Arthur P. Barnes

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Dr. Arthur P. Barnes was the director of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band, from 1963 to 1997.

[edit] Career

After teaching band and music theory at Fresno State University, Barnes came to Stanford to get his doctorate degree in music education, and took over as an interim director of the Stanford Band, winning over a group of students that had been in a state of anarchy until his arrival with his charts of rock and roll songs, including tunes by The Beatles, Chicago, and The Rolling Stones. He ran the band very loosely, allowing the students to run their own organization while he acted as their faculty liaison and directed Stanford's symphonic bands and wind ensemble. It was this lax management style that allowed the band to become famous for its on-field irreverence and off-field antics. He himself described his job, saying, "I write some of the music and try to keep the band out of jail."

Equally as offbeat as the band members he directed, Barnes filled in for a tuba player in the 1972 Rose Bowl Parade, winning a $50 bet with the UCLA band director that he couldn't march the five and a half miles with a sousaphone. After playing the tuba for the duration of the entire parade without sheet music, he quipped, "Hell, I didn't need music. I wrote it." The $50 check is still on the wall of the "Band Shak".

Upon his retirement in 1997, he received a proclamation from six Stanford alumni in the U.S. Senate, praising him for his arrangements and his commitment to musical education. A former student manager toasted him at his farewell dinner, saying:

Art Barnes never set out to 'manage' the Stanford Band. He set out to be their leader. He has evolved into being their mentor, their friend, their guide and their buffer from the University administration. And like the best leaders, he surrounded himself with some very bright people and allowed them to do their best.

[edit] Arrangements

Barnes turned over three hundred popular rock songs into marching band arrangements; these included:

"All Right Now", the school's de facto fight song,
a version of "Uncle John's Band" used on the Grateful Dead tribute album Stolen Roses, and
the Stanford Band's signature arrangement of "The Star Spangled Banner".

When he joined the band as its director, the musical style was in line with that of other bands, typical military marching fare. Barnes decided to change things and give Stanford a sound that would set it apart from other bands. He scrapped the Native American themed fight songs that had gone along with Stanford's mascot, the Indian, and sought a new fight song.

Barnes had a tough time convincing the students that a song from British band Free could represent the university, but to this day, students and alumni still jump during "All Right Now", the school's de facto fight song. While "Come Join the Band" has been the official fight song since long before Stanford had a scatter band, the band plays "All Right Now" before every game, after every touchdown or field goal, after every Stanford win (when they play their "Victory Mix"), and as the last song of any set that they perform.