G-horns Posted October 19, 2006 Share Posted October 19, 2006 It was always about free horns. I didn't want to say so before because i tried to answer the drummer's question.but its true. yamaha wanted to sell marching brass. the best way to market it was to give away entire sets of horns to corps in exchange for votes on rules changes, yamaha rewarded those corps with free horns. lots of bands look up to corps and they'll want to play what the big boys are playing on. look at DCI now, barely any Kings or Kanstuls. theres corps playing dy-NASTY but i'm sure it wasnt their first choice but they got a great discount. its all about marketing and not about the quality. The bands could have played on G bugles, but then the saxes, clarinets and flutes would complain that mommy and daddy couldn't hear them. Oh, well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regularsopguy Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 It was always about free horns.but its true. yamaha wanted to sell marching brass. the best way to market it was to give away entire sets of horns to corps in exchange for votes on rules changes, yamaha rewarded those corps with free horns. slightly OT but the USC marching band just got all new insturments, brass and woodwinds, a complete set FOR FREE! arent they a "rich school"? guess who GAVE them thousands of dollars' worth of instruments? it was YAMAHA! so now next time your school or your corps goes to buy instruments you should ask YAMAHA about their giveaway program. or just remember if you want to actually BUY horns from yamaha, you are paying extra so that they can pay for those free horns they gave to USC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martybucs Posted October 21, 2006 Share Posted October 21, 2006 slightly OT but the USC marching band just got all new insturments, brass and woodwinds, a complete set FOR FREE! arent they a "rich school"? guess who GAVE them thousands of dollars' worth of instruments? it was YAMAHA! so now next time your school or your corps goes to buy instruments you should ask YAMAHA about their giveaway program. or just remember if you want to actually BUY horns from yamaha, you are paying extra so that they can pay for those free horns they gave to USC. And if you forward this post to everyone you know as an attachment in an email, Bill Gates and Microsoft will not only give you new horns and drums and uniforms, but each member will get a marching laptop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Schmitt Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 A bunch of people said: free horns From what I've heard, these do not exist. Discounted horns, maybe, but not free. The main financial benefit is the ability to turn them over every couple of years. You depreciate them on the taxes then sell them. It eventually has the potential to make money. This doesn't work with something with such a small market as bugles. Not that I don't miss the sound of course. Just saying the horns are not free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regularsopguy Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 A bunch of people said:From what I've heard, these do not exist. Discounted horns, maybe, but not free. The main financial benefit is the ability to turn them over every couple of years. You depreciate them on the taxes then sell them. It eventually has the potential to make money. This doesn't work with something with such a small market as bugles. Not that I don't miss the sound of course. Just saying the horns are not free. thats just it, bugles were a small market but marching brass is much larger. yamaha saw that and got the rules changed to "three-valve" and "any-key". then they could give away a set of horns to the top dogs and sit back and watch the orders come in from everyone else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 There are no free horns, that's a long-standing drum corps myth. I can't speak to drums, but I seriously doubt they're coming out free either. That's simply way too much to just hand to any organization, no matter how prominent--you're talking about handing over tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment to several groups for absolutely nothing, who then turn around and sell it a couple years later? No company is that dumb. Discounted, absolutely, many manufacturers have programs in place for bulk rates and such. Yamaha had nothing to do with the rule change, the DCI BoD wanted to change the rules and voted to do so because it made good financial sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regularsopguy Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 There are no free horns, that's a long-standing drum corps myth. I can't speak to drums, but I seriously doubt they're coming out free either. That's simply way too much to just hand to any organization, no matter how prominent--you're talking about handing over tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment to several groups for absolutely nothing, who then turn around and sell it a couple years later? No company is that dumb. Discounted, absolutely, many manufacturers have programs in place for bulk rates and such. Yamaha had nothing to do with the rule change, the DCI BoD wanted to change the rules and voted to do so because it made good financial sense. it was yamaha in the background, whispering to the DCI BoD to pass the rules changes with promises of new horns. ditto with amps. yamaha sells amps, don't they? next thing is saxophones. yamaha makes saxophones and who is pushing for saxophones? it's Hopkins, and his corps plays YAMAHA. not to mention that yamaha is a billion dollar company. i'm sure they could afford to give away horns and write it off as a "marketing" campaign. a successful one at that. how about this. if yamaha WASN'T behind the rules changes, wouldn't corps be playing more King, more Kanstul, more Pearl? you may think i need a tinfoil hat but i'm right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 Do you have any actual evidence for this, or is this more bizarre reasoning? Yamaha also sells motorcycles, will they soon be pushing the BoD to force corps to stop using buses and transport their members by fleet of motorcycles? And if you'll take a moment to look around at what corps are actually using, you'll see that there is quite a bit of King out there, and the number of corps using King is growing, along with Dynasty (Pearl doesn't make horns). Kanstul's issue is just that they don't offer the package deals and discounts that the other companies do, although one of the Kanstul reps that float in and out of here can better speak to how many corps are using their horns now. The reality of the drum corps world doesn't match up with your conspiracy theory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mchromik Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 it was yamaha in the background, whispering to the DCI BoD to pass the rules changes with promises of new horns. ditto with amps. yamaha sells amps, don't they? next thing is saxophones. yamaha makes saxophones and who is pushing for saxophones? it's Hopkins, and his corps plays YAMAHA.not to mention that yamaha is a billion dollar company. i'm sure they could afford to give away horns and write it off as a "marketing" campaign. a successful one at that. how about this. if yamaha WASN'T behind the rules changes, wouldn't corps be playing more King, more Kanstul, more Pearl? you may think i need a tinfoil hat but i'm right. Take off your tin foil. I can clearly remember the debates leading up to adding the third valve in the early 90s. Even then multi-key horns were talked about. At the time there were two top twelve corps pushing for just such a thing....and Mr. Hopkin's group was not one of them. It was worded rather shady, something like 'bell front, mult-valve, mult-key'. But the intent was clear, Bb/F. It was to much to swallow at the time and instead we got three valve G bugles phased in over X amount of years. Amoungst a certain set of brass staffs that debate never quite went away. After years of talking about it momentum builds until they present the idea once again based more on the economics and it passes. And in all those years of talking I never ever heard the word Yamaha. Yamaha is certainly the largest, most complete line out there nowadays and can certainly put together an attractive total package, but I severly doubt they could afford to just give it away. How many band directors are going to run out and say "Wow, I have to have the same horns the Cavaliers play no matter how much it costs!". King has made great strides in recent years, but Dynasty and Yamaha can put together the most cost effective total package. Folks like Kanstul and Premier Percussion get left in the dust for the same reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 You might consider that each change in brass instrumentation has brought new companies into the market. With only Kanstul and Dynasty making 3 valve bugles, the switch to multikey added King and Yamaha. When Dynasty was the only 2 valve bugle producer, adding the third valve induced Kanstul to make a bugle line. When only Olds was making valve rotary bugles, going to 2 valves brought in Dynasty, King, American Heritage/Benge, and Getzen. Competition produces lower prices and better instruments according to free market theory. For many years, percussion lines have received deals on their equipment. It has never been much of an issue. Now that brass lines are getting equal treatment it's a problem to some. IMHO, it was long overdue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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