Introducing MarchFirst
Although we wanted to announce this game changing new product last month on March 4th (for obvious reasons), MusicFirst is THRILLED to finally announce today our latest offering - MarchFirst - a product that will revolutionize the marching arts. Through the power of AI, we have created a full suite of products and fabrics that will take your next show to the next level. MarchFirst includes everything you need to create, design, and win any competition. By harnessing the power of the latest AI innovations, MusicFirst has created drill design software, musical auto-arrangement software, and chip-enabled fabric with Bluetooth© technology that allows you to sync everything together, ensuring a perfect show every time. Here’s how it works:
Step One: Auto Arrange Your Show
We have created the worlds first AI-powered notation engine that has been specifically designed to arrange shows for the marching arts based on a wide variety of parameters, including instrumentation, difficulty level, battery instrumentation, and time length. All you need to do is type in a prompt, and MarchFirst does the rest. For example, if you type in “Write me a 9-minute show with a Keystone Cops theme for a moderately talented high school marching band with full instrumentation and electronic drums in the battery, our software will do just that - giving you unlimited options and the ability to edit whatever you’d like. No other software does this and it will save you both time and money! We have tested MarchFirst with both public domain and copyright protected music - and WOW does it work wonders. Your students will love marching to whatever you can dream up!
Step Two: Auto-Design Your Show
That’s right! Not only can MarchFirst compose your show, it can also do all of your drill design! Once again, using the power of AI, all you need to do is write in prompts about what you are looking to see in your show, and MarchFirst does the rest. For example, using the Keystone Cops theme, if you write in “For the opening number can you please have the band run around on the field looking completely chaotic at first and then hitting the shape of a badge at measure 41? After that, can you make the winds and brass into the shape of a running cop chasing the drumline who are in the shape of a robber? Boom - you’ll get exactly that! The more description you give, the better the results. We have hired and modeled all of the best drill writers from the marching band world to bring you the highest quality and unique drills available - all generated by AI!
Step Three: Wearable AI Enabled Fabric Under The Uniform
This is our most exciting development and we think it might just change the marching arts forever. We teamed up with the folks at the MIT Design Lab to create the world’s first AI-enabled and patented fabric - wearables that tell you where to go! We’ve custom designed our AI-integrated fabric into a variety of sizes and colors, and by embedding a chip into sleek and stylish undergarments that resemble classic long johns, you can sync up the marching band arrangement and drill design to the students clothing which they then wear underneath any existing uniform. The fabric uses geolocation and Bluetooth© to provide tiny electric stimulation that actually moves the students anywhere on the field exactly on the beat! You can even set the step width to a perfect 8 to 5, so that every student - no matter how tall or short - moves at exactly the same pace.
We have been testing this fabric out on our own staff members for the past year, and you would not believe how amazing we look marching on the roof of our building in NYC. When I asked Jaye Mateyko, our Director of Support & Training for their reaction to wearing our AI enabled long johns, they said “Wearing it kind of feels like when your car auto steers for you, except you get this electric shock if you move the wrong way. It hurt at first, but you kind of get used to it. I would have LOVED to wear this when I was in the Syracuse University Marching Band. It would have kept us warmer and we would have always been in sync!”
Step Four: The Drum Major Leads the Band
That’s right! We have created the ultimate drum major baton that actually serves as the main syncing for the fabric to march in time. We have embedded a Bluetooth© chip inside of the baton so that you can upload your show. The baton then acts as a large antennae and all of the chips in the undergarments will automatically connect so that everyone moves in sync. The faster you conduct, the faster the band marches! To make the baton work in each environment, all the drum major needs to do is run around the field before the show and tap the baton at each corner. That will set up a virtual field space for the undergarments to sync up to - always making sure each student hits their mark each and every time!
We asked some of our staff for their initial impressions of MarchFirst - and we LOVED their reactions. Matt Ferry, one of our amazing Education Managers said “My wife and I have been designing and performing marching band shows for years. In the past, we spent hundreds of hours working on a show even before the students showed up to the first day of rehearsal. Now with MarchFirst, we can cut out ALL of that prep and just roll up to band camp with a road case full of long johns and a baton and our show will be ready in a few hours!” Tori Stroud, from our Support Team said “When I was marching with the Wagner College Seahawks Marching Band, we had no time to rehearse at all due to our busy academic schedules. As a result we would often just make up the show as we went along. One of us would just call out a song - something like Tubthumping by Chumbawamba - and we would dance around the field together. We did our best. If we would have had MarchFirst back then, we would have been unstoppable!” Mike Olander, another one of our Education Managers summed it perfectly “MarchFirst takes all of the effort out of planning, designing and rehearsing a show, and just makes it fun! This is a game changer for sure.”
If you’re marching band isn’t very talented from a playing perspective, you can use the powerful software we released last year at this time, PlayGPT, you can even level up those bands who you might not want to hear on the field, using PlayGloves and the PlayFace to make your band sound wonderful!
So When Can I Get MarchFirst???
While this product won’t be officially available for use until later this year, we are proud to offer the opportunity to sign up for our waitlist to be among the first high school and college marching bands in the country to be powered by AI. All you need to do is fill out this form and you’ll be headed straight to the awards ceremony of any marching band competition you enter!
Here is a sneak peek video of the CCSU Blue Devil Marching Band performing using marchfirst. Enjoy!