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"Growing the Jazz Audience"


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Also, jazz started losing its popularity when the musicians started to only play for themselves. Which is great; having your own self fulfillment while you play is important. But what does this in turn do? Eventually, jazz musicians and jazz scholars were the only ones listening to jazz.

The great thing about drum corps is reaching out to your audience. The constant quote I've heard from Marc Sylvester is, "We do it to make them clap". If you strive for this with any musical genre, you'll sale.

Edited by kaseyW
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What are corps supposed to play? Pop music that we can hear on the radio anytime we want? That would bore people to tears and it's not musically challenging.

Playing wind ensemble music didn't do DCI any favors either.

Mike

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Playing wind ensemble music didn't do DCI any favors either.

Mike

How so? Wind ensemble music seemed to work pretty well for shows for a bulk of the 80s and 90s and still does pretty well (e.g. John Mackey). Don't a lot of the DCI audience (and members and staff) have a wind ensemble background where the music is familiar?

Edited by Quad Aces
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How so? Wind ensemble music seemed to work pretty well for shows for a bulk of the 80s and 90s and still does pretty well (e.g. John Mackey). Don't a lot of the DCI audience (and members and staff) have a wind ensemble background where the music is familiar?

It worked exceedingly well for a couple of corps (most notably Star of Indiana). It didn't work when a lot of DCI corps, being that it's a copycat activity, succumbed to what has been called the "Star of Indiana Effect". They decided wind band music was the only way to go, and alienated audiences all over the country for a number of years. It took a long time for many corps to figure out how much that hurt the activity (a few still haven't).

Also working against jazz and other forms of popular music is the fact that the vast majority of the judging community are wind band conductors. Very few teach or perform jazz or pop, beyond a small number of well-rounded band directors that have good jazz programs. Almost none have any experience performing, arranging, composing and adjudicating pop or rock music.

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What are corps supposed to play? Pop music that we can hear on the radio anytime we want? That would bore people to tears and it's not musically challenging.

No matter if the piece is completely new and original, played by several corps in years gone by, annoyingly catchy or the hardest most complex esoteric piece of music ever written, I think most top 12 arrangers would make anything musically challenging.... even stuff that's played on the radio.

The hard bit is not just to make the source music challenging but to make it challenging & entertaining.

What a Drum Corps fan finds entertaining is a whole different argument.... ph34r.gif

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It worked exceedingly well for a couple of corps (most notably Star of Indiana). It didn't work when a lot of DCI corps, being that it's a copycat activity, succumbed to what has been called the "Star of Indiana Effect". They decided wind band music was the only way to go, and alienated audiences all over the country for a number of years. It took a long time for many corps to figure out how much that hurt the activity (a few still haven't).

Also working against jazz and other forms of popular music is the fact that the vast majority of the judging community are wind band conductors. Very few teach or perform jazz or pop, beyond a small number of well-rounded band directors that have good jazz programs. Almost none have any experience performing, arranging, composing and adjudicating pop or rock music.

I don't think Star of Indiana was notable for using wind band music in their shows. Check out their rep. Cadets on the other hand...

Edited by warsawstory
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Also, jazz started losing its popularity when the musicians started to only play for themselves. Which is great; having your own self fulfillment while you play is important. But what does this in turn do? Eventually, jazz musicians and jazz scholars were the only ones listening to jazz.

This reminds me of something I read in college: "The Culture of a Deviant Group: The Dance Musician", in Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (1963) by Howard Becker. A typical example:

Becker: How do you feel about the people you play for, the audience?

Musician: They're a drag.

Becker: Why do say that?

Musician: Well, if you're working on a commercial band, they like it and so you have to play more corn. If you're working on a good band, then they don't like it, and that's a drag. If you're working on a good band and they like it, then that's a drag, too. You hate them anyway, because you know that they don't know what it's all about. They're just a big drag.

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jazz, wind ensemble, pop....the problem isn't the source material, it's how it's arranged.

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We Americans are such Philistines about music. I long for the day we all grow up and understand that music is music, in all its forms.

When the aliens monitor us from deep space they do not make the trivial distinctions we do. To them, all of it is Earth Music.

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We Americans are such Philistines about music. I long for the day we all grow up and understand that music is music, in all its forms.

When the aliens monitor us from deep space they do not make the trivial distinctions we do. To them, all of it is Earth Music.

You are absolutely right.

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