Five years ago, Josh Cease taught himself how to be a drum major on the top level of a parking garage in Frisco, Texas.
While the world wrestled with the pandemic, in 2020 Cease bought a mace, and taught himself drum majoring by drilling up and down the parking garage, leading an invisible band by listening to famous marches with headphones. In 2022, Cease moved to Centreville, and he started looking for opportunities to lead a marching band.
Fast forward to the present. The 23-year-old Cease is the drum major of the City of Alexandria Pipes and Drums, leading a plaid ensemble past audiences of thousands through Old Town with heart-pounding renditions of Scotland the Brave and other classics.
“It’s an electrifying feeling,” Cease told ALXnow. “All these different passions that have grown and developed over years, kind of culminating to this one point in this one thing that I have now come to absolutely love. It’s become such a significant part of my life.”
The traditional British military pipe band has played for U.S. presidents, at nationally televised events, as well as a number of annual parades and events in Alexandria. In fact, the band is next playing on Friday (March 28) for the installation of the new president of American University in Washington, D.C.
ALXnow: How did you get into drum majoring?
Cease: My first experience with marching and drill was in JROTC in high school. I was raised playing music as a child, and during the pandemic, I had a lot of free time on my hands. I purchased a mace, which is that big stick that you see me carrying in parades, and I found there’s drill manuals used by drum majors in the British Army that are available online. I also found videos online, and decided to learn drum major drill, because it position that I was drawn to in the band.
ALXnow: How long did it take you to get the moves down?
Cease: I would say probably about a month, two month and a half, just marching a straight line back and forth on the top level of a parking garage. I listened to music on headphones. There’s plenty of British marching band music on Spotify.
ALXnow: What would people say when they saw you drill alone?
Cease: I never really encountered anyone. There was one person who came up one time and she just watched, and left me to do my thing after a while. Yeah, I didn’t really see too many people. It was kind of my own little thing, which is funny, because I never really liked the idea of doing it in public without a band.
ALXnow: How did you stumble across Alexandria and this band?
Cease: I moved here in August of 2022, and I have a mace that sits in my closet and I wanted to put it to use and get some experience. So, I looked up some local pipe bands, and Alexandria was the first one that actually came up. I was quite impressed, because, first of all, you never see pipe bands in full-dress, in the full uniform that we wear.
My intent initially was to try to find a band that had a drum major that had experience. I reached out to the band secretary email and told them I would be moving here, and then said I’d like to shadow an existing drum major. And they said, “Yeah, sure, come on in. We practice every Thursday.”
ALXnow: Had you ever led a group of musicians before?
Cease: Never. I went down to Alexandria for band practice and brought my stick with me and met the drum major Kevin Donnelly, who’s been with the band for quite some time. He’s returned to his former glory as a piper. He taught me how to call off a tune, and kind of let me do my thing from there, and I must have impressed them quite a bit, because I heard good things about it later from the pipe major. I spent the next four months observing the band, and I took over as the drum major after the Scottish Christmas Walk in Dec. 2022.
From August when I joined the bend until January, when I officially took over, I was at every single band practice. Anytime we were doing drill, I was pretty much given the opportunity to lead the band and put them through whatever music they needed to practice, but it also put me in front of the band so they could get used to my signals.
ALXnow: This isn’t long after you’ve practiced alone, atop a parking garage performing with headphones. What was it like performing with a band, putting this practice into action?
Cease: It’s an electrifying feeling. All these different passions that have grown and developed over years, kind of culminating to this one point in this one thing that I have now come to absolutely love. It’s become such a significant part of my life.
First of all, I absolutely love the people that I get to work with. Everyone in this band comes from various different backgrounds, walks of life, various places, and they all had interesting stories. And, you know, they’ve, they’ve become a second family to me. I know all of them by name. I kind of have to, I think what really draws the passion out of me for this band, specifically, is tradition.
ALXnow: What do you mean?
Cease: Why have the big fur hat? Why have all the glamorous uniforms? There’s a rich history here that honors people who have sacrificed everything for us. I like to use a Gustav Mahler quote: “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”
ALXnow: How has doing this work changed you?
Cease: It’s definitely gotten me out of my shell a bit. I’m more open to to stepping out of my comfort zone. For example, public speaking has always been a struggle for me. This past summer, we played summer concerts in Market Square that requires me to get on the microphone in front of a crowd and talk about something for up to minute at a time. You have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps when you get tossed into that kind of situation, but you’ve got to do it for the band. Know what I mean?
ALXnow: Where do you want to play most?
Cease: I would like to go to the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Scotland. It’s got a rich history of regimental bands all coming together in front of Edinburgh Castle and doing a big performance.
ALXnow: What’s your favorite moment during parades?
Cease: My favorite moment for parades is always when we’re marching past the grandstand. it’s a point of pride marching past that grandstand, giving that big salute to the right or left. Having my band behind me with colours flying, bayonets fixed, chests out. It’s a very big moment of pride.
