Well, it's an old thread, but here goes anyway.

I may be the only person who has ever used backing tracks with a marching band. Many years ago I took a teaching gig in a small county high school. The band was pretty tiny, but, of course we had to show up every Friday night for the football halftime.

The band was severely lacking in low end - no tubas, no trombones, etc. Basically, it was flutes and trumpets! I got the idea of using band in a box to create rhythm section backups. Wrote 2-way harmony parts for the flutes and trumpets (even had a couple of clarinets). It was one of those communities where they really like polkas - so I put together a book of polkas for the band, and also sequenced a few simple published band arrangements.

One of the dads had a welding shop and he built a cart that would hold a 500-watt guitar amp, a 12-volt marine battery, and a heavy duty inverter. An Ensonic VFX-SD sat on top of the cart and furnished the sound -- and it put out A LOT of sound!

I clearly remember the first football game of the season. We had a long bus trip to some little town far to the south. We were a little late getting to the stadium. As we were getting off of the bus the other band was already in the stadium playing away. It was a fairly large band, probably a little over 100 players, and my kids were feeling a bit outclassed.

This was the first game of the season, and neither band was going to march on the field. We had agreed beforehand that the bands would play a "concert" in the stands during the halftime.

The home band played first. They did a reasonable job. Then it was our turn. We played a couple of tunes and I could not help but notice that everyone was pleasantly surprised at the great sound the little band was getting.

After a couple of tunes, I told the drum major to wait a few minutes and then start up on of our "special" polka arrangements. I wanted to go to the other side of the stadium and see how it sounded from there. I was about halfway across the end zone when the band began playing. It sounded great - like a 140 piece band!

When I got to the section of bleachers where the home band was, the band members were literally sitting there with their mouths open. I remember the band director's words, "Wow! How do you get so much sound from that little band? How many trumpets do you have?".

"Well I only have five trumpets", I replied. Then I pointed to the press box behind the band, "But I told them that I want that press box on the ground behind the stadium when we leave here!".

I never explained any more about how we did it. But now you know that Band In A Box has a marching band history!