"The Chief of Staff" March By Senior Master Sgt. (Retired) Bob Thurston

While we love our traditional military band marches, today we’re bringing you a recording of relatively new piece in the military wind band repertoire, the “Chief of Staff” march. Written by former USAF Band composer and arranger, Senior Master Sgt. (retired) Bob Thurston, this march has quite an interesting back story.

Thurston states, “I wanted to write a military march in the Hollywood tradition of great marches like Jerry Goldsmith’s “Patton,” or John Williams’ “Midway.” I came up with the melody while walking from the US Capitol to the nearest Metro station. I didn’t have a pencil and paper with me (very uncharacteristic of me!)—but I did have my cell phone, so I texted the melody to myself using letters for note names and dashes for 8th-note place holders. The text version was in the key of C (easiest for punching out the note names with my thumbs), but I found that F worked better once I started scoring it. Otherwise, by the time I finished the march a couple of weeks later, the melody was virtually unchanged from the tune I texted to myself."

Please enjoy “Chief of Staff” march by one of the USAF Band’s own, Senior Master Sgt. (retired) Bob Thurston!