08ThunderBass5

Hi Everybody, I have been hard at work this fall getting all of my marching band music into one place online so that I can make it available for schools to purchase. I would be honored and humbled if you would consider taking a look at my website as you start thinking about preparations for your 2017 season with your marching ensembles. I have about 40 marching band shows that I have written (including over a dozen published with Center-X productions) that are currently available for purchase and they can all be heard on my website. Some are original, some are arranged and some are a mix of the two. And of course, if you have any friends/colleagues who are in the market for marching band music, I would be greatly appreciative if you could recommend my website to them. I also do approximately twelve new marching band commissions a year and while my schedule for 2017 is quickly filling up (it will likely be full by the first of the new year), there is still some room available on that list if you are interested in custom work. Here is a direct link to the marching band page on my website: http://jeffchambersmusic.webs.com/marching-band-shows Feel free to peruse my catalogue of pep band arrangements and other compositions as well and please let me know if you have any questions whatsoever! Thanks so much! Jeff Chambers

Update on the Columbians Repertoire for their program "1942" Nocturne in Eb by Frederic Chopin - Pavane by Gabriel Faure - Symphony No. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven - Sing Sing Sing by Louis Prima - America the Beautiful by Samuel A. Ward - Symphony No. 5 by Ludwig van Beethoven - Original Music by Jeff Chambers

I'm excited to see what the Cavaliers do in 2014! Looks like they've got a great staff shaping up!

As the 2013 marching season ends, 2014 is not far away. When making your plans for 2014 please consider my name as a possibility for your musical arrangements/compositions. I have experience composing and arranging for many high school and college marching bands as well as drum and bugle corps and am published through Center X Productions. I can work with budgets of all sizes and most customers usually find that my services cost almost the same or less than most "canned" shows. Why buy something generic when you can order a custom show tailored exactly for your group? You can visit my website at www.jeffchambersmusic.net Thank You, Jeff Chambers

My brother were I were also discussing this. We think it might be because not only is it the most recognizable melody from the piece but it's also one of the few melodies that is....melodic haha. As in, there aren't a lot of usable melodies from the piece that you could put into a drum corps show. Just a thought

This year, I made the trip down to Denver to visit my brother and we got to spend the last two days getting our nerd on with some corps. We watched SCV and Blue Devils rehearse Friday night although we spent approximately one hour at the BD rehearsal before leaving...more on that later. Today, we watched Crown rehearse all day which was very cool; I'd never seen them rehearse before. Here are my thoughts from the show! Keeping in mind that everything here is opinion based.....and nothing more! Sorry if we disagree! Venue: I'd never been to this show before. Love the lot setup, love the stadium, it was all great. Wish parking weren't so expensive and difficult to navigate after the show but it's all good. The new big screen in the stadium is quite nice; dug it. Video guys did a great job coming up with recaps to play during intermission/post show. I also appreciated the crowd there. It was the most unbiased crowd I'd ever seen! If they liked something, they cheered for it! If they didn't like it, they didn't cheer! I thought it was going to be a BK-Fest since it was their home show but they actually had a much larger reaction to Vanguard and Troop. Thunder: As a Thunder alumn, I was happy to see this corps doing well. They had new drums this year which looked great. Show design was appropriate for their level. Drums were a little rough but attempting some pretty aggressive stuff which I liked. Lots of cool visual stuff and the brass was a pleasant surprise. Wish the show as a touch longer but they had a short tour; this was their final show for the season. Cascades: Definitely not what I expected. I knew they had a rough 2012 season but I thought it would improve a little this year....unfortunately it didn't. The corps was very small; maybe under 100? Can't remember. Drums were definitely the best part of the group. They only had six guard and their brass was outplayed by Thunder (not just my opinion either; that's what everyone around me was saying). Show design was smart and solid but lacked impact I felt. However for now I think cleaning the music and visual should be their focus. I hope the brass can produce some more sound and these guys can step up a little. Troopers: Wow! LOVED THESE GUYS! Despite the fact that Casper is close to Denver, the crowd still gave these guys a ton of love! They are doing some old school stuff and I loved the use of the American flag throughout the show. The Rennicks wrote the percussion book this year and it is very tasty and very appropriate. Overall, I thought the drums stepped it up a lot this year. Brass was loud and impressive, guard did a few old school tricks I liked and then managed to keep my attention the rest of the show as well. I had no complaints about this show. It was well designed and the execution is coming along nicely. Visual is probably the area I thought they needed the most improvement. I think this show could make top 12 though.......First standing ovation of the night. Academy; First time seeing Academy since 2010. New uniforms look cool. They have a lot of sparkle/bling on the field this year! Bass drum heads are shiny and catch your attention. Andre is doing a nice job with the brass, drums were a touch rough but coming along. I thought the weak point in this show was the design in between the impact points. They are working the crowd a bit as a pre-show and then recalling it throughout the show (there's a guy on the mic talking to the crowd). It works well for the theme but then in between, they lose me a bit. I guess it's a little flat. Cool show concept though, I just hope they can grab people's attention a little more in between those "wow-moments" Santa Clara Vanguard; Hands down, my favorite Vanguard show since 2009. This show is simply beautiful. The first time I saw their ballad in rehearsal last night, it almost got me all teared up! So beautiful! They clear the entire horn and drumline from the field and put them behind the props and then the guard does a beautiful dance feature. Too cool; you have to see it! Paul and Sandy Rennick wrote yet another amazing percussion book that was RIDICULOUS clean for early July! These guys appear to be untouchable in drums right now; no one else was even close tonight. The show is beautiful, it's well designed and it entertained the crowd. My only fear is that there's not enough demand and that they will peak early. Also, the brass has a much better blend/tone this year but the technical stuff is getting them and I think that's what's bringing their brass score down. If they can improve the technical side of things, they will be in a great place. LOVED THIS SHOW! Favorite of the night by a lot! Blue Devils; Okay. I know that DCP is notorious for this but I'm going to vent a little.....BD; please. Stop. People are not buying this weird stuff anymore. The alumni are and the die hards are but I actually felt bad for the corps members tonight. I'm not exaggerating when I say it took 2-3 minutes for them to get any sort of crowd reaction from their show. The show is out there again this year....just like last year. It's kinda clean? But, we spent some time at rehearsal last night and could not believe what we saw. Everything was very sloppy across all captions except guard and the rehearsal was extremely lazy. We spent a little over an hour there before we'd had enough and returned to watch SCV. I'm being impartial here folks; I'm just saying what I saw and what I saw at rehearsal was not good. In the show tonight it was a lot better but the drums had some really rough spots and the brass was very bright with individuals popping out frequently. I was surprised to see they won brass truth be told. The show like I said is very weird. You won't hear any triads in it. Lots of thick/wacky chords and the show ends with improv. Literally everyone playing something different. There was a 2-3 second gap before the audience realized the show was over and started clapping. Like I said, I felt bad for the members as they had to endure pitty applause for 75% of the show. Some positives though were the guard and the props (although they still need some cleaning). They had some cool body visual stuff in the opener I liked too. Crown; I spent the day checking this show out. Brass was simply gorgeous in rehearsal but got a little bright in the show tonight which is probably why they didn't take it. If they played like they did in rehearsal, it would have been no contest. The show is really cool if you are familiar with Einstein on the Beach. If you aren't, it's going to get confusing! Drums are definitely the weak section but truth be told the show as a whole might be a touch over written. If they can pull all this stuff off, this is a championship show no doubt. But, I'm not sure if they can handle the drum or the visual book. Brass will get their book I think; they are sounding great as always! New uniforms are cool! They look good on the field and it's something different. The rolling bass drums are really cool but underused in my opinion. I LOVED the gongs, timpani and bells surrounding the field; really cool touch! The ballad had a huge bit of narration which I didn't mind for some reason...I usually hate it. I liked the show but I did spend all day with it. I can see why some people are confused by it and not liking it as much. Blue Knights; They made the switch to Mapex drums this year which was interesting. Lower basses were cranked way too high for me, tenors had scoops which was interesting and snares were very wet. Brass was very very pleasantly surprising! I loved their sound. It was big and full and usually in control. The biggest flaw with BK this year is the design I think. They have great people designing the show but it was really flat to me. It just didn't seem to go anywhere and the hometown crowd didn't not give them much love. They had a sweet tambourine feature which I liked! Yeah, this corps is pretty solid this year but I'm worried that their show will hold them back. We'll see what happens. I'm really glad I made it out this year; I'll probably be back in future years! Thanks to the organizational staff for DATR for putting on a great event. Can't wait to see what happens for the rest of the season!

Sure thing Phil! And yes, I still enjoyed the closer even without drill- AWESOME arrangements this year! Best of luck to you all with the rest of the season; I'd sure love to see you guys bring home a gold medal this year!

Well in Tri-Cities Washington we've been having a show since 2006 and here's the lineups we've had. 2006 -Spokane Thunder -Oregon Crusaders -Seattle Cascades -Blue Knights -Santa Clara Vanguard 2007 -Spokane Thunder -Fever -Blue Devils B -Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets -Jersey Surf 2008 No Show 2009 -Oregon Crusaders -Cascades -Troopers -Blue Knights -Santa Clara Vanguard 2010 -Spokane Thunder -Oregon Crusaders -Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets -Cascades -Troopers -Blue Knights 2011 No Show 2012 -Thunder -Oregon Crusaders -Cascades -Blue Knights It's been good some years and not so good other years. The frustration to a lot of us is that we can pack a stadium with 3-4 thousand people and we've done it. In 2006 and 2009 the place was packed. In addition, the show site is very nice and all of the housing sites are always VERY nice. However, I marched in 2008 and 2010 and went to shows all across the country with way better lineups than the Tri-Cities show usually sees and the stands were empty. Additionally, the events were poorly run and the housing and show sites were crap. So I can say that the pacific northwest can run VERY good shows usually but don't always get any love for it.

I went to the Drums Along the Columbia show tonight in Tri-Cities Washington. The lineup was; The Thunder Oregon Crusaders Cascades Blue Knights Overall as a show, it wasn't my favorite show I've been to but with that being said, I know the people who ran the show tonight and I greatly appreciate all the work that they did to make a show out of what little they had to work with (4 corps...). It was a bit of a bummer to have to spend $20 a ticket to see 4 corps but I guess I'm enough of a fan that it didn't matter. Also, tonight I was able to take my girlfriend of 1 year and 9 months to her first DCI show so that was cool. The format was that they had each group perform and then they did an instant encore. This is where it broke down a bit for me. The diehard dci fans there like me loved it because they got to see more out of the corps but the average fans there had glazed over looks after 2 minutes of each group's encore. So overall thoughts; more groups, only one instant encore at the end. To put it in perspective; it was 2 hour show, only four groups. So props to the folks running the show for making a show out of what they had! Okay here's my thoughts on the groups Thunder I will remain unbiased here since this is the corps I was a part of. It's great to see them back on their feet and to be fielding an 80 person corps (biggest since 2007 I believe). I liked the 6 bass drums and the new look on the uniforms. They had a new semi parked in the lot and overall I got the impression that the corps is doing well which is so great considering 3 summers ago they were inactive. They played a very conservative show. It was called "Reflections" and was a Lewis Norfleet show which I usually like. The problem was the level of difficulty. It was very easy and didn't hold the audience's attention. The brass was putting out some sound but I wish they were a little more consistent with their sound throughout the show. I did really like the ballad though. The whole show reminded me a lot of thunder's shows from their early days in 2004-2006. Overall; glad to see them doing well. I hope they can do a full tour next year and I hope to see a little more challenging program next year Oregon Crusaders LOVE O.C. once again this year! They are really taking it to a whole new level! They look huge with their 130 on the field. Guard uniforms were very clever. I liked the layering in of colors. Overall the show design for this year is fantastic. I think this show can and will win open class and I really hope they do. It is a really cool and well thought out program with a lot of layers. I hope to see them do more with the props in the back however. Percussion was strong again but still has room to go. I thought the brass sounded GREAT! Pit was up too loud for my liking, it took away some of the impact when the brass came in for the first time. The thing that annoyed me the most was that they parked and played the closer in place because the drill isn't learned yet. I hope they get this learned asap because it was a bit of a sour note on top of a VERY good program from them. Overall- cool stuff O.C.! They have lots of room to grow still which is cool. I see no danger of peaking early and I think they will ride this wave of success all the way to a gold medal this year! Cascades Cascades were small; 79 members....one more than Thunder. I'm a fan of Northwest drum corps but I have to speak realistically- this show was rough. The show was "Shinto" and could be really cool but I feel that the concept is not being sold. Part of the problem is their small brass section. They are on Jupiter horns now and they actually don't sound bad and they were putting out some sound. But for World Class, you need bodies which they don't have. The snares didn't even have scoops on. I think the show needs some more "wow moments" and there needs to be more commitment to "Shinto". Also the corps seemed....tired tonight? Some unexpected dirtiness in the feet and brass. I did watch their drums in the lot and had the chance to chat with their new battery guy who was really nice. On that note; they have Vanguards drums from last year and they look GREAT with the green uniforms. Overall- I hope they can pick up some more members along the road and add to their brass and guard. Also, I hope they can sell the Shinto theme on a higher level as well and make it a little more understandable for the audience. Blue Knights This show was different for BK. It was basically an abstract approach to Firebird. I thought I wasn't going to like it but it was actually pretty cool. The corps was EXHAUSTED you could tell. Some of the members said they've been receiving some old school cadets treatment lately and have just been getting beaten to death during rehearsal with short nights of sleep afterwards and it was showing. My biggest complaint about the show was the synthesizers. The whole first minute, the corps sets down their instruments and dances and 1-2 people in the pit play electronics while everyone else stands there.....didn't like that. Throughout the show there is just an abundance of synth that's a little too WGI for my liking. But the closer was nice when they busted out a more traditional rendition of firebird. LOVE the finish on the drums and the green in the guard- very cool. Interesting battery size; 8 (9?) snares, 5 quads 4 basses. Overall- it's a different show for BK. A little abstract, kinda cool. I do love the body movement from the corps. I hope they can transfer some of the synth stuff to live instruments and I hope the members can get a little rest here in the future so they can perform at their highest level at night. Okay- 4 am here, I'm exhausted. Thanks for reading, sorry if I said anything offensive. Jeff

You sir, are a troll.

NICE!!

All I'm trying to say is that I fell in love with drum corps because I thought it was about music, performing, inspiring young musicians, and getting the crowd on their feet. I did not get the sense that this video was advocating any these things but rather that only winning is important in this activity and that if you even get 2nd place, you have failed. Is that fair or am I misreading it? (no sarcasm intended; it's an honest question).

If you missed the video, it's up on DCI Fan Network under the Blue Devils Section. You can see it there. BD Fans, defend the video all you want. If that's the direction you want to see drum corps go then, to each their own. The rest of us don't want to see drum corps go that way and that's why we're telling you; This video is classless and terrible. Again, to each their own. Good Night All. PS- No. This video does not come as a surprise to me at all. I've been saying that this is the Blue Devils attitude since I first got into the activity. That's why I'm not a BD fan. Sorry.

:blink: Can't say that's always been true in my opinion but thank you for the review!

I'm shocked by Academy's low score but I do think they will be very good season...that is all.