Florida State Marching Band Goes Green With Paperless Sheet Music
Florida State's marching band is going green this fall, getting rid of printed sheet music and drill charts in favor of smartphones, the university announced.
The school's 400 members typically used 200,000 sheets of paper a year.
Now band members are using their smartphones with marching materials mounted on the instruments, using an attachment called the "eFlip" which was developed by marching band students at Louisiana State University. They can store PDF files of their music in the cloud, and the band is also using an app called "Ultimate Drill Book" which helps them with marching formations.
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“The Marching Chiefs’ elimination of flip charts represents the type of creativity encouraged by Florida State’s sustainable campus initiative, which calls on all of us to incorporate sustainable living practices on campus,” Patricia J. Flowers, the university's college of music dean said in the release. “(Band directors) Patrick Dunnigan and David Plack have shown innovative leadership not only in charting their inspiring halftime shows, but also in stewarding resources and reducing waste. The Marching Chiefs continue to set a high standard for the garnet and gold — and green!”
The eFlip technology was introduced in 2016 according to College Marching Bands, with LSU and the University of Illinois being among the first to use it.
Dunnigan estimated that the new technology will eliminate 85 to 90% of the band's paper consumption.
