In The News – Major League Of Marching Band

[Stu]

18 minutes ago, Tim K said:

I won't say I have never encountered drum corps snobs at shows, many who have no idea of what they are talking about, and I'm sure more than a few see it as their job to correct people, but you can  explain that drum corps use drums and brass but bands can use woodwinds in a friendly way. Also, I attend the Bristol, RI show (sadly now held in Cranston--I loved the old venue though parking is easier and the stadium is larger) and encounter lots of newcomers. They may use the word band, I'll use drum corps, but I never correct. Usually we talk about how a corps will be scored, where they come from, how many hours the practice, how far they travel, etc. If they go home still using band, the world will not end, but if I'm asked, they will get the proper terms but never in a superior way.

So British Brass Bands that do not use woodwinds are Drum Corps not Bands?

[Stu]

Howdy to ya Guardling; my ole’… um… friendly… yeah that’s it… friendly nemesis and adversary!!!

[Pete Freedman]

Unless things have changed, people who call this activity band or marching band (except sarcastically) are smirked at behind their backs.  Has that changed?

And yes, they are indeed marching bands technically, but that's not what they are called.

I think this is a fake issue, in the sense that nobody is offended just because somebody told them it's called a drum corps, unless the way they said it is rude as in Stu's Indy 500 example.  (A bad example anyway, because they do indeed refer to it as auto racing).

Newcomers expect to be learning lots of new things about any activity they are learning about, including the preferred terminology.  

So go ahead and tell them it's called a drum corps.  Because it is.  But don't be rude, and don't say, "It's not band." but rather "It's a kind of band."  It's a subset with it's own name.  Perfectly acceptable.  Fake issue.

[GUARDLING]

29 minutes ago, Stu said:

Howdy to ya Guardling; my ole’… um… friendly… yeah that’s it… friendly nemesis and adversary!!!

 

Howdy to you Stu

[Stu]

23 minutes ago, Pete Freedman said:

Unless things have changed, people who call this activity band or marching band (except sarcastically) are smirked at behind their backs.  Has that changed?

And yes, they are indeed marching bands technically, but that's not what they are called.

I think this is a fake issue, in the sense that nobody is offended just because somebody told them it's called a drum corps, unless the way they said it is rude as in Stu's Indy 500 example.  (A bad example anyway, because they do indeed refer to it as auto racing).

Newcomers expect to be learning lots of new things about any activity they are learning about, including the preferred terminology.  

So go ahead and tell them it's called a drum corps.  Because it is.  But don't be rude, and don't say, "It's not band." but rather "It's a kind of band."  It's a subset with it's own name.  Perfectly acceptable.  Fake issue.

I chose the Indy 500 as an analogy simply because they actually do refer to themselves as what they actually are, an Auto Racing activity, and they would never attempt to correct a newcomer in that manner.  This is opposed to what happens in drum corps (which is actually, technically, and by definition a marching band activity) in which many within this group of people feel it necessary to ‘correct’ newcomers all the time by fervently stating, “We are NOT a marching band but a Drum Corps.” The Indy folks are not only way more honest with how they understand their own activity, but apparently also way more more courteous to newcomers.

[Pete Freedman]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

I chose the Indy 500 as an analogy simply because they actually do refer to themselves as what they actually are, an Auto Racing activity, and they would never attempt to correct a newcomer in that manner.  

 

Howdy to you all.  I've been away for awhile myself.

By definition they don't need to, because they call it auto racing.  Again, people shouldn't be rude in their correction.  

Lots of things help plumbers, but only one is a plumbers helper.  If you call a wrench a plumbers helper, you're wrong.  Even if you eloquently defend the ontological correctness of a wrench as something that literally helps a plumber, you're still wrong, because that's not what it's called.

And I've never seen anyone get offended because they were corrected in this way.  Newcomers are eager to learn about the activity.  It's possible to do it with tact.  Not everyone does, but that's a different issue.

 

[Stu]

30 minutes ago, Pete Freedman said:

Howdy to you all.  I've been away for awhile myself.

By definition they don't need to, because they call it auto racing.  Again, people shouldn't be rude in their correction.  

Lots of things help plumbers, but only one is a plumbers helper.  If you call a wrench a plumbers helper, you're wrong.  Even if you eloquently defend the ontological correctness of a wrench as something that literally helps a plumber, you're still wrong, because that's not what it's called.

And I've never seen anyone get offended because they were corrected in this way.  Newcomers are eager to learn about the activity.  It's possible to do it with tact.  Not everyone does, but that's a different issue.

 

Ahhhh... but it is not the newcomers who are offended by the supposed correction; it is the Drum Corps cranks who are offended by being called Marching Band in the first place by the newcomers! Those in Indy Car are not 'ashamed and embarrassed' of what they actually are: A specific sub-set of Auto Racing. So they revel in the idea of being called Auto Racing as well as Indy Car.  Whereas many within the Drum & Bugle Corps community are completely and utterly 'ashamed and embarrassed', and add to that obtuse, by the fact that what they engage in, by all definitions and accounts, is actually a specific sub-set within the Marching Band activity.  So they, the DCI cranks who are offended, huff, puff, snarl, speak a lot of harumphs under their breath, and then attempt to supposedly 'correct' anyone, newcomer or not, who dare to call it Marching Band (even though it is).

Edited June 5, 2017 by Stu

[Cappybara]

It's band guys.

Band.

Band.

Band.

Band. 

[Tim K]

This thread has moved from one where we should be looking at positive press about the activity to an argument about terminology being debated with a furor we don't usually see unless it's the winter, we're snowed in, and we have nothing better to do. The debate started with a discussion of people, actually "cranks" who use marching band as an insult for shows and corps they do not like. That is showing ignorance and snobbish attitudes. I have never seen Broken Arrow or any of the groups that wow the folks in the stands in Indy around Veteran's Day, but I know the least talented kid in one of those groups has more talent in their left little toe than I have in my whole body.

People believing that there is a distinction between a drum corps and a marching band and believe in precise definitions are not necessarily snobs. Clarity is important, traditional also defines. There is nothing wrong with that, and such folks are not in denial or delusional. I don't think they're in the stands correcting people's terminology either and I do not think too many newcomers have been turned off by such folks. 

My roots are band. I grew up in the Boston area and competed in a CYO band. We could be snobs. "Marching" was never attached to CYO circuit bands, yes we had drills, the same drills as drum corps often designed by the same folks, but marching band was what high schools did. Yes the drum corps could in some cases look down on us, and since at that time many drum corps taught kids without teaching them to read music, we were told we were musicians. There was a rivalry, but the band kids loved the allure of drum corps and if the marching members of drum corps  didn't respect the bands, their instructors did and at circuit finals, folks from drum corps such as 27th, North Star, and BAC were recruiting from the bands. The distinctions gave identity and pride. 

Bottom line for me, call it what you will, I see an eclectic group ranging from a rigid militaristic kid to an off the wall in a good sense eccentric kid to everyone in between, coming together, giving their all, and wowing me. That's what has kept me going back to shows since my marching days in the mid seventies, and that's how I look at the activity overall.

[cixelsyd]

On 6/2/2017 at 9:33 AM, Stu said:

Yes words do have meaning. 1) The overwhelming majority of personnel within a drum & bugle corps certainly do ‘march’ (by meaning/definition); 2) a drum & bugle corps is a ‘band’ of people in aspects of not only being collection of people or a collection of people with musical instruments, but a collection of people who march with musical instruments (again by meaning/definition); and 3) the phrase ‘Marching Band’, again by both meaning and definition, is an all-encompassing designation where the term 'Drum & Bugle Corps' is a more specific sub-set of that broader term.  Any group of people who march and play instruments simultaneously (whether a Brazilian Percussion Ensemble, a High School Music Ensemble, a British Brass Ensemble, a Kazoo Ensemble, a Drum & Bugle Corps, etc….) they are all sub-set classifications under the broader term 'Marching Band'.  And therefore, by meaning/definition, and also using the analogy just posted by Lead: All Drum & Bugle Corps are Marching Bands, but not all Marching Bands are Drum & Bugle Corps.

 

Side note: Actual and real meanings of words are not beyond my understanding, and not beyond yours either (unless the term obtuse escapes you).

 

Evidently, they were beyond your understanding on page 1 of this thread.  Maybe your understanding has grown from reading subsequent posts.

Words have meanings that are not always easily captured in their dictionary definitions.  Any semantician can make the argument for drum corps being a subset of some larger whole, but using the term "marching band" instead of "marching music" for that larger whole is an ill-informed choice.  It disregards decades of real world usage.  From the 1920s through the 1980s, organizations like the American Legion, VFW, CYO, Eastern Massachusetts and others staged competitions for drum corps and marching bands side by side, but in separate divisions.  They all understood that drum corps and marching band were different things.