Free Online Drum Major Training Course Launching September 15th, 2021

Head Conductor Antonio Fox conducting the 2021 Genesis ensemble

We are proud to announce that we are launching our first ever free online educational course for the marching arts community. Our mission in launching this drum major training course is to make drum major training more accessible and to provide an asynchronous learning tool for band directors who are seeking to train their drum majors or prepare them for their drum major auditions.

The curriculum taught in the course was put together by the Genesis conducting staff and the lessons are demonstrated by the Genesis 2021 drum major team. We are proud to have worked with Hen’s Bread Productions to film the course during spring training of our 2021 season as well as doing the editing, graphics and animations that make the course beautiful and engaging.

Jacob Perkins of Hen’s Bread Productions flying a drone over Lake Travis HS stadium

On September 15th we will be officially launching and making available to the public a comprehensive 34 video course that covers everything from conducting fundamentals to field timing analysis. The following is an outline of the topics covered:

Posture

Basic Posture

Hand Shape

Projecting Confidence

Gestures

Cut Offs

Cues

Dynamics

Beginner Style Development

Advanced Style Development

Metronomes

DB90

Tonal Energy

Fundamentals

Travel

The Paint Brush Exercise

Ictus Placement

The Table Top Exercise

Flick

Field Timing

Understanding Sound on the Field

Head Conductor Responsibilities

Backfield Conductor Responsibilities

Patterns

Arrow Pattern

Cut Time Pattern

Complex Meters

Slow Tempos

Team

Conductor Roles

Conductor Staging

Team Warm Up

Matching

We are excited to release this product to the public and could not be more proud of our students and staff who worked hard to create it for the drum major community and the music educator community. We believe that creating online education options will strengthen our activity, make it more resilient to emergency events, and ultimately help us to fulfill our mission of Education Through Performance with an ever growing group of students for years to come.