BRASSO

There are LOTS of marchers that march Corps that come from all over the world. Where you are from is no impediment with Corps at all. If you can make it to their camps, they don't care where your home is. They'd be happy to have you.... Good luck to you. If you're able to do Corps, you'll find the experience a very worthwhile and very enjoyable experience despite the hard work that you'll be expected to put into it...... here's hoping you get to experience it all !

I agree that it would have made for a spirited discussion. For one , if DCP was around back then, we'd have had a few thousand more posters on here rather than the much smaller number that we have on here now. Having a much, much larger discussion group would indeed make for an interesting and spirited forum to discuss all these topics.

Forget the past, I 'd like to see how interesting things would get for baseball fans, if MLB brought in a 4th base, or for basketball fans, the NBA brought in an extra foul shot ( 3) on fouls, and for football fans, if the NFL brought in frizz bees where the QB would have the option to hike a football or a frizz bee when he broke from the huddle and went over center. Do you think sports fans would sit back quietly and watch all these additions being added..... and would chaulk it all u to " the natural evolution of the sport " ? Not in your life. Good grief, Basketball fans had a stroke when the ABA decided in the 70's to change the simple COLOR of the basketball from brown to...... gulp....... multi colored. Can you imagine that " radical " transformation ? The NBA listened to their fans however and scrapped the multi colored basketball when the ABA and NBA merged and the NBA went back to the color of the basketball that Dr. Naismith chose when he invented the game of basketball over a 100 years ago.

Nice try. But in 2009, MLB had the 2nd LARGEST overall attendance numbers in the history of of Major League Baseball ( 78, 624, 324) despite opening 2 new ballparks ( Yankees, Mets ) that had smaller seating capacity stadiums than their previous stadiums. Bigger attendance figures than in 2008 too. An INCREASE in the number of total fans coming out to watch major league baseball. The per "team average" was down approx. 6.8 % because a couple of franchises ( Toronto, Oakland ) had abysmal drop off numbers,( 15 %) from the previous year and this brought the "per team average "obviously down a bit from 2008. This was not economy driven. It is because the product they put out the field was less than satisfying for these particular home town fans. But the key, baseball's total attendance numbers ,was in almost a record breaking mode overall last year. So... when I said above that attendance was UP in Major League Baseball in my post above, I was correct.

Teachers did not go into teaching to "become rich ". They knew when they entered the field what the pay would be.. They went into teaching to inspire others to greatness. And as most will tell you.... this is their just reward.

The most successful opera singers, composers, musicians, etc were not the most technically proficent in their craft at all. Many if asked, would probably admit to this as well. You'll notice that even in the classics, the commercially successful performers were also quite the characters, both on and off the stage. It is inconceivable for one to find a commercially successful performing artist..... in almost any genre that has a modicum of acceptance by the public.... where the phrase " boring " is used. Successful performers undestand this, and understand charisma, stage presence, etc and how the audience is EVERYTHING to the artist. Commericially successful performers understand this intuitively. Other, less successful musicians who did not grasp this lesson in their formative years, usually wind up......... teaching..

The most commercially successful performers ( those who became wealthy by understanding this almost intuitively ) have " proper technique " way down the priority ladder. It is " showmanship "..... ie stage presence, stage charisma, etc.... the ability to connect with the majority in the audience..... that carries the day. It is NOT technique at all that separates most commercially successful performers from the less successful. It is true that one must have a decent level of proper technique. But it is the ability to connect with the audience that is far more important than " proper technique " when we look at the key ingedient to success in the business. Lots of musicians have had great technical skills. But went nowhere with their craft. That's because they did not learn the key lesson in the first sentence above ( re. audiences )..... while less technically proficient performers understood what it is that separates the successful from the unsuccesful, and thus rose to the top by fine turning this skill development.

I agree with this. There is little chance that the audience would be so disregarded when a show is initially put together when it is a professional show, concert hall preparation, and so forth. Professional show producers are keenly aware of how venture capitalists, and benefactors, and banks, etc front the capital for these shows in concert halls, studios, broadway theatre, etc....... Unlike DCI, where 12 judges decides what is worthwhile and not, in professional arenas, ticket sales, and positive audience responses are EVERYTHING to the show producers, musicians, stage performers..... and to their financial backers. So you are correct that it is" a different environment " and as such, the whole approach, including performance technique used by the musicians, takes on an entirely different thrust on the part of what is expected and required by the music arranger with his or her musicians, and how that arranger goes about preparing his or her charges.

a simple rewording of the poll's vebiage could have avoided 4 pages of mischaracterization of the majority of voters. Nobody wants death for any Corps here, so we can put that interpretation of voters intent here to rest.

Rational people understand that if a poll presents 2 HORRIBLE choices only, and the voter chooses one of those 2 horrible choices ,that the voter is immune to criticism of the horrible choice they made. Good grief.... it' s like say your mother is in a nursing home and terminally ill, do you want her to have lots of pain and suffering, but kept alive for 6 months, or should the doctors stop the extraordinary means of care and let her die in the next week ? Then you vote for one of the two terrible options you've left with and you are then scolded with..... " You sick, callous, sob. etc..... YOU LET YOUR MOTHER DIE THIS WAY ??? get my drift ? That's the above poll too.

Well..... now I AM going to ask the question ,since 68% of the voters here are being cast now as somehow " selfish "....." callous "........ " sick ".... , etc : If a show designer, against overwhelming fan sentiment, chooses to disregard the paying customer, and instead goes out into the field of competition with lots of flutes, clarinets, saxophones, etc....... and it proves to be a divisive issue even within his own Corps, and ultimately that Corps suffers in membership, revenues, etc.. that eventully sends the Corps into a tailspin .... and the Corps folds as a result. Would you call that staff then : a) selfish ? b) callous ? c) sick ? d) all three ? and the 68% who voted in this poll await both your vote, and why you voted this way. ( I know your choices are terrible..... but like the other poll.... these are the choices )

" selfish " can also be defined as lashing out at other voters because the voters did not vote the way YOU want them to. And " No", nobody here would want any Corps to fold because they performed " a show they didn't like ". By such a silly analogy, you'd think most people would want all the Corps to have folded at one time or another. That's because it is highly unlikely that a Corps...... any Corps..... would have put out a show EVERY year that the fan liked. I've liked 90% of the shows that SCV has put out over the years. But does this mean I wanted the Corps to " to fold " as you said, the first time they put out a show that was not to my liking ? Of course not. That would be ridiculous. So " No", the vast majority of people that voted in this poll are neither selfish, nor asking a Corps to fold because of the way they voted in this poll......... Plus, nobody here is asking the Corps Director if HE wants his Corps " to fold " should he put out onto the field of competition instrumentation that the vast amount of fans of DCI wish they would not implement. Nor is anyone here saying such an act would be seen as " selfish " if he or she decides to go forward with it anyway, despite overwhelming fan resistance. It THEIR choice. And it's also the choice of the fan(s) to determine for themselves how they want to react and respond to such a Director's decision........ finally, people had only TWO choices in this poll, and as the OP said..... both terrible choices. So don't take from this that 68% of fans want Corps to die. If death ensues, sometimes the death is self inflicted. And that's the most selfish ( and sad ) act imagineable.

So now we're hearing that the anemic attendance numbers are chiefly due to........... " the economy " Funny, but most Pro and College sport attendance figures are not down. As a matter of fact, in many cases attendance figures are up, despite huge ticket price increases for games in some cases too. Guess maybe DCI ticket prices are much too steep for Drum Corps fans though.. or something else is at work here besides blaming " the economy "

4 pages( and counting) on what the " BAC " letters refer to with the Boston Crusaders. June can't come fast enough...... ( haha!)

I agree. Incidentally, no biggee, but I would use the term " no" responses and " yes " responses instead of " negative " responses and " positive " responses. Polls are meant to be neutral in terms of characterization of the vote. Voting by it's very nature then, is a positive thing, as it's provides insight into how the voters in the poll think on the subject matter in the poll. But again, no biggee.

Well, I'm glad you got this stuff off your chest re. conspiracies, paranoia, ruination, Al Gore, who goes to shows or not, and all that jazz. I simply commented that the DCI official citing a " 55 % " figure is ludicrous. I stand by it. You can believe or disbelieve whatever you want re. that comment by the DCI official to you 16 years ago.

It's certainly possible for The Cadets to one day march with flutes, clarinets, saxophones, etc.... and still be considered " The Cadets ". By you.... the young band kids you teach..... and maybe 12 other people. Although, if they called themselves then something like "The Cadets Marching Band" from Tyler, Texas( or wherever they'll get their funds then), that certainly would be appropriate it would seem to me. I'd support their going with different uniforms with different colors in concert with that full transformation too. That would work well it would seem to me.

I will agree with you on this point, Mike. The band kids had a propensity for only wanting to march with the so called elites. This of course only solidifys the Corps at the top, pretty much guaranteeing they'll finish at or near the top every year now. This in turn diminishes the fan excitement level as every year there is a 90% chance that BD, Cavs, or Cadets will win. Thus, major league baseball has more parity than DCI, which essentially has no parity, as the top Corps get almost all of the best " free agents" every year. As for band kids still flockng to DCI if DCI introduces woodwinds into field competition, I 'll agree with you on this as well. DCI is either marching band now, or becoming marching band, and I think we can all agree that no marching band would be fully complete without flutes, clarinets, saxophones, etc. Plus, it would not be fair to either marching bands or Drum Corps to misrepresent what they are. Few traditional Drum Corps fan would want a unit to call themselves Drum Corps, as it would be unfair to both the Corps and also to that band. Nor should someone in band want to call what they do in the summer something else, when the instrumentation used are pretty much one in the same. I know what a baseball looks like, and what a softball looks like. If I bring a softball into the game of baseball, and used the softball interchangeably with the baseball, I may still call what I'm doing " baseball", but I would have to acknowledge that with most baseball observers, I would not be playing baseball anymore, no matter how much I wanted to convince ( delude ) myself that I was still playing the game of" baseball" while throwing, catching, and hitting a softball along with the baseball in the game.

I agree that we head into dangerous territory when we try and " read his mind ". I simply took his comments in the clear, literal sense in which they were made. George Hopkins words have weight. This is because he has influence. LOTS of influence within the DCI community. Thus, I am nowhere near as dismissive of his public comments as you seem to be. Which is of course your perogative to be dismissive of them as well as " not carrying the weight you ( I ) want to give them ".

I hear you. Like you, I also heard the refrain put forth by some that the reason PBS dropped DCI was because " pledges that were made during the telecasts ultimately did not follow through with the receipt of the check by PBS". Which I really find perplexing when we think about the reported higher than average income level of Drum Corps fans nationallty compared with the nation at large. We know fans of the activity have a higher education attainment level, parents are generally rather affluent too compared with the nation's general population. But I guess DCI and PBS think we renege on promises and that we're cheap. Plus, who would have guessed that PBS apparently gets more pledges that result in solid contributions that ultimately come in from from people that watch........ flea markets ? I would have sworn that Drum Corps fans nationally would have a leg up on honoring their pledges and supporting their TV coverage than flea market goers. But apparently not..... at least not according to statements that reportedly came out of PBS and DCI a few years back on why PBS dropped DCI after decades of apparently not having problems with the check bouncing or " not coming in with the actual dollars " as pledged .

I think DCI received that sort of unbiased, objective evaluation on their programming appeal from ESPN, if I'm not mistaken. Like judging, maybe they didn't get the scores they felt they deserved. But they received the final score and the post show critique on their programming from the ESPN judges nonetheless.

Hopkins was not referring specifically to the audience response to his Corps shows. Unless I'm mistaken, he was referring to the audience responses to all the DCI Corps in general of late. And surely you're not implying here that Hopkins really didn't mean what he said in his blog..... or are you ?

I'm trying to determine the last time a DCI Corps Director from a prominent DCI Corps bemoaned the fact that in his observations of late, the DCI Corps have not been getting the positive responses from audiences that in previous decades the DCI Corps had received. He said this just a few weeks ago. He said he's perplexed with this, particularly given the fact that the overall talent is stronger, and staff have more instrumentation resources available to them. But I'm frankly drawing a blank. I don't recall a Corps Director in any previous era puzzled by such questions of audience response to programming of the DCI Corps as a group. Then again, perhaps others on here can point out examples of such utterances by Corps Directors before on how progamming by many of the DCI Corps appeared to be generating tepid responses on the part of audiences compared to earlier eras.

Of the handful of Corps that formed " The Combine " that collectively came together in 1971 and formed DCI, approx. 85 % are in existence today. Of the couple of hundred of the other Corps that were competing in 1971, but were not members of " The Combine " , 5% of them are competing today in DCI. I find this stat rather fascinating ,anyway.