Tekneek

1986 and 1990

The "most exciting" I ever saw in person was probably Star of Indiana 1990. It floored me at the time and never went away. Even now, when I watch the DVD, it still has the same effect on me that it did when I was 16.

I won't attack the guy for not solving the problem, my criticism is directed at him because he seems to exacerbate the problem with his upping of the equipment ante on a regular basis. It seems similar to universities who complain about lack of diversity amongst their student body while raising tuition and entrance requirements.

I'm not suggesting that it doesn't work this way, I am simply saying that it shouldn't have to. People should be able to handle situations on a case-by-case basis. This is just another thing that is wrong with the system. It's why kids who bring a knife to cut their steak are punished the same as somebody who brings a hunting knife. Despite any reasonable person understanding there is a clear difference there, they get treated the same by a system that refuses to think.

Nobody has to be treated "exactly the same" as everybody else. We are human beings and we have the ability to weigh evidence and make a reasoned judgment based on that evidence. I agree that a band director shouldn't "punish" somebody for being involved in more than music, but it should be clear that most students coming off of drum corps tour will be prepared to pick up marching band music/drill much faster than somebody coming off of science/computer camp. Your thought process sounds like the type behind all sorts of "zero tolerance" rules/laws that accomplish nothing positive and reduce humans to robots.

The easy answer is that Cavaliers and Scouts need to change with the times. Stop holding onto traditions from the old days. This is a new, fresh activity, and they need the artistic expression and creativity that only being coed will provide them.

Like everything else in drum corps today, tradition is unimportant and is simply holding us back from greater success. Do away with the gender bias. Cavaliers and Scouts will be so much better once they forget silly things like tradition.

It seems to me, at every turn, DCI tries to up the ante and be more "elite" than they previously were. I see plenty of attempts to appeal to the affluent, but not to anyone else. Hopkins himself has been at the helm of this transition in the activity. Perhaps he is surprised by the unintended consequences. Better now than later.

If the Division I World Class corps aren't in the business of teaching kids how to play anymore, they should pay a development fee to any "open class" corps that they get members from. Sort of the way that smaller football soccer clubs are guaranteed a development fee when their players are poached by the bigger clubs.

The first go with "Florida Suite" which came back in 1989. From 1985 to 1989 Suncoast was incredible in all sorts of ways.

If they were forced to choose between the two, the resulting damage should be attributed to a lack of tolerance from the band director and not to the student. I've seen kids come back from drum corps having missed band camp and a week of school. After one week of rehearsals they were ahead of many of the other kids because they just came off of something much more intense. I have never talked to a kid that did not find marching band very easy to pick up after coming home from tour.

How does a Band Director get to decide for a kid anyway? Assume you're going to pay the dues to march with a top corps, but your Band Director kicks you out of the high school music program. Maybe you decide to march with a corps that has less expensive dues and pick up private lessons instead. Then you end up ahead of where the band director alone would take you and dare him not to bring you back into the fold.

Not everything in the world is going to appeal to all types of people. Those who want to be a part of it will come. Those who don't will find something else to do. Honestly though, if Hopkins were to spend his time trying to get inner city youth to discover and appreciate drum corps instead of finding ways to get more expensive toys allowed onto the competitive field, I would be much happier and the activity would be better off (not to mention the new kids involved)!

I suppose that is my question as well. I've heard contradicting claims made from people that are currently inside the activity. Like so many of the other incremental changes that have taken DCI to a bad place, this change is supported by rhetoric and is short on hard data (that I have seen). If the removal of retreat truly has to do with travel distances/times, there should be ample evidence to support it. Without that, it looks and feels like just one more self-serving change for the activity without regard for the fans. When I was at Finals in 1993 and 1994, I would've stayed all night for each corps to play off and watch the champions take the field one last time. It shocks me when I find there are "hardcore drum corps fans" that don't even know what retreat is.

Do we really have proof that the kids need more sleep today than they did ten years ago? Are they really traveling further between show and practice sites than they were ten years ago? I can remember getting into practice sites at 4 AM when I marched. We didn't cry about it. We slept for 3 more hours and then got on the field.

When I marched, more than one corps came onto the field at the same time...so it wasn't just one big single-file cluster####. At the very least retreat should happen after the night show at each regional.

The equipment that is used does matter. If things like that were meaningless, MLB would surely be using aluminum bats by now. The rules of baseball have changed minimally over the last 100 years and that sport is doing just fine. Kids play baseball in many countries all over the world. The rules don't have to be changed to keep people involved. It doesn't have to "evolve." There is something quite nice and appealing about activities that attempt to stick by their traditions. It is too bad that certain elements within drum corps are hellbent on tossing aside every traditional element of the activity. They believe it must be reinvented every few years. For whatever reason, they believe what made drum corps different had more to do with going on tour for the summer than the unique equipment (compared to other marching activities) used. For me, it was everything that was different about drum corps that made it appealing. As they have stepped closer to closer to marching band, it has become less appealing for me. If I want to see marching band, I have plenty of those in my area that I could watch for free. I went to drum corps for something that marching band just wasn't going to offer. I understand for many of you it has always been thought of as just some intense version of summer band camp and you don't care whether they march harmonicas and kazoos or violins and flutes. Try as I may to convince myself otherwise, the instrument limitations did matter to me.

I liked it as a fan AND as a member. I won't deny sometimes being excited when it got canceled, but I wasn't upset when we had to do it. I wouldn't want to bother if we just played some mass song and then left the field. It was important to me that we played something as we left the field. The lack of full retreats with each corps playing off the field is just another part of drum corps tradition that DCI has done away with. It is really the cumulative effect of all these changes that has turned me off, not one of them by themselves. The allowance of electronics in addition to all of the other changes has more than likely finished me off as a fan. Add back in full retreats at every show with each corps playing off the field and I would at least think about hanging around a bit longer.

Keep DCI and all relevant logos, but don't call it "Drum Corps International." Sounds like a decent compromise. It can just be "DCI" and have it not stand for anything.

This is actually the first time I can recall anybody stating this, even when I have asked recent corps staff members about it. Do we know that marks for this are up/down based on amplification? If a corps goes out and the amplification is all screwed up, do they appropriately get hammered on this section? I defer to other people who have done much more analysis than I have when they claim there appears to be no difference in scores.

Not much, other than it representing one more disconnect between the way DCI's inner circle operates and the standards the rest of the world strives to maintain.

I suppose if he came to me and explained that he found it impossible to write better than that and was able to find nobody in YEA to help him put down a more coherent proposal, I would reconsider. Of course, if he told me all of that I would not likely believe that he was incapable of doing so. I know at least one person from their visual staff that went to my high school and has no trouble writing extremely well. I'm sure he would take the proposal concept over the phone and put it down in a coherent and proper manner. Truth is that George just doesn't give a #### about it (at least it seems that way to me).

Yes. I do think that. It isn't "wordsmithing", it is effective written communication. I would be likely to discard Hopkins' proposals merely because of the way they are written (without even getting to the content). Someone who puts so little effort into the composition of their proposal has likely not put the appropriate amount of thought into the content.

They certainly know that amplification is not clearly on the sheets anywhere. They also know that only a small percentage of the audience has either figured that out or even cares up to this point. They hope that continues so the critics can be pushed to the fringes of the activity and they won't have to make the hard decisions required to determine how these new elements are judged. Surely you can see that.

When they refuse to say anything, they certainly leave it to everyone else to decide for themselves. Some attempt at an official explanation of how amplification is judged would've been nice. Instead, it appears that DCI is prepared to head into yet another season without explaining just how (or if) it is judged at all.