The Georgia Tech Marching Band has a long tradition of playing popular music for sold-out crowds at Georgia Tech's Bobby Dodd Stadium and at football stadiums across the country. However, in an effort to show its musical capabilities, a series of concerts entitled \"Surround Sounds\" was started in the fall of 2002, to be performed in a concert venue. For this concert, each instrument group in the band is allowed a few minutes to play some music of their own choosing, after which the entire band reunites to play part of their halftime show. The \"surround\" element comes from the fact that each instrument is setup in a different portion of the auditorium, so as to quickly move from one group to the next without any lag time for new setups.
For the inaugural Surround Sounds concert in 2002, the clarinet section decided to present a medley of music we all loved in our childhoods: that from the \"Super Mario Brothers\" video game series. To add more excitement, we also decided to create a synchronized video that would show clips from the appropriate game when we played that music. I was responsible for arranging large parts of the music for clarinets, as well as entirely creating the synchronized video. I also created a percussion track that we played along to, so as to not lose our synchronization with the video. The list of pieces played along with audio and video are listed below.
Due to the resounding success of that concert, the clarinets were under a lot of pressure to come up with something even more exciting for our second Surround Sounds performance in 2003. We again reached into our past and decided to play music from children's shows we used to watch when we were kids. This time, instead of merely showing clips from the tv shows, we also recorded footage of ourselves and composited it with show footage (with the most generous help and expertise of Mr. Jim Grant), and synced this entire footage with the concert. Even more than before, I was responsible for the arrangements of almost all the pieces (with the exception of Sesame Street), and I also orchestrated drum parts for all the pieces to accompany us during the concert. Yet again, the concert was a great success, with the clarinets receiving many praises from the band directors and the audience members.
", "audios": [{ "url": "audio/ss02_sm1_lvl1.mp3", "name": "Fall 2002: Super Mario Brothers 1 Level 1", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with oscillators and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss02_sm1_star.mp3", "name": "Fall 2002: Super Mario Brothers 1 Starman", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with oscillators and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss02_sm1_lvl1e.mp3", "name": "Fall 2002: Super Mario Brothers 1 End of Level 1", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with oscillators and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss02_sm1_cast.mp3", "name": "Fall 2002: Super Mario Brothers 1 Castle", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with oscillators and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss02_sm1_uw.mp3", "name": "Fall 2002: Super Mario Brothers 1 Water", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with oscillators and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss02_sm1_death.mp3", "name": "Fall 2002: Super Mario Brothers 1 Death", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with oscillators and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss02_sm2_cs.mp3", "name": "Fall 2002: Super Mario Brothers 2 Character Select", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with oscillators and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss02_sm2_lvl1.mp3", "name": "Fall 2002: Super Mario Brothers 2 Level 1", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with oscillators and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss02_sm2_ug.mp3", "name": "Fall 2002: Super Mario Brothers 2 Underground", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with oscillators and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss02_sm3_bat.mp3", "name": "Fall 2002: Super Mario Brothers 3 Battle", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with oscillators and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss03_sesame.mp3", "name": "Fall 2003: Sesame Street", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with clarinet and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss03_gadget.mp3", "name": "Fall 2003: Inspector Gadget", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with clarinet and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss03_muppets.mp3", "name": "Fall 2003: The Muppets", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with clarinet and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss03_scooby.mp3", "name": "Fall 2003: Scooby Doo", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with clarinet and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss03_rogers.mp3", "name": "Fall 2003: Mr. Roger's Neighborhood", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with clarinet and percussion (Low-quality)." }, { "url": "audio/ss03_smurfs.mp3", "name": "Fall 2003: The Smurfs", "desc": "MP3 version of midi output from Finale with clarinet and percussion (Low-quality)." }], "videos": [{ "url": "videos/ss02.avi", "thumb": "images/ss02_tn.png", "name": "Synchronized video for Fall 2002 concert", "desc": "This is final video for the fall 2002 Surround Sounds concert, synchronized with the midi output linked above (compressed using MS-Video).", "youtube": "tUo_1RSwtCg" }], "relateds": [{"url": "../compose-by-chords/"}] }