Ghost Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 I've said before that I've seen hundreds of performances with a corps standing still and playing and I've yet to see one where they march and don't play. There have been many corps over the decades who have not played while marching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perc2100 Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 *sigh* and that's where I started liking DCI less and less. The visuals are usually cool, but if you can't close your eyes and get into the music, what's the point? I've said before that I've seen hundreds of performances with a corps standing still and playing and I've yet to see one where they march and don't play. Yeah I get that: especially to the fans who maybe got into the activity back in the days when there was a full chart where the corps did nothing but stand and play. I came into the activity in 1990 and marched in the mid/late 90s, right before Cavaliers changed the game and made visual THE main focus of show design. While I still love listening to older show sin particular, and specific percussion licks year-to-year, I see drum corps show design similar as film: it's a total audio/visual medium and one w/out the other is missing A LOT of the design intent. Also, even as far back as the early 1990s there was "silent drill" in corps show designs. Similarly, I've seen some pretty brilliant visual moments where either the corps was "only" playing a power chord, or the majority of the musical ensemble wasn't playing & percussion only were playing. I think visual has had its fair share of focal moments over the decades Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenoris4Jazz Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 There have been many corps over the decades who have not played while marching. But not an entire show, and that's my point. What happens in bad weather when it's not safe to march? They play a standstill or go indoors and play. I've never seen a show where the staff said "Well, let's not play and just march." This is just my opinion, but I heard the USMC Drum Corps in 1987 play on stage at the auditorium where they were hosting the awards presentation for our spring band competition. So much of the impact of the USMCDC is their incredibly tight military drill, but that night nobody cared that it was a standstill concert without marching. They blew the doors out of that place and had 1500 high school kids going nuts! Maybe it's the fact that I've spent a good part of the last 27 years listening to DCI Finals performances from 1972-2005, music only. Maybe it also has something to do with my photographic memory (which used to be MUCH better!) and the fact that I could "see" the show in my head while listening to the music. Maybe it has something to do with giving up the G bugles and that unique sound that I loved. Whatever... if the music is going to be less and less of a focus, I'll support the activity by seeing live shows and just go back and listen to the 30+ years of recordings where the music was the thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.Holland Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 even though i love the activity, and have been an instructor of both the G era, and the new Era... I can't listen to much past 2004 on CD only. Its just too little content without the visual package. So i just don't own anything after 2001. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 Even though I love the activity, and have been an instructor of both the G era, and the new era, I can't listen to much past 2004 on CD only. It's just too little content without the visual package. So I just don't own anything after 2001. I first encountered a good number of drum corps performances on CD, and I found it very interesting to discover that some shows become much more interesting or much less interesting when I later saw the same shows on video. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlamMan Posted December 2, 2015 Share Posted December 2, 2015 even though i love the activity, and have been an instructor of both the G era, and the new Era... I can't listen to much past 2004 on CD only. Its just too little content without the visual package. So i just don't own anything after 2001. Yup. Same here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted December 2, 2015 Share Posted December 2, 2015 I can listen to old and new. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamarag Posted December 2, 2015 Share Posted December 2, 2015 I've listened to more 2014 and 2015 shows than any year in a long, long time. 2015 in particular has a ton of listenable shows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted December 2, 2015 Share Posted December 2, 2015 Yeah I get that: especially to the fans who maybe got into the activity back in the days when there was a full chart where the corps did nothing but stand and play. I came into the activity in 1990 and marched in the mid/late 90s, right before Cavaliers changed the game and made visual THE main focus of show design. While I still love listening to older show sin particular, and specific percussion licks year-to-year, I see drum corps show design similar as film: it's a total audio/visual medium and one w/out the other is missing A LOT of the design intent. Yes, the design intent of coordinated audio/visual moments is worth noting. But unlike film, the music and visual aspects of drum corps are also judged separately, every time they are performed live in a contest. Designers write with those judges in mind. They are incentivized to create a product that, while coordinated motion to music, also appeals to people who focus on one aspect to the relative exclusion of the other. And as a result, they still do - at least in my opinion, the musical programs are just as viable a standalone product as they were in 1990, 1980, 1970, 1960, etc. We all enjoy drum corps in our own ways. For me, while I appreciate A/V coordination, I do not need to see it repeatedly on a video recording. But I do need to hear that music, again and again. So I get my drum corps fix from CDs (or better yet, APDs in recent DCI years). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim K Posted December 2, 2015 Share Posted December 2, 2015 (edited) even though i love the activity, and have been an instructor of both the G era, and the new Era... I can't listen to much past 2004 on CD only. Its just too little content without the visual package. So i just don't own anything after 2001.For me, prior the new instrumentation, there was a bit more character in the performances which often comes across in the recordings. I don't hear as much of that after the new instrumentation on performances I did not see live. I do have recordings that span 1975-2014, and what I have found is that from about 2000 to 2011, if I saw a corps perform live, I enjoyed the recording. If I did not see the corps perform live, much can be lost, at least for me. I do not count the movie theater as seeing a show live, for me live has to be an actual competition where I am in attendance. Since 2011, I do feel that more attention is paid to musical impact and crowd response, and the recordings work well. Edited December 2, 2015 by Tim K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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