Episode 51: Dr. Mack Wood
John Twork 0:09
Welcome to Redbird Buzz. I'm John Twork from University Marketing and Communications. Our guest today is Dr. Mack Wood, the Associate Director of Bands and director of the big red marching machine at Illinois State University. Wood earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005 where he served as the drum major of the Longhorn Band from 2003 to 2005. After graduation, he spent 11 years teaching high school bands before returning to school to earn a master's degree in instrumental conducting from LSU in 2018 and a doctor of music and arts degree in 2020 from the University of Miami. Wood arrived at Illinois State in March of 2020 and he's now in his fifth year directing the big red marching machine.
it's my pleasure to welcome Dr Mack Wood to Redbird Buzz. What's the word Redbird? Mack, Tell me about yourself and how you developed a passion for music.
Dr. Mack Wood 1:17
Sure, absolutely first. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here and great to have a conversation with you. I started playing trumpet in sixth grade band, which is pretty standard in Texas, and just kind of enjoyed playing. Went through junior high, started enjoying it a little more, tried to do some more things. Try out for all region band, do the solo ensemble thing. And at that time, I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, because that's what looked like the most fun to play on TV. So when I got into high school, I did debate for a semester and realized I did not want to be a lawyer. And then I realized that I don't like needles, and so that kind of put doctor out of the out of the picture. So I kept playing trumpet freshman year of high school, I thought to myself, Man, I really enjoy this, and I didn't even think it was a possibility to be a band director. And then I had really good, supportive high school directors that were like, Hey, have you thought about music education? And started thinking about it. And then just a moment clicked. My sophomore year of high school, we were rehearsing a piece, and I was like, This is what I want to do. And then the rest is history from there,
John Twork 2:20
wow. So did you pick the University of Texas because of marching band? Or why did you end up at UT?
Dr. Mack Wood 2:27
So I'm originally from the DFW area, and a lot of my fellow students I went to high school in Lewisville, which is just about a 20 minute drive from the University of North Texas, which is a very large school of music, and where I almost ended up going. And I had a teacher my junior year who sat me down and said, hey, you know, I think you really should look at the University of Texas. It's a big school. I think you'll fit in really well there. And my dad had lived in Austin for a couple years throughout my childhood, so I'm a little familiar with the Austin area. So my dad took me down to do a campus visit, and it's gigantic, yeah, but what I found is the School of Music and the marching band were such tight knit communities that it felt like being in a smaller family atmosphere, but just part of a big school. And when I was in Texas, when I was at the University of Texas, the football team was good, yeah, so there was all of that excitement and just the pageantry that goes with all of that, and just considering all that and the great academic institution that it is, it was, it was just an easy decision. By the time I visited campus and and got really serious about where I was going to go.
John Twork 3:33
the football team is pretty good this year too. They're in the Final Four of the college football playoffs as we record this, and I believe that'll be over by the time this episode is published. But because of that, I know I've seen the UT marching band a little bit more on national television because of that, and you were the the drum major from 2003 to 2005 the the Show Band of the Southwest is what they're branded as. Can you tell me, what was that experience like being the drum major at UT? Yeah,
Dr. Mack Wood 4:05
it was an incredible experience. My last game there was the Texas versus Michigan Rose Bowl. So getting to be the drum major for Texas' first BCS appearance and first BCS victory for the first time they ever played Michigan in the Rose Bowl was phenomenal. Getting to participate in the Rose Bowl parade that that year, and then two weeks later, we fly to DC for George W Buch's Second Inaugural Parade. So just the opportunities that that opened up for me, it was incredible. It's a great, great organization full of wonderful people, and having the opportunity to be the leader of that organization was a huge honor.
John Twork 4:40
What goes into being a drum major?
Dr. Mack Wood 4:42
So you know, obviously we have to know the music so we can conduct the band. There are some shows where I would be on a ladder, and there are some shows where I was on the field, kind of keeping time for the drum line and conducting in front of them. Little more on field style. My role at Texas was to teach all the marching fundamentals and make sure we were staying up on that, help with challenges, which is people who had competitive spots or versus people who didn't have a spot. So I facilitated a lot of those, and then just anything where the directors needed support, or I felt like things needed to be communicated to the directors. I was just kind of a proxy in that that venue too, but just it's kind of like the anything and everything jack of all trades when it comes to marching band, yeah,
John Twork 5:22
and then you went on to a 11 year career as a teacher, and then decided to go back to school. So can you tell me about that? What that career was like, and then why you decided to go back to school about a decade later? Yeah,
Dr. Mack Wood 5:36
I was an assistant director at two different high schools for the first four years, I graduated, and then a new school opened in Forney ISD, which is east of Dallas, about 30 minutes, and I was the head director there for seven years. Got to open a school and start a program from scratch, and it was a great experience. During my time there, I went to a conducting workshop, ironically, at the University of Texas, one of my teachers there, who I later ended up studying with at Miami. He really encouraged me, because he I had mentioned to him that I wanted to be a college band director at some point in my life, and grad school is a necessity for that to happen. So I got to a spot, I went and did that workshop, and I was like, Man, I'm missing out on a lot. I want. I want more from from this. I want to learn more about conducting, more about music, and we decided the perfect time to go back to grad school is when I had a two year old daughter, and just the right door opened at the right time at LSU and and then both of the experience there and at Miami, both were fantastic, and was just Very grateful to have those opportunities, but just the genesis of just wanting more and wanting to get more out of out of my activity so I can give more back to it.
John Twork 6:48
So you're from Texas, went to Texas, went to LSU, went to Miami, down in Florida, and then your first job as a college band director is up here in the frigid tundra as we record it. Now. It's nice here in the summertime, but what brought you out of the out of the south warmth, up here to the sometimes chilly Midwest, to become the director here bands at Illinois State.
Dr. Mack Wood 7:14
I went as far as south and east as I could go. So I was like, Let's go a different you know, honestly, Illinois State has such a great reputation for being a really good band school, and it has for a long time. Illinois State was on my radar even when I was teaching high school. Wow. So when I saw that this job was open, this was the job I wanted. Bloomington-Normal is a great community. We have a daughter who's in fifth grade now and playing euphonium and loving that nice, but we just like it here. It's a nice community. It's great to raise a family, but it's very supportive of bands, and what it is that we do. So coming here was, honestly, was a no brainer. And it doesn't get to 110 degrees here. Plus,
John Twork 7:53
yeah, yeah. You know, there is the flip side of that, because when marching band starts practicing, it's what August, or is it before that even it's August,
Dr. Mack Wood 8:03
it's typically just the week before classes. Okay? And we've had a couple summers where we're getting into the 90s and it's it's a little warm, but we've also had some high 60, low 70 degree days, which I can say in my 11 years of teaching in Texas, we had, most of our days were well over 100 degrees. Yeah,
John Twork 8:20
yeah, yeah, the trade off, I guess it's at the end of the year when you're marching in snow sometimes, right? Which can have its own fun, I'm sure, create some good memories. Well, tell me about your job here at Illinois State. You're the Associate Director of Bands and the director of the big red marching machine. What does that mean? What does your job entail? So
Dr. Mack Wood 8:40
I'm, obviously, I'm the director of the big red marching machine. But I also, aside from the marching band, I teach a first semester conducting course for undergraduate music ed majors. I teach a marching band techniques course, which is, you know how to design and how to basically develop your own marching band program for our music ed students. I teach. I conduct two of the concert ensembles, symphonic winds and university band. And that's a lot of that's pretty much my job description. Here. We have different camps and workshops that happen on campus. We have a marching band show every October that we host 42 high school bands. And I just kind of pitch in wherever I'm needed for all of those events as well.
John Twork 9:24
Now Illinois state's band program has a rich history. Dates back more than 100 years. Can you say, tell us how the big red marching machine has distinguished itself? You said when you were teaching high school, you had heard of Illinois State and its marching band. So what reputation does the big red marching machine have?
Dr. Mack Wood 9:44
It's got a great reputation on campus, regionally, statewide, and I would say even nationally. We have students coming from out of state, just because they know the reputation of of the organization itself. One of the things that I think we pride ourselves. On as an organization. And something that I hear from alumni is the marching band here has always just been comprised of great people, and they genuinely want each other to be successful. And when you have programs that are a little more competitive, you know, that can kind of throw a little, a little a little conflict into the mix. Sure. You know, with a big organization, there always can be a little bit of personal conflict, but everyone genuinely, genuinely wants each other to do well, and that's one of the things that I think allows the organization to be so respectable, is when people are around like they notice the students are having a great time, but they're also just good, genuine people. And that's that's really been one of the biggest factors I've noticed since I've been here.
John Twork 10:45
Well, tell me about the the current Big Red marching machine. How many members does it have? What is the makeup of the band? Let's start with that, and then then we'll get to the music a little bit after that.
Dr. Mack Wood 10:57
Sure. We're just over 400 this year, and it's comprised of people from every college. And believe most majors are represented on campus. We have, we do have a two year requirement for music education majors, so we have a little higher percentage of music majors in the ensemble compared to maybe other institutions, but we still have a majority of the ensemble is not is non majors for our wind players. If they register for their course, they're they're in and they're good to go for our auxiliary teams, drumline, Color Guard, Red Line Express and twirlers. We do auditions for them later in the spring, and that's, that's kind of how everything comes to be.
John Twork 11:37
Do you have a lot of folks who start as freshmen and keep at it all the way until they're seniors. Is that typical?
Dr. Mack Wood 11:45
It's kind of like a it's kind of kind of a pyramid, yeah, we typically always have a lot of freshmen and sophomores and then a decent number of juniors. But as with any degree plan, when you get into where you have to student teach, or you have internships or externships, it can be more complicated, yeah, and that's pretty standard across the country with marching bands. Is always a lot more freshman sophomore than junior, senior, but we also do have a good number of students that push through all four years and are able to do it.
John Twork 12:12
then the pep band is totally separate, correct, from the big red marching machine. Folks are probably familiar with them at basketball games, but there probably are some members of the big red marching machine who are also members of pep band. Is that right?
Dr. Mack Wood 12:24
Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's just, it's a separate course. Yeah, you know, when you come to ISU, you register for marching band, you do marching band, you register for pep band. And we have students that do both. We have students that do one or the other, and we have students that play in a concert, ensemble and pep band and marching band, that's as much band as they can get
John Twork 12:41
fabulous. Let's talk about the big red marching machine's repertoire. How many songs does the big red marching machine know or have in the repertoire? And is it more now than it used to be? And how does that develop?
Dr. Mack Wood 12:57
It's a lot. Yeah, I think we've probably got between the short things that we can play, in between plays and all the show music and this longer stand tunes that we play, I think we're well into the 30s. Wow. So it's a lot of repertoire each season. Our stand tune music doesn't change as much. I might add one or two charts a year, but the show music changes pretty drastically every year. So they're learning three to four tunes for each show. So maybe 20 to 24 tunes, just for pre game and for all of our halftime shows.
John Twork 13:26
What goes into the preparation? First, from your standpoint, in developing the music and the and the choreography, the steps, and then to the entire band learning that. Yeah,
Dr. Mack Wood 13:41
so the first things first is I asked the students like, what, what music do you want to perform? Yeah. So we put ideas that we kind of garner from the student leadership team, and from there, I look at what polls the most. So like, we have a boy band show that we'll be putting on next year, and likely a Stevie Wonder Show, because those two polled really highly. So then from there, it's like, All right, well, what music that's already arranged for marching band exists that helps this out. And when there's stuff that doesn't, then I typically arrange that. And then from there, once the music's done and it's set for each show, very fortunate. My colleague, TJ Mack, who runs pep band, is also very well involved with the marching band. He also writes drill, which is the formations you see on the field. And he writes great drill. So I'm fortunate I get to split that up with him. So he'll write half the shows and I'll write the other half. And then once I get the music to him, we get it to all the auxiliary coaches, and they start putting their touches on choreography and the drum parts, and then we just start putting the formations out on the field for stuff that's more like when we do a movie theme show or a TV theme show. You know, we try to capture pictures from the from those things and put those on the field. Sometimes, when I write drill, especially, I'm really focused on what's called staging, which is like, Okay, this song is going to sound really good if I put these instruments closer to the front. Aren't these in the middle and these in the back. So think about really balancing the sound from a staging standpoint, with drills. So we kind of start going through all that, and then we have pyware, is the system where we put all the drill into and then we push that all out on an app to the students now, so everything's on the phone, music and drill wise, but that's kind of a Cliff's Notes, version of beginning to end of that process.
John Twork 15:23
I was gonna ask if there was technology involved. And so, yeah, it's so in developing the choreography and the drill, like, what do you start with, pencil and paper? Or do you do it in the computer program? How do you go from what vision you have in your head to it being executed, sure.
Dr. Mack Wood 15:41
So the first thing I do is all any picture I want to do, yeah, I'm looking online at Google Images, and I'm like, All right. So I try to get it as close as I can by hand, because if I can do it by hand, then I could probably do it with a mouse, sure. And once I get my sketches in, then I go in, and I just start plugging people in, and then we'll go from a picture, and then we'll go to some set that'll allow me to get into the next picture. And then that's just kind of the process throughout, throughout those tunes. And then once it's done, I export it out to what's called Ultimate drill book. And so when the students open that app on their phone, they can update or download whatever I've put in the app. It's on their phone forever, or in the app forever until I delete it. They open it up, they can see the animation. They can see the animation while also hearing like the music that's being played with it. So it gives them access to all the information that I have. So it's no longer them having to wait for me to give them information. I can just tell them, All right, go here. Then they go there. It's like, All right, let's put music to it, and then we go. So it really expedites the learning process,
John Twork 16:48
yeah. So you can put the image in, and essentially it will come up with this person needs to go this many steps to this direction, that sort of
Dr. Mack Wood 16:58
thing. So I'll put in the very bottom of the form, there's what's called the count tab editor. And so I can say, okay, from page one to page two is 16 counts. Yeah. So whatever motion I put it'll animate that for 16 counts. And when I sync the music, it syncs exactly to each count. So each step is synced in that way. So they can see that a 16 count move has it shows them all 16 counts of the animation with the music,
John Twork 17:24
that's incredible. And you said marching band practice starts a week before school. That's great, but the first football game isn't much past that. I mean, how in the world do you get ready in time?
Dr. Mack Wood 17:35
It's a lot. We rehearse a lot that week. Yeah, Monday through Thursday or Monday through Friday are pretty full day practices. Then we get into the stadium for the scrimmage on Saturday. Typically, the football team does red-white scrimmage. The good news is, most of our members have marched, you know, 1 2 3, or four years in high school, sure. So that activity is not completely new to them. And you know, we pick the difficulty of the show carefully. We're not going to do the hardest show of the year right out of the gate, sure, because we're learning pre game and we're learning that first half time, sure, right, right? We've been lucky. The last couple years we've had two or three weeks before the first football game, yeah, so that's given us a lot of time to to get things cleaned up. But there have been some turnarounds where it's, it's a week and we're on, yeah,
John Twork 18:17
yeah. I know that. I've been by, you know, the Horton Field House area late at night, and have heard the marching band on the practice it's like a parking lot you have there with sort of a elevated platform that I imagine that's where you're at during marching band practice. Is that, right?
Dr. Mack Wood 18:34
There are some rehearsals where I'll be up there if I really need to kind of hear how things are going. Sure, there's also times where I like to be down on the field and just kind of see how everyone's doing, and kind of keep up, keep tabs on how everyone's feeling, what the energy of the group is like, so I like to go back and forth. Yeah,
John Twork 18:47
yeah. Well, it involves an incredible amount of work, I'm sure, but well worth it. Can you just tell me what role does the marching band play at Illinois State University?
Dr. Mack Wood 18:58
Yeah, I think one of the things we talk a lot about with our students is we're ambassadors of the university anytime we exist as a group. And I think it's important that we have good ambassadorship for our university, because I think we have the ability to travel, whether it's to get out into parades or perform at NFL games, but travel to, you know, to Dublin or travel to New York to do those types of more national scale events. We provide really good ambassadorship for the university. I think the other thing we do is provide a lot of support and energy for our football games and the men's and women's basketball game that we do as an organization. We're one of the few schools in the country that has the full marching band go to a men's and a women's basketball game, and we want to try to support all of our athletic events as best as we can, because they're very supportive of us.
John Twork 19:45
Yeah, I can say I was at the men's game, which was the season, regular season opener, with the big red marching machine taking up the entire student section, and the noise in a good way, like just the. Beautiful sound, but my goodness, the volume, I guess I should say was, was so impressive, and you can feel it. So it was something to experience. And for listeners, I would encourage you to try to do that. Next year, the men's games already happened. Has the women's game also happened as well this year. It was on november 17, yeah, yeah, such a cool experience, though. We mentioned the long and proud history, the big red marching machine, and you've been with with the band now for a little bit. Have you added sort of your own identity to this to the band, whether that be in the music or in the steps, and if so, what? What sort of is your signature that you've placed on the big red marching machine?
Dr. Mack Wood 20:47
I think, kind of switching to where everything's digital-- Yeah, we did that in 2020 when I first started, 2021 when we came out of COVID And sure, full season. I think that's helped us progress a lot of it as an organization. Just shortening the learning curve. I've upgraded, I don't say upgraded, I don't think that's the right word. I've updated some of the book that the organization plays. I've included a couple of charts from HBCUs or historical black colleges, just because, you know, we want to be representative of all the students in the organization. So I've tried to update the book with more diverse, more diverse repertoire. And I think the students like it like we've got Fireball in there from Pitbull. We've got Neck in there from Cameo, which is a very popular stand tune from Southern and LSU, yeah. So we've tried to add some of that flair to the book. And I like to be kind of a energetic person, so I've tried to instill some of that into into what we play as well. Yeah,
John Twork 21:48
yeah. Well, it really it shows it games. The energy that the marching band is able to produce itself, and then also to help the fans generate as well, is really profound. The big red marching machine produces a lot of highly engaged alumni. That's one thing I've really noticed. You know, I mentioned before we went on the air, I worked on a story last year about the big red marching machine performing at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade back in the late 90s. And it was amazing how many alumni I was able to get a hold of who had these great memories of performing at that parade. There's a Facebook group that has 1700 members. Can you just talk about how strong this alumni group is, the big red marching machine alumni, and why that's important to have that really strong group?
Dr. Mack Wood 22:36
Yeah, it was an incredibly strong alumni base, and very, very fortunate that that's the case. Yeah, you know, the alumni built everything that we do now, even if we do some things slightly differently, it all stemmed from something that came from the past, and without that, we don't have the organization we have now, and our connection to the experiences that the alumni in every era, even when it was the Illinois State University marching band before it was the big red marching machine, hearing stories and experiences that everyone's had through all those eras is just really important for us to understand where we came from, so we kind of know where we're also able to go. So I think it's really vital. Well,
John Twork 23:19
one place you're going to be going very soon is Ireland, the big red marching machine, for the third time in its history, is headed to Dublin to play at the St Patrick's Day parade. Can you talk about what all that trip will entail that's coming up this March? Really looking forward to that. So what's happening with that trip?
Dr. Mack Wood 23:39
Yeah, so we'll be there for a week, and it's the whole band is going. We're taking 265 members, wow, for this particular trip, the students had to either fundraise or pay their way to get there, sure. And so 265 students did that. And yeah, it's going to be, it's an action packed trip, but it's going to be, it's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to go to go to Kilkenny Castle. We actually were just invited a couple days ago to march through the town and actually parade through through the town of Kilkenny, which they don't just let everyone do. So that's going to be a really cool opportunity for us to have a St Patrick's Day celebration on a smaller scale than Dublin. Yeah, we get the opportunity to go to Belfast, to go to the Titanic museum. We get a chance to go out to Galway to see the arts district in Ireland. We'll go see the cliffs of Moher, which, if you've seen the Princess Bride, they're the Cliffs of Insanity. And then we get some time in Dublin. And then, obviously, the via St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin, which, last year I went on the scout trip. And there were over 500,000 over 500,000 people in attendance at that parade. So my attendance, I think it's going to be the students are going to have a great time, and it's going to be a really memorable experience.
John Twork 24:50
How do you get ready for that? Is there anything that you do differently getting ready for that trip than you would during the regular season for big red marching machine? The only
Dr. Mack Wood 24:59
The onlything. That's different is we don't meet as an ensemble in the spring, yeah. So we'll have a couple opportunities where we'll meet as a group to just practice the parade, and, more than anything, just play through all the songs that we haven't played through since November, sure. But other than that, you know, we use Bob Rogers travel. They help us organize the trip. They handle all the travel arrangements. Nice, which makes that worth it, because I don't know how to travel in Ireland. It's not, yeah, something I've ever booked. So having their expertise take care of that takes a lot of stress off our plate. Sure, to then we're just worried about what the students do when we get there. Yeah, yeah.
John Twork 25:30
Well, that'll be an amazing experience. Our listeners, especially those who aren't big red marching machine alumni, have likely learned a lot as have I during this conversation. So when we see the big red marching machine next, which will likely be at a football game, unless we travel to Dublin, which I think there are some alumni and friends and family who are so lucky them, but what should we be watching for when we watch the big red marching machine, from your expertise, what's maybe something that your average watch or viewer doesn't notice that we should?
Dr. Mack Wood 26:05
that's a good question. I would say, when you see the students, whether we're playing, you know, just as we get past Main Street, we call it the Y before game, you see pregame, you see halftime, you know, just realize that there's a lot of hours that goes into everything that those students do. You know, they rehearse six hours a week, plus another hour on game days. We probably put in a 40 hour week the week before classes start. So there's a lot of time and hours that goes into that. And you know, just appreciate the effort that 400 students are putting out there just to put a product on the field that we hope everyone enjoys and hope everyone can be proud of. And, you know, there's always time after we perform to go get a hot dog, so I would say that. And you know, if you're sitting high enough in the stadium and you're able to see pictures that we're making, especially if we're doing cartoon or movie shows, you know, challenge yourself to see if you can pick some of those out. It makes it makes it a little more fun of a watching experience. Yeah, yeah.
John Twork 27:05
Well, wrapping up the interview, now that you're settled into your role leading the big red marching machine, do you have any goals for growing the band or trying new things in the future?
Dr. Mack Wood 27:14
Yeah, we always want to try to get a little bit better at what we do. Each year we're going to take a little bit of a, I don't want to say paradigm shift, but somewhere that direction with our leadership team, I've grown that team just a little bit to where every student has a specific responsibility and that hopefully they can do that one thing really, really well. Instead of trying to have one person do three things, we're gonna have three people do one thing. Yeah, and I think that'll help just the organization as a whole. The other thing is, we're just going to continue to push the envelope with music and drill and hopefully get some really exciting shows out there. And then, other than that, you know, apply to participate in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and other things like that that bring our organization and university national attention, like I talked about with ambassadorship. You know, really, really looking forward to having some more of those opportunities as well. Well,
John Twork 28:04
have a fabulous time in Ireland. Can't wait to see videos and pictures of that. And then, very much looking forward to, it's the sound of fall. You know, when you hear the big red marching machine practicing, you know that football season is upon us, and it's a great time of year. So we I can't wait to hear the first notes of the big red marching machine come 2025, football season, marching season as well. So thank you so much. Mack, yeah, thank you.
That was Dr Mack Wood, the Associate Director of Bands and director of the big red marching machine at Illinois State University. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to tune in next time for more stories from beyond the quad.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai