How did you discover DCI?

[84BDsop]

We ended up having some car problems on the way there. The car that we traveled in decided to give out about a quarter left to get to the show. We waited with him until help arrived. When we arrived, the first group was playing Pirates of the Caribbean.

That would've been Mystikal...at the time, out of Newbury Park (if I remember right). SoCal Dream shared a family day with them and the kids seemed really shocked when they found the Earth, Wind, & Fire show we were cranking out was done on 2 valved G horns....they'd never seen them!

[archbananas]

It was the summer before my 8th grade year and my older sister was entering her freshman year at high school. The band director back then marched Velvet Knights and he would play drum corps shows everyday during the wind ensemble periods. My sister thought it'd be a good idea to show me some shows because I was obsessed with marching band (well parade band cuz that's what middle school does). The first show she showed me was SCV 1988 and I wasn't too sure because everything was low quality thanks to the video site. I did find the idea of an all brass line to be very cool (i play trombone). So I decided to do some looking on my own and I found videos that had great quality, visually and musically. The show I found first? Madison Scouts 1988.

I was so shocked at what was going on. I've honestly never heard of a field show until watching the SCV 1988 video but that didn't rly help because it was all pixely. Well anyway. Madison Scouts 1988. What a great first show to watch. I was glued to my computer screen for hours just watching this show. I didn't know what it was exactly, but I knowI wanted to do it.

Fast forward a month. My sister takes me to Corps at the Crest to watch drum corps live for the first time! I was so excited! Sadly, the first few corps were small and lost my attention. Then. The Academy came on (2006) and there was an announcement saying about moving up, I don't remember the exact words but I guess it had something to do with them going to div 1. Anyway. The first impact. GEEZ. I have never heard anything like that before. It was so loud and had an intense sound to it. To be honest, I was a little scared. But, man. I was HOOKED at this point. Academy 2006 will always hold a special place in my heart xD After that.... I become obsessed with field shows/ dci and I plan to march next year!

[Carl306]

I had just joined my high school drumline and went online (Napster/Kazaa/whatever) and started downloading random warm ups and exercises. In the process I happened upon a recording of Cavies 2000 show which led from one thing to another...

[Marianne]

So, how did I discover drum corps? Or how did I discover DCI? They are two different things you know. One is a summer marching/music activity, the other is the governing body to that activity. Just saying.

As for discovering drum corps, my two older sisters became involved because some friends they went to school with were in it. When I was 10, my Mom asked if I'd like to do this drum corps thing too. (personal story coming) My childhood wasn't exactly the greatest. I was the one at school who was constantly bullied for being different (curly hair, glasses, and fat). The only reason my peers at school even cared I existed was for fodder to pick on at any given chance. My two older sisters (being typical older siblings), were tight together, but didn't want me around in their day to day life around the house. I had serious self-worth issues from all of that; punctuated by a grandmother who hated my dad with so much passion that at one point when she was babysitting me she blurted out that I was no better than that no go father of mine. I was somewhere between 3 and 6 at that time, cause I know my mother/father divorced when I was 3 (and I never saw him again), and I wasn't in school yet, thus the babysitting stint.

So, when I joined that drum corps thing my older sisters did, I was suddenly around a group of people who actually wanted me around, and valued the concept that I existed. Sure, outside of rehearsal, when there were social things going on, I was still sort of on the outside. But I was pretty good at what I did, and I was valued for what I could do on the field. It was the first time in my life I felt like I was worth something. I seriously have no idea what would have become of me if I'd had to live my life without drum corps. My sisters eventually found "better" things to do with their lives. But for me, drum corps probably saved my life. So imagine my devestation when, at age 16 my mom had had enough of my dedication to the activity, and made me quit. 10 years later, when she fully supported my little sister's stint in the Troopers, I asked her why the double standard. She told me then that she just hated the corps I was a part of, but would have let me march in the Troopers. If only I had known before I was too old. I could have had several years in the Troopers which would have culminated with aging out with the infamous 1979 corps. I've decided that there is an alternate world out there (in true Sliders fashion), where I did indeed put on the uniform and became a member of the Long Blue Line. Truthfully, I think that Mom found it really easy to tell me that when I was 26. If I'd turned back the clock to that time she made me quit, and I'd told her "ok, then I want to march with the Troopers," that she still wouldn't have let me do it. But, I guess we'll never know.

As far as how did I discover DCI? Well, I was around when it all started. I helped my sister raise the money for her to travel with our guard instructor (and a few other people) to Whitewater in '72. She actually sort of made me do it, with the promise that she'd buy me the lp's of the show when they came out. I never did get those lp's.

Despite Mom taking drum corps away from me as a participant, I never let it go. I've been to every single DATR since it started up in 1972. My little sister grew up on drum corps, and as I mentioned earlier marched Troopers in 1984. We tried so hard to get her to go back again, but she'd found a boyfriend who pulled her away. She later married the guy, and had 3 kids with him before they divorced. Her eldest marched Troopers in '05. We hoped she'd return as well, but then the corps took 2006 off, and by the time 2007 rolled around, she just found "better" things to do. This would have been her age out year if she'd stuck with it. I have to say its so frustrating to see both little sis and neice both throw it all away when they were so fully supported to participate. Yet I would have given anything for the support, and for the chance to march. What an evil world we live in sometimes, eh?

Edited August 20, 2011 by Marianne

[TerriTroop]

Ohhhh Marianne, you and your being a stickler for definitions!

Thank you for sharing your story. See you at Troop Chat in September!

[TeddyBear]

I looked up the Santa Clara Vanguard (SCV) after my high school drumline members called themselves the Tomball Cougar Vanguard (TCV).

In retrospect, that was a silly name.

[BigMo]

1978...........

Our son was born in July of 1978 and we were sitting in our living room at home in Statesboro, Georgia watching TV. As I switched channels, Georgia Public Broadcasting was advertising the next show, DCI live from Denver, Colorado.

We watched the entire show. Both of us being former band members, we loved it. When the show was coming to an end, my wife turned to me and said, "If this thing ever comes to the south we are going!". With that the announcer said, "See you next year in Atlanta, Georgia". As it turned out, Georgia Tech was not finished with their football field renovation, so it was moved to Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. We packed up the one year old, took him to his grandparents near Macon, Georgia and drove on to Birmingham. We have been hooked ever since and have missed very few DCI Finals. We use to make it part of our family vacations. That's how we discovered summers in Wisconsin. We even pulled our 20 foot boat to Wisconsin one summer and enjoyed time boating off the Door Peninsula and on the lakes in Madison. Our son ended up marching with Spirit of Atlanta.

I didn't make it to the 2010 finals and wasn't planning on going this year. On Wednesday August 10, my wife and I were having a special lunch since it was our 37th wedding anniversary. As I opened my card/gift from my wife I found money. She said, "I have been racking my brain for weeks when I know what you want. Take the money and head off for Indianapolis." So after lunch, we went home, I ordered my tickets online, made hotel reservations and packed. We drove to Augusta, GA where we attend church. I had rehearsal with my children's choir and at 8:00pm I left for Indy. I made it to Murfreesboro, TN after midnight and got a motel room for some sleep. I left Murfreesboro at 4:30am and was in my seat at Lucas Oil Stadium at 11:18am. I only missed a few corps on Thursday morning.

Back in the day, there were always many shows during the summer in the south especially the years finals were in Orlando. Now there a very few, but we make the best of it. I don't know what to do right now.......I wake up in the morning and there are no scores to look for! Oh well, thank goodness for college football.....then college basketball......then college baseball.....then it's time for Drum Corps again.

[Michael Boo]

In the fall of 1974, I was kidnapped from the hallway of my music college in Chicago and taken to a Cavaliers' rehearsal against my will. I truly had zero interest in joining a drum corps and I had never been to a DCI-sanctioned show. I didn't even have an interest in going to a single rehearsal.

I was so overwhelmed by what I witnessed, I joined that night, marched the Park Ridge Christmas Parade that weekend, and never looked back. Going home and telling my parents I was running off to join the circus and giving up my summer job was not fun. But when my mom, grandma and aunt came to a winter standstill show that included Madison Scouts and Phantom Regiment, she called me on the dorm floor's pay phone late that night and the first words out of her mouth were, "I understand now." That was pretty darned powerful to hear.

[En929]

The way I got into it was when my band director took us to a parade competition back in high school. I remember being in the parking lot with almost 40 different bands and my high school band was very small (and very weak) compared to all of the other bands that were in the lot with us. And it was cool to watch all of the drums and bands practice (it made me realize how cool marching band is) and to top it all off, my band director took us to a football game where Mizzou's marching band perform at half-time and perform all kinds of popular songs like "When a Man Loves a Woman, Rock around the Clock, New York New York, and Far Above Cayuga Waters doing that with INCREDIBLE deep sound (a sound that could truly be felt deeply with the heart and a sound that I will NEVER forever) and I loved the intricate designs and visuals on the field and to see a band bigger than ever - it was an experience I never had before. So thus, from then on (till this day) I was trying to find out more about Marching bands and have the experience that I had at Mizzou.

Now this was during a time that I didn't know what drum corps was. I never heard of it nor what one did. But one day, I went to a drum corps practice at a drum corps that was trying to start out. I was still unable to know what a drum corps was because it had 5 members (it had no ensemble); I only joined it because I heard that there were guys there who could teach me how to play. But one day when I went to practice, my corps director put in a video and on the video was what looked like the band that I saw at Mizzou. So thus, I said to him "WOW, THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!!!!! WHERE DID YOU GET THIS;" he showed me bands like that of different kinds (and again all of the drums, incredible sound and intricate formations that got me hooked at the Mizzou football game, were there and it was SOOOO incredible). And I was instantly hooked in that way. So then, I asked "which college bands are these?" His reply was "these are not college bands. These are drum corps" (lol). So such was how I got interested in drum corps. He let me borrow the video and I took down the addresses on the drum corps video to buy more videos and tried to find out where drum corps shows like that were at (at the time they were far away and there were none in my town). But finally, my high school band director set up a trip to take us to see drum corps shows. So, that was when I went to my first actual drum corps show. There was where I saw the Colts, Phantom Regiment, and Blue Devils 1995. I was already hooked on drum corps and marching band before I went to the show, but that put my total love for drum corps/marching bands WAYYYYYYYYYYY into orbit. It was electrifying to hear those corps (they truly had an electrifying feel and sound).

Thus, today I go to Marching band shows, festivals, drum corps shows, parades, and football games and/or events with marching bands at them (and would stay all day as long as there is a marching band or drum corps there) and I always buy tapes, etc. and even I'm trying to start a drum corps to give kids the same experience that I had with it (because kids need that). I'm a drum corps/marching band fan for life and maybe after that too!!!

Edited August 21, 2011 by En929

[3rd Glasgow BB]

There were always "tapes" of DCI top 12 being played on various ghetto blasters during "band practice", early/mid 80s stuff mostly. So we were aware of DCI from quite a young age.

We were a marching band who wanted to become a Drum Corps. We decided to take a year out of competition, during that year we took advice from the late great John Johnson (Dagenham Crusaders) about what was needed to move from marching band to Drum Corps.

The nest season we joined DCUK, I don't think we placed last in our first season but we weren't far off.