Ohio State's Marching Band Embraces the iPad

The Ohio State University Marching Band has nurtured a reputation for innovation since at least 1930, when it assembled the first moving formation—an anchor—to the delight of fans at the OSU-Navy game.

Eighty-odd years later, what passes for cutting edge has changed. This season, for the first time, Ohio State’s marching band will equip its entire 192-person squad with iPad Airs. The Apple tablets will come with apps for sheet music (ForScore), charting marching formations (Drillbook Next), and review techniques (Coach’s Eye), plus digital metronomes and tuners. Band members will download rehearsal and logistical information via the university’s custom version of Box, the cloud software; they will wrap the tablets in submersible, shockproof cases designed to protect against even the most cavalier undergrad.

The move from analog to digital was born of two student band members’ concerns about the environment. In a typical season the band was using tens of thousands of sheets of paper, if not hundreds of thousands. After a pilot program last year, in which only the band’s leaders used iPads, director Jonathan Waters realized his musicians were not only saving trees, they were also learning their steps faster.