AVID baseball fan. Even on Enterprise, Archer loved Water Polo (kind of a strange thing to be a fan of, though, if ya ask me…). I’m simultaneously a Trekkie of all things and an NCAA football fanatic. I loooooooove my college football! (NFL = No go for me, though.) I sit/keep jumping up from the couch hollering “DEATH TO THE OPPOSITION!!!” whenever one of Nebraska’s defensive tackles sacks a quarterback, MWAHAHAHA okay I’ll stop now.
#34 :: Ooohh, now, don’t be jealous because we have Ndamukong Suh and the Hawkeyes don’t. ;3 (Edit: Had. D:) But no, seriously, Iowa had a good season. I was pleasantly surprised!!
#37 :: I’m a Junior. I have one year left. Your band director needs to call my band director (who IS actually a Star Trek fan) and convince him to do Star Trek to please the class of 2011.
Hey. All the bands sound great. Star Trek is in the main stream and that is so cool. My High school played the Tos theme back in 1987. So kool.
That Riverside King clip also has a piece of Generations in it. I like all the selections on that clip.
Wonderful! Thank you for this!
There’s one that isn’t actually on here:
Purdue University has an annual thing called “Purdue Band Day” where high school bands from all around the state come and play at a football game simultaneously on the field. This year, they did the TOS and TNG themes. 1000 players on the field playing it. There’s no YouTube of it, unfortunately.
Also, Ohio State did the TNG theme this year. They even did an outline of the Enterprise-D. I was entertained by this.
I remember that clip of Patrick Stewart and the Michigan band – as a Buckeye fan, I was a bit nettled. :)
Wow. I just saw how poorly written my comment about the University of Oklahoma marching band playing the theme from Generations was. That was a bad hangover.
#40 Because you don’t like my opinion, that makes me a “troll”.
I’m entitled to post my opinion the same as you.
You can eat it.