George Hopkins

[charlie1223]

As Jeff suggested, if George Hopkins wants to start a Top Tier Marching Band Circuit then he should do so. If the advantages of adding woodwinds are so obvious, then it's a no brainer to either break the Cadets free from DCI and add woodwinds or to start a new group under the YEA umbrella. Surely if anyone can do it, it's YEA. Just tack it onto USBands as a summer circuit. I'm completely serious. If woodwinds will bring in money, then a competing circuit is the right way to go about the experiment you propose.

Unless you are proposing increasing corps size to 200 or something, then no more money is going to flow into DCI. There are hundreds of kids who get cut from top-8 corps and they don't stay in the activity, they move on. Add woodwinds and you'll just increase the number of brass players who get cut. If you *are* saying you want to increase corps size to 180 or 200+ to accomodate woodwinds, then you just add problems in terms of finding housing, renting more busses adding significantly more staff... you aren't going to end up making more money.

Well, I know you're being a little facetious but adding woodwinds to an existing organization is way less expensive than starting a new organization.

[audiodb]

I remember some the discussion for change. What I got (some between the lines was):

"Drum Corps in trouble, we need to change NOW!"

Oh, so the sky is falling?

Of course when you make multiple changes close together you can't determine the real results. Was it the amos, was it the key change, was it the... or any combo of the above.

Heh....that's one of the points of a flurry of changes.

"MB have more fans than DC, they must be doing it right".

Someone got that one backwards.

"The show designers are running out of ideas and need more tools" Yes this was "spoken out loud" here.

Or we need more show designers....

[Shadowtron]

By your logic, 95% of high schoolers are excluded. Why restrict it to musicians?

Sure, if it's effective

[MikeD]

DCI's core audience are not high school band WW players. DCI's core audience are former marching members who bring their family and friends. That has been DCI's primary mistake. And going after some phantom demographic, which would utterly change what DCI is, is not a core audience. It is entirely a gamble, and would eliminate whatever Unique Selling Proposition DCI has left. As a marketing/advertising guy, I love USP's. It makes it easier to sell and recruit. I, however, DO NOT like homogenized parity products. Like toothpaste. And deodorant. And DCI once you let WW's in.

And, you know, some on here are WW players who learned how to play brass because they wanted to be in a DCI corps.

DCI is a homogenized product now. Permitting any instruments makes it less homogenized.

[MikeD]

No. Drum corps is not band without woodwinds. It's much deeper than that. Drum Corps attracts the hard core. Drum corps only attracts those who are die hards. There were 128 people in my high school band, and only 2 of us ever marched corps. I marched 'Coats and the other guy marched Magic of Orlando and then Cadets. And it's not just about practice time. It's dedication. Practicing 3-4 hours a day. Most people who march band will never do this. They don't have the mental discipline or the work ethic. And DCI has managed to fumble this core audience away, and tried to cover up said mistake by going after "band people." People who aren't dedicated to the activity. DCI seems to have forgotten about the 80/20 rule.

NONE of that has anything to do with instrument choices at all. The same attributes you note would apply to brass, percussion, guard, WW, Strings, etc...any potential members who want to audition.

[audiodb]

There is no research to prove otherwise either.

None is needed....we have reality. Independent summer marching bands competed on the field for decades. They never drew as much interest (fans or members) as drum corps, and they eventually faded to near extinction as a result.

Let me know when you can show tangible interest in summer marching band. Right now, all we have on record is one corps director and a handful of DCPers.

[Michael Boo]

Drum corps is marching band, just as our sun is a sphere. Both the sun and a basketball are spheres, but on vastly different scales. Both the Ford Pinto (those that are left) and Ferrari Testarossas are cars, and that's where the similarity ends.

Mt. Vesuvius was a major eruption that wiped out Pompeii and Herculaneum. I was wiped out by an eruption after eating at Taco Bell. The two events were not the same scale of destruction, just as drum corps and marching band are on different scales.

Don't make me talk about pyroclastic flows.

[audiodb]

The podcast mentioned 63% of HS band musicians are WWs...let's be conservative and assume 50%. That's 50% of HS band students that will NEVER attend a camp aside from a handful that convert to brass or guard.

So what? Overall, 99% of current HS marching band kids are not marching in drum corps.

[Michael Boo]

The podcast mentioned 63% of HS band musicians are WWs...let's be conservative and assume 50%. That's 50% of HS band students that will NEVER attend a camp aside from a handful that convert to brass or guard.

Perhaps we could attract them to various marching academy camps with the promise of free parking, then throw a brass instrument in their hands and lock the doors until they get a good buzz going. (I'm surprised someone hasn't come up with something like that yet.)

[audiodb]

Why not let corps try it? It might only be 2 or 3 and if they're not effective or successful it will go away.

We did already....more than once.

Several corps have converted to summer marching band programs over the years, most notably the Seattle Imperials and Argonauts, both of whom were DCI top-25 units shortly before making the switch. If you are judging how "effective" or "successful" by whether they went away....well, they both went away.

In the late 1990s, DCI made two (at least two) offers to incorporate bands into their tours. One was exactly as you describe....offering for two DCI corps to try a full season of experimentation - woodwinds, no maximum number of marchers, anything goes. No one took the offer.

The other late-1990s idea was a formally established DCI band division, implemented for the 1999 season. No corps opted to switch then either. Meanwhile, the two bands that had done recent DCI tour swings (Norhtern Lights and Pride of the Lions) both balked at joining in for 1999, and that was also the year the youth bands in California went extinct. End result - no one ever joined the DCI band division.