The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band (also known as the Noble Men of Kyle or just the Aggie Band) is the official marching band of Texas A&M University. Composed of over 400 men and women from the school's Corps of Cadets, it is the largest military marching band in the world. The band's complex straight-line marching maneuvers are performed exclusively to traditional marches.

Since its inception in 1894, its members eat together, sleep in the same dormitories, and practice up to forty hours per week on top of a full academic schedule. The Aggie Band performs at all home football games, some away games, and university and Corps functions throughout the year. The band has also participated in inauguration parades for many United States presidents and Texas governors, major annual parades across the country, and the dedication ceremony for the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library.

History

Early years
The Aggie Band owes its existence to Joseph Holick (born in 1868 in Moravia). In 1885, Holick and his brother Louis boarded an empty boxcar bound for Orange, Texas, so that they could gain employment in a lumber mill. En route, the two stopped in Bryan, Texas, near the campus of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. The 22-year-old Holick began to doubt his choice, stating, "I was a small boy and couldn't do lumbering work", and chose to remain in Bryan working under Raymond Blatherwick, owner of a prominent boot shop. Lawrence Sullivan Ross, the president of the nearby college and a former Governor of Texas, stopped into Blatherwick's boot shop and noted how inconvenient it was for cadets to go to Bryan for their boots. Ross requested Holick be stationed at the new military college to perform cobbler duties.

Holick accepted the proposal and moved to work at Texas A&M. Shortly after his arrival, the Commandant's staff discovered his musical talents. They requested him to play the bugle for Corps functions and for US$65 a month, he was assigned to play Reveille and Taps. Because the new job paid much more than his previous one, Holick wanted to give the school "more than just two tunes for its money and he asked the commandant for permission to start a cadet band". The commandant agreed and named Holick its first bandmaster. Under his tutelage and the leadership of subsequent bandmasters, the band grew from 13 members at its inception in 1894 to 75 bandsmen in 1924.

Early drum majors are credited with inspiring the band's name. The first student drum major, H.A. "California" Morse, was asked to leave the college due to fighting. In addition, the early drum majors were chosen in physical combat; insomuch that the candidates were placed in a locked room, with the best fighter / the one emerging victorious, being named to the coveted position. This tradition of aggressiveness and physical combat was noted by band members, who then took to calling themselves the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band.

Dunn years

In 1924, Lieutenant Colonel Richard J. Dunn was appointed as bandmaster. As a former member of John Philip Sousa's Marine Band and with 26 years of military band leadership experience, Dunn quickly instituted changes within the band. The first was to the position of bugler, whose duties had fallen to the bandmaster since 1894. When informed that he was expected to fill the role, Dunn told college officials, "I have blown enough bugles. I am the Bandmaster. Someone else can blow the bugle calls." From then on, the Corps Bugler was chosen from the ranks of the Aggie Band.

Dunn also instituted uniform changes which added white canvas to the band uniform, resulting in a "flash effect" every other step. Dunn tried, to no avail, to rid the band of the Senior Boots, but this tradition was too well-established. Other additions included crossed white belts, later discarded in favor of a white Sam Browne belt, silver buckles, and the addition of a bugle rank to lead the band in its maneuvers. Changes in the drills included the "Block T", the band's signature, and such intricate designs which led to talk amongst fans about the band "always winning halftime".

Under Dunn's experience, the band instituted some traditions that the university uses to the present. In 1925, Marvin H. Mimms wrote the lyrics for an alma mater for the school. Dunn, who found the Aggie War Hymn "inappropriate" for social functions and solemn occasions, wrote its accompanying music and presented it to the student body titled Spirit of Aggieland. In 1926, the tradition of Elephant Walk began when two seniors in the band led a procession of seniors throughout the school grounds visiting all the important places on campus. All the seniors in one single file was "quite a sight to behold", and one junior commented that they looked like a bunch of old elephants wandering around trying to find some place to die. The name stuck and the tradition continues to the present.

Beginning in 1939, the U.S. Army required all cadets to be in either infantry or field artillery units. Therefore, the band was split into two separate units at opposite ends of the campus dormitories and named Infantry and Artillery Bands. When the two units performed together, they formed the Combined Band. 1942 saw the band expand to 250 members, but the need for manpower for the war effort caused membership to plummet. By the end of the 1942–1943 school year, it dropped it to only 90 bandsmen. As "a crusty old army man", Dunn understood the nation's urgent need for troops, and he accepted the fact that the Aggie Band could only return after the war was over.

Along with conducting the Aggie Band, Dunn started his own orchestra with the newly built A&M Consolidated High School on the Texas A&M Campus, called the "Little Symphony Orchestra". Dunn was also the founder of the famous A&M Consolidated High School Tiger Band in 1947.

Adams era

Dunn once told then-cadet Edward Vergne Adams, "One day I want you to direct this band." Adams thought the Colonel was joking, but "went to music school after graduation just in case he wasn't". After music school, he joined the army and put his musical skills to rest for the duration of the war, with one exception: while on regimental staff during the retreat ceremony at the end of the day, the assigned bugler had no experience and couldn't play a single note, so Adams stepped out of formation, took the bugle from the bugler's hands, blew the appropriate calls, handed the bugle back, and marched back into his spot in the formation.

This intolerance for incompetence served him well when he accepted the invitation of Dunn to be his replacement as director of the Aggie Band. Adams began his tenure with an undisciplined band devoid of experience and ravaged by years of war, but in his first year of leadership, the ranks of the band quickly swelled to 225 members. Infantry and field artillery associations were no longer required by the Army and Adams changed the units' names to the Maroon and White Bands.

Adams began to make the drills far more intricate and precise than they had been in the past by adding a countermarch, maneuvers from the Army Drill Manual, and established a 30-inch (76 cm) step, or six steps for every five yards (4.57m), as the band standard. Adams also added the criss-cross maneuver. First performed November 27, 1947 at the annual Thanksgiving Day game with the University of Texas, the criss-cross maneuver and its later variations (specifically the four-way cross) became the band's most anticipated maneuver. Other band directors said it was impossible to do because it required two people to be in the same place at the same time (indeed, to this day computer programs that chart band formations say that this maneuver cannot be performed). To accomplish this, band members step between each other's feet. In later years, people who did not know that the maneuver was first done in 1947 claimed that the drill was designed by a computer. Adams explained, "It's all a matter of mathematics. One man can take up only a certain amount of space at one time and moves in one direction at a predictable rate of speed."

The band's reputation spread and other bands had begun to have some apprehension about performing in the same halftime as the Aggie Band. One Southwest Conference band director stated, "I dread going against the Aggie Band.... What is so humiliating is to see the Aggie Band do things band directors talk about as being impossible, and do them perfectly. It takes two weeks to recover from the trauma." In 1960, "one band gave up without a fight": the Trinity Tiger Band opted to sit instead of perform and gave the Aggie Band the entire halftime to perform.

During Adams' tenure, the college acquired a new mascot, the first since the original Reveille died in 1944. Reveille II, like the original Reveille, was cared for and attended to by band members. During halftime performances, the young dog was allowed to be on the field with the band without her leash. During these breaks where she could get out and run, she had a tendency to "do her business" on Kyle Field's playing surface. This didn't bother the band members much, as Reveille stayed away from the band, but Adams discovered a gambling scheme whereby cadets were taking bets on what yard line the dog would defecate. He quickly ended the practice and turned the responsibility of caring for Reveille over to Company E-2