A question for the purists: was there more that could have been done?

[Bobby L. Collins]

Yesterday, I gave my thoughts on the loss of bugles.  Today, my thoughts on electronics and amplification.

For me, 2005 was the turning point where I went from "Well it sucks they stopped using bugles, but it's still drum corps" to "What in the name of Odin's Beard are they even doing out there??".  Without going back and watching 2005 finals (which I haven't done in a while), the things that really turned me off were not being able to hear brass ballads because of all the amplified marimbas and suspended cymbals, and being totally distracted and taken out of the moment when someone hopped on a microphone and either started trying to sing sprechstimme, or scatting drum features into microphones rather than actually performing them on their drums, which was the only reason in the world they auditioned to be in a drum corps in the first place.  It was even worse the next year, and just kept getting progressively worse each and every year.  The excessive narration has been a massive button of mine corps seem to enjoy pushing. I don't know which year "YOWZA YOWZA YOWZA" is from, nor do I care.  As far as I'm concerned, that is one of the worst top 12 productions to ever be put on the field.  Would have probably been fine if the guy hadn't been literally screaming into a microphone throughout the entire show, completely covering up anything that was happening musically (I really don't blame that guy, after all, he was just doing what they told him to do, but the sound of his voice still makes me want to blaspheme, even after all these years).  And I know that show has its fans, who defend it by reminding me how wonderfully it fit in with the theme of the show.  My response to them has always been "If I want to listen to a radio DJ narrate a dance competition, I'll turn on the bloody radio in 1953.  I certainly won't pay 50 bucks to try to listen to a drum corps play over that crap".

Then we got keyboard synthesizers, electric violins, drum machines, and prerecorded samples.  Synthesized bass that makes tuba lines superfluous and redundant.  Vocal choirs monopolizing an uncomfortable portion of the corps' allotted time on the field.  Sampled brass patches filling in the thirds and fifths for corps that only know how to play unison roots in tune.  Clip-on microphones.  And professional audio engineers that very likely get paid twice as much as any corps' entire staff combined.  And the same level of audio trickery that's employed today by audio engineers and mixers in pop music.  I didn't ask for any of this.  I don't know any who asked for any of this.  As far as I know, the only person who asked for any of this was George Hopkins.  But people in this activity like to put him on a pedestal and kow-tow to his every whim, so now there's a generation of drum corps instructors, members and age-outs who think it's all perfectly normal, and essential to win medals.  Well let me tell you something; there's absolutely nothing...NOTHING normal about this.  

If it were just one thing every now and again, that would be a different matter.  A miked marimba solo during a front ensemble feature.....ok.  But a miked marimba playing four-mallet rolls on soft yarn drowning out the hit of a ballad with the hornline at full power?  Come on.

A few seconds of synthesized ambiance during a transition where the colorguard is in the front and the hornline is stretching out a curve in the back?........ok.  But 8 to 10 minutes of synthesized ambiance drowning out an entire production?   Come on.

A sampled pitch bend near the final note of a production?  Well, ok.  I'd rather hear a full power chord, which the corps is more than capable of executing, but whatever.  But sampled (and autotuned) brass that is genuinely replacing the horns on the field for significant portions of a show, or filling in the 3rds and fifths of park'n'bark chords in order to give smug trolls on YouTube the satisfaction of boasting about how much better in tune corps are today?  Come on.

Vocal choirs consisting of uniformed members of the corps congregating for a 20-second, unamplified feature?  Sure, why not?  That is not without precedent.  But amplified groups of dedicated singers who don't march a single step during the entire production, both masking and drowning out the performers behind them as they stand front and center on costly and rickety props?  Come on.

A clip on microphone for a soloist?  Well, high schools have been doing that for a long time, and that's very much a high school thing to do.  But clip on microphones for all the ringers in the corps to give the illusion that the sound the audience is hearing is representative of what the corps actually sounds like?  Come on. 

Having an auxiliary member of the corps operate the on-off switch for a modest amount of electronics used tastefully and with at least a shred of restraint during a show?  Ok, still anathema to me, but at least it's a member of the corps doing it.  But paying a professional audio engineer to manipulate the sound of a production via trickery and deceit, cheapening the efforts of the entire cadre of corps members?  All in the name of "art" and "progress" and "G.E."??  COME ON!

A modern drum corps show looks and sounds like someone turned on every single television in the electronics department at Wal-Mart, then put each television on a different channel, then did the same thing with all the stereos and put them all on different radio stations, and then, for good measure, fired up some video games on top of all that...then pulled the fire alarm.  Whom does this serve??  Excess is the very word to describe it.  It's too much.  I feel like it caters to people with attention deficit disorder, or at the very least people who keep their nose buried in their smartphone all the time.  I mean, I'm not even joking when I say that I fully expect to see giant fidget spinners on the field next year.  It's an out-of-control circus of bedlam and sensory overload.  All the dinosaurs (and a growing number of milennials) are asking for at this point is to either ban it, or else to reel it in, practice some moderation and restraint, stop relying on it as a pure crutch to be competitive, and stop shoving it down our throats.

I have (well, had) a really good friend who is an alcoholic, who flat out refuses to seek help for his addiction, and who spends every waking hour validating his alcohol abuse.  I tried so hard to help him, but he simply became intolerable to the point where I felt like it was better for me to get as far away from him as possible.  That's very much what I feel like I'm dealing with when it comes to fans and proponents of electronics and amplification; people who are so addicted to that sensory overload that they refuse to even consider how damaging it is to the activity.  They make me so angry.  I know most of them don't even really like it, they just roll with whatever the "popular" opinion is, and among ticket holders the popular opinion is that esoteric avant-garde art performance is the future of DCI.  They are to drum corps what the New Vienna School was to classical music. Damaging.

Bottom line is that all the electronics and amplification are perverting DCI's mission statement, they're doing a gross disservice to the fans and to the young people participating in the activity, and they're cheapening the art form in the eyes and ears of many, many people.  While I fundamentally believe that electronics and amplification should be banned entirely from the activity, I know that's never going to happen.  The box is open.  But as stated yesterday, the box is there for a reason.  And at some point, someone is going to have to close that box.  Because this can't continue.  I think even George Hopkins understands that now.

Now, back to the OP's question.  Was all this a result of the drum and bugle corps running out of artistic creativity and innovation?  No.  It was born out of one man's vanity.  Drum and bugle corps had plenty of room to grow without the perversion of amplification or ProTools.  As stated before, Cavaliers 2002 was just a taste of what it could have become.  But that train is sailed.  It's no longer about innovation or artistic creativity.  At this point, it's all about damage control, and catering to the whims of Winter Guard International and Bands of America. 

Tomorrow, I'll address the third nodal point; Gesticulation (I'll try to come up with a better word for it before then).

[MikeN]

2 minutes ago, Bobby L. Collins said:

I have (well, had) a really good friend who is an alcoholic, who flat out refuses to seek help for his addiction, and who spends every waking hour validating his alcohol abuse.  I tried so hard to help him, but he simply became intolerable to the point where I felt like it was better for me to get as far away from him as possible.  That's very much what I feel like I'm dealing with when it comes to fans and proponents of electronics and amplification; people who are so addicted to that sensory overload that they refuse to even consider how damaging it is to the activity.  They make me so angry.  I know most of them don't even really like it, they just roll with whatever the "popular" opinion is, and among ticket holders the popular opinion is that esoteric avant-garde art performance is the future of DCI.  They are to drum corps what the New Vienna School was to classical music. Damaging.

So all of those fans in the stadiums (that number keeps growing by the way) and kids who go try out in ever increasing numbers are wrong, but you are right? 

Mike

[N.E. Brigand]

11 minutes ago, MikeN said:

So all of those fans in the stadiums (that number keeps growing by the way) and kids who go try out in ever increasing numbers are wrong, but you are right? 

Well, the question is: are fans there because of the A&E, or in spite of it, or neither?

[cube]

2 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Well, the question is: are fans there because of the A&E, or in spite of it, or neither?

A lot of new fans like me are fans in spite of it. I've talked to quite a few bandmates about the issue and most resonate with the opinion that electronics are going too far. It is a brass and percussion (and color guard) performance, after all.

[Bobby L. Collins]

Yeah, you keep talking about those fans, but are they really fans?

The vast majority of them are there because their band directors said "Ok, get on the bus".  Some of them may become fans, but I promise you, most of them walk away from it saying "Wow, that was really stupid".  Most of rest of them are there because their darling little snowflake is on the field, pulling faces in the front ensemble.  Sure, there's a handful of die-hards who will be cupping their hands behind their ears, but by and large the demographic of attendees is a minuscule fragment of the cross section that drum corps once boasted.

Now, that won't be true this week.  Prelims/Semis/Finals ticketholders are die-hards, and sure, Indy will be a sellout.  So don't try to use Indy as a gauge of how popular drum corps is today.  It remains a niche activity, but one that has lost a lot of the support of the old vets, the same old vets who supported it throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.  That is not anecdotal.  It is demonstrable.

[N.E. Brigand]

2 minutes ago, Bobby L. Collins said:

The vast majority of them are there because their band directors said "Ok, get on the bus".  Some of them may become fans, but I promise you, most of them walk away from it saying "Wow, that was really stupid".

By no means were a majority of the attendees at Massillon on Monday band students--but there were a lot of band students there. And while I do occasionally notice band students who aren't interested in the shows (there were a couple sitting right next to me a couple days earlier, in Avon Lake), a lot of them were enjoying the performances very much, and cheering for every corps. Would they enjoy it more with less amplification and electronics? Quite possibly. Personally I hope so. But I guarantee you there were people in the 1980s and 1990s who said, "That was really stupid" after seeing a drum corps show then, too. And after a long period of decline, DCI attendance has been on the upswing in the past five years or so. I'm hoping that Flo streaming the DCA championships will help that circuit grow too.

[ShortAndFast]

3 minutes ago, Bobby L. Collins said:

Yeah, you keep talking about those fans, but are they really fans?

Sure, the people who buy tickets to shows are fans. I've bought tickets to a lot of drum corps shows. I've never seen a special line for true fans vs. all the others. Not everyone who went to shows in the '70s and '80s became a lifelong fan either. Many of them were, indeed, band kids or family/friends of people marching. 

DCI's been setting "modern era" attendance records for the last few years, and is plainly drawing much better audiences than in the mid '90s or the late '00s. It's hard to see how this can be debated - they put out a press release with the numbers every year. Sure, there might have been some bigger audiences BITD, but this is clearly an area where DCI is pretty strong today.

[Lance]

i wish social media had been around in the 80s so we could see "purists" who marched in the 60s and 70s freaking out

 

[ftwdrummer]

3 minutes ago, Bobby L. Collins said:

Am I wrong?

If so, then why don't you talk about it?  I've brought some insight to the table.  Can you do the same?

I personally don't care to, because I never marched drum corps, so it wouldn't seem to be my fight.

And I also attended a show for the first time in 2005 and really became a fan in 2006, which I'm guessing means I've never seen real drum corps (according to you, at least), so my opinion is further invalid.

I'll say that I find quite a few things enjoyable now. I also find quite a few things less than ideal. And my favorite show (watched live or "on Memorex") is Star '93.

I'll argue each era has its pluses and minuses, and that much like it isn't all bad now, it wasn't all good then, either.

But my prime focus, in terms of where the activity is going, is whether or not the performers are enjoying it. And from what I can see/hear (some current marchers post on the internet, just not here), for the most part the kids enjoy it.

To my view, if the kids performing enjoy it, and I enjoy it, that's good enough for me.

[Bobby L. Collins]

13 minutes ago, ftwdrummer said:

I personally don't care to, because I never marched drum corps, so it wouldn't seem to be my fight.

And I also attended a show for the first time in 2005 and really became a fan in 2006, which I'm guessing means I've never seen real drum corps (according to you, at least), so my opinion is further invalid.

I'll say that I find quite a few things enjoyable now. I also find quite a few things less than ideal. And my favorite show (watched live or "on Memorex") is Star '93.

I'll argue each era has its pluses and minuses, and that much like it isn't all bad now, it wasn't all good then, either.

But my prime focus, in terms of where the activity is going, is whether or not the performers are enjoying it. And from what I can see/hear (some current marchers post on the internet, just not here), for the most part the kids enjoy it.

To my view, if the kids performing enjoy it, and I enjoy it, that's good enough for me.

The kids are enjoying the same things about drum corps they've enjoyed since DCI was formed.  Getting away from their families for a few months, traveling around the country, spending so much time outdoors, keeping in shape, making new friends, meeting new people...and, dare I say it....the prospect of decadent promiscuity.  Things that kids enjoy whether they're in a drum corps or not.

But spending an entire summer honing a book of music to a high degree of proficiency and execution, then coming back, receiving their commemorative DVDs or MP4 downloads, and not being able to see or hear any of their hard work because it's being drowned out and masked by a cacophony of white noise and interpretive dance?..........not so much.

And I know someone is going to accuse me of projecting, but I promise you, I've spoken to many recent participants from several different corps who aren't very happy with the modern experience, either.  At some point, the bubble is going to burst.

Edited August 10, 2017 by Bobby L. Collins