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To be fair, that was the subtitle.

I mean how else would there have been room for BDB?

So... the classes at Sarcasm School are going well???

I think the BOD's desire to grow the activity is a bit like a politician's desire to reduce the budget. They may want to do it, but it's never quite in their interest to actually do it. They want to grow the activity, but they need a new tuba. And in a way it's the same money, because they're haggling with DCI over the money split. Purely my (probably incorrect) speculation. But doesn't it fit the evidence?

I'm not going to make a list of where I think everyone is going to finish. I just have one observation to make. I've been surprised by the number of people that have the Crossmen falling out of the top 12 this year - I guess based on their history over the past 10 years. There may be some "homeritis" in my thinking, but I felt that they finished turning a corner last year that they started to turn in 2012 and are on the up slope. I think that it is more likely they move up a spot or three rather than fall back out of finals.

The activity would be dead if that dumb mantra had been followed. Now that the activity has matured and evolved to encompass complex dramatic actions and subtle visual themes (and some not so subtle), that shallow, empty beer bottle advice just doesn't cut it. Maybe in 1976 this worked, but now that our brains are fully developed, no. That's like going to the Art Institute of Chicago and saying, "It's all about color." Provincial sayings like this completely negate of the maturation of this art form. Now dramatic elements are supporting the visual, lending depth and humanity, meaning, and even humor to the musical pieces. Not all shows of dramatic depth and thematic argument are successful. Some shows with dramatic action or thematic arguments have become preachy and uncomfortably on-the-nose. Cadet's Angels and Demons show was so subtle, so clear, so rich, it became a profound work of art-- a commentary on good and evil, and the nature of that duality as an ineluctable component in the human experience. Cadet's An American Portrait last year became a swirling toilet bowl of unbiodegradable patriotic color amid a cacophonous hurl of shouted speeches from great US statesmen topped off with confetti canons and red white and blue Roman candle enemas-- an in your face preach-apalooza. Way too on the nose, completely lacking in subtlety and just uncomfortable to watch, despite it being brilliantly executed and a good original concept before the plastic banner machine fired up and shrink wrapped the entire corps, mummifying them.

2012 Cavies was nothing short of embarrassing. Sure you got some fangirls to go nuts at the end. But not only the design was terrible, but the horns really started making some terrible not world class sounds. Then 2013 happened, design better, (brass arrangements a little odd but still okay) and the hornline sounded even worse. Pretty close to terrible, especially compared to the rest of finalists and many non finalists. So many bad sounds, laser tone... loud! but just not pleasing to the ear. Show was enjoyable at least, just couldn't get past the brass. Then 2014... awesome show, only a few design beefs, but the end product was great, favorite cavies show since 2010, and the brass was great! New brass staff made a BIG difference. And they made a GIANT leap in that department. Cavies brass was back! And it wasn't that weak safe crap they were doing in the mid 2000's, it sounded great, and it was impactful. They lumped themselves right up there with the best lines out there as far as I'm concerned. So count me excited about the progression of the Cavaliers over the past couple of years, and I am hype about the show myself and can't wait to see if they make even more progress. Now that all sections are back together performing great musically and visually, let's see what the design staff gives them to succeed, and after the last couple of years it's pretty promising to see what they are going to put out there, especially with the announced rep. Haven't really been following too closely, but I hope they realized their success last year and they didn't make too many instructional staff changes from last season.

Not photoshopped but seen by many at the Glen Cove, NY LIRR station yesterday...something Cavie fans will ogle: very rare quadruple rainbow!!!! (even reported in Newsday.) http://wxedge.com/2015/04/21/weird-4-rainbows-photographed-but-not-quadruple-rainbow/

One of the MMs said this on his tumblr page:

They were so young last year, in the brass especially, that if they can keep the kids coming back, they should definitely be staying the Top 12, and possibly moving up the ranks.

I would add to this that the BOD actually does have a laser focused vision; to max out the skills of their 150 corps members. That's always the vision, as far as I can tell as a fan, and they do a pretty remarkable job at it. In fact, I suspect these kids improve faster during the Summer than Juilliard kids do during a given 2.5 months of their education. Even at Juilliard, I suspect the kids spend most of their practice time alone in practice rooms doing exercises. And even if that works as well as the pressure of drum corps, the Jiulliard kids probably backslide during the summer somewhat. No full-tour drum corps kid ever back-slid during the summer. (I realize this example is probably controversial, my point is that drum corps is extremely impressive for an activity outside the education loop.) Better yet, their vision has something critical that few vision statements have; metrics of success. The scoring, in both difficulty and execution, gives a corps director some idea of how well they've max-ed out the students that year (relative to what they anticipated, of course). It's crude, yes, but it's a metric. I'm not sure DCI has metrics-based vision. Can we make a statement that is demonstrably not true today that could be true in, say, five years? It could be: - At least 75 DCI corps. - At least 20 full-time professional performing artists from among the previous year's age-outs. - At least 100 full-time paid professional performing arts teachers from among the previous year's age-outs. - At least 500 full-time employees in professional occupations from among the previous year's age-outs. - At least 50% of randomly surveyed American high school students reporting seeing a full drum corps performance on video or live. These are just examples obviously. But good vision commits to a risk, and to measuring success and failure. Rambling post? You bet. But it all seemed to make sense at the time. Back to the original point, IMO the actual vision is indeed clear, but it's focused on each corps.

I don't know when the DCA schedule will be complete but it seems late to me. ... From what I understand, there's a DCA meeting this Saturday (4/25) to set the final schedule ... :-)

Not proposing anything? You started this thread, and in your first few posts, you called the whole PBR-meets-TV thing an "obvious success path", and suggested DCI do away with 501c3 status. I think both qualify as proposing something. Again, you seem to think the DCI office staff have no vision. I will address this below. So are SoundSport and Drumline Battle. Then once again, I must ask why you expect DCI to do what you describe. DCI is an agency created to serve a collection of diverse member corps. They have never had a laser focus, and never will. Their entire staff, all the way up to the executive director/"CEO", serve at the pleasure of the membership. And the membership have no unified "vision" - they could never even agree on defining what "drum corps" is, and thus all DCI mission statements and marketing material dance around what the product actually is. If you want a laser focus, you need a dictatorship - an organization where the CEO calls the shots, and the corps join on his terms. Drum corps has had such dictatorships before (VFW, for example), and it can have them again if the dictatorship offers a significantly better deal to corps than the status quo. So getting back to "vision", my contention is that in the governance structure of DCI, it is entirely possible that the membership simply cannot en"vision" selling out to something like what you allude to with PBR. DCI went through a similar experience with ESPN, and it did not work out for that very reason. It is entirely possible that the DCI staff, working within the parameters of their situation, have developed another "vision" - a vision of a DCI that is diversified beyond just 150-member competitive field corps. They have found a way to develop new formats like SoundSport and Drumline Battle on their extremely constrained budget. These ideas have the ability to extend DCI participation beyond our continent in ways that have not materialized for the full field corps format due to its size and expense. You therefore have several paths to the outcome you yearn for. You can continue to call for the DCI monolith to heed your message and make a $100 million TV deal full of transformative format-changing concessions. Or you can get behind an alternative DCI program that already has a more TV-friendly format (SoundSport). Or, some other entity with "vision" can make the deal for a TV-friendly version of music/motion. There is already one other entrant in the alternative format arena (WGI); why should there not be a third? As others are already pointing out, while the number of shows is "stable", their attendance is reportedly up. There is more definitive data for the recent rise in not only number of corps, but number of members per corps. There is nothing in those trends that suggests sponsors are on the verge of turning their backs on DCI. We even have a drop in fuel prices that is likely to make touring less costly in 2015. Your reports of death are premature.

Careful. The mods set up post blocks on weekends and you could end up with a DCPUI.

This is an interesting conversation, but it does have that characteristic of discussing a solution, or a course of action, without asserting the problem the solution is meant to solve. If people believe the success of bull riding somehow shows that drum corps can achieve 100 million dollars a year, that's absurd. And that's probably why it hasn't been stated explicitly. Boxing is even more popular than bull riding, and I would also guess far more popular than symphony orchestras. First demonstrate that this is caused by orchestras not being profit making entities. Feel free to start a for-profit orchestra, and as soon as you've pulled in your first hundred million profit you'll have a case. How about a for-profit drum corps? Wait, there is one; it plays in bars. It does OK, I think. Maybe this isn't the assertion at all. Maybe there's some other benefit from DCI going for-profit that hasn't been stated, or has and I missed it. As to implementation, it's a non-starter because the BOD does not actually seek to promote or popularize drum corps. So they would not likely make a huge structural change to achieve that. Presumably the audio and video archive would be included in the sale? Yeah, that's not gonna happen. Could DCI partner with a real promotions company, thus avoiding the risk while still achieving the benefits of promotion? Sure they could; they could do that at any time, but they don't. Because, again, they do not want to promote drum corps. People think they do but they don't. They say they do, but they don't. Behind closed doors what they say is, "You run drum corps contests, we'll promote our own corps." Why don't they want to promote drum corps? Well, what would happen if, say, there were twice as many kids in twice as many corps competing in twice as many contests? Each corps still has only 150 kids, the same budget, the same problems, and places twice as far down the order as they do now. So the Crossmen don't even make prelims, let alone finals. So how does this help your organization, Mr. average-placing drum corps director who sits on the DCI BOD? It's in everyone's interest to promote drum corps - except the people who actually make that decision. I'm not saying they're really that Machiavellian. Maybe only 99.97%.

From this moment forward, my posts will refer to GH as Miranda. Yes, yes I will proceed with that change. Mark it down everyone.

Did you ever see the movie "The Devil wears Prada?" Miranda watching as designers shoot out ideas... A small glance down and away means you're idea is out.. Same in Cadetland. When he presents an idea, there is a mandatory standing ovation by staff and even the cleaning people if they're in the building. Even when he decides to play jingle bells..

DCI has names, that became its name " stars " if you will. But its the adults, not the individual performers that predominently get the names, lets be honest here. Anyone that has followed DCI just a little bit has heard of the names.... " George Hopkins ".... " Steve" Reliable Rondo " Rondinaro"..... " Michael Cesario "..... Dennis Delucia ".... " David Gibbs "... " Marie Czapinski ".... " Debbie Torchia ".... George Oliviero".... Michael Klesch ".... " Scott Johnson "..... " Michael Gaines ".... " Dan Acheson ".... " Peggy Twiggs ".... " Wayne Downey "...." Jeff Fielder ".... and I could go on and on with the DCI "stars ", with their names and faces. DCI is unique in many respects. In one area, to my knowledge, it is the only " sport " that has every single member of its Hall of Fame selected by virtue of what they did as an adult.. NOT principally what they accomplished as a youth performer on the field of competition. As such, the numbers of performers that have been inducted into the DCI Hall of Fame, chosen principally by what they accomplished as competing performers is ...................zero.. So you are accurate in your asessment in my view that each staring performer in DCI over the years is basically a faceless individual, someone that when they leave are replaced with another talented, faceless performer, just like the previous ones the last 4 decades. On some occasions, their names come to the fore, but nowhere near the notoriety that the adults have secured for themselves. Its one of the unique features of DCI compared with the 18-22 amateur college sports athletes where so many people know the names of the top performers in these sports.. The College Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey Hall of Fames, for example, all have performers inducted ( and thus remembered ) into these sports Hall of Fame based upon what they did as amateur performers in their respective sports.. not what they did later in life, nor if they even played professionally that sport once they left their college team, school. It is what it is in DCI, and we have slowly accepted this as the norm.. but clearly it is not the norm, insofar as it is in the amateur college sports world realm, for just one example, anyway. And lets keep in mind that the college sport amateur athletes that become known as its sports" stars" each and every season, are pretty much the same ages ( 18-22 ) as the star performers in DCI, of which there are at least a dozen or more individual ones each and every summer in DCI giving us their all on the field of competition, and really shining.... but except for insiders, are essentially nameless, faceless, for the most part.

King mellos were all 2P. Although I built a 3P version last year, currently on loan to Bonnie Ott. Kanstul mellos are all 3P, except for the 2P sets built for the USMC Commandant's Own. Olds mellophones were all PR. One 2P prototype was shown at the 1977 DCI Congress.

That sounds like the old Steve Martin joke: "Do you want to know how you can make a million dollars and not pay any taxes?" "First, you make a million dollars." What you go on to say in that post is, more or less, that people just like bull riding more than they like drum corps. Garfield's response to my request, about what PBR specifically did that DCI did not, was to bring in people from outside the activity to manage it. That might help, as long as those people don't try to change drum corps into something else. Having a live Finals broadcast of just five corps, as he suggests might be needed for sponsors to come on board, wouldn't necessarily change the fundamental nature of the activity. It's actually been tried before. I remember returning to my hotel room from the wedding reception I was attending in Wheeling in August 1999 to see PBS broadcast just the top five. (The only problem would be if, say, number six had moved up but hadn't been broadcast. The way that NBC often handles the challenge of making sure the highest-placers in multi-competitor events in the Olympics is usually to show the event in delay.) Horn Teacher notes that "an exquisitely performed 2 1/2 octave sixteenth note run by 150 horns will never" be of interest to more than a specialized audience. Garfield, as a drummer, you may wish to substitute some mark of excellence from that side of the activity. Would you be OK with losing the top performance level, dumbing-down the activity, as it were, in order to boost sales? Let's go for an easy analogy: is Britney Spears really better than the Chicago Symphony just because she makes more money? (I don't know how financially successful Spears is right now, but substitute whatever famous pop-star whom you happen to think is really no good.) Which is really to say: why do drum corps exist? What are their purposes? Should it be to make money for shareholders? Does the Blue Devils organization exist to make money? That's a financially successful corps, right? So why haven't they turned for-profit?

True enough... but for proper context, over 3,000 deceased Drum Corps no longer with us could have your particular definition of " success " too. ( and in my view, you'd be correct with this definition of " success ", too, although others here might likewise have a different definition of " success " and be deemed equally correct with THAT definition too we might add. )

I think most drum corps would say that having provided thousands of members with wonderful experiences is indeed a marker of success.

What could present more edge-of-the-seat fear and danger than Hop pacing the sidelines at Finals? (/sarcasm)

I think what he is getting at is - what do you consider growth: fewer musicians with more eyes on them, or more musicians with fewer eyes on them? Naturally, the ideal is more musicians with more eyes on them.

"Finals can be no more than 90 minutes. Five corps, tops. Rebuild Saturday night to make that happen and we'll talk." Would they do it?

I would say, assuming the figures in the posted article are correct, reaching 550 million TV + web viewers across 40 countries is huge. From a very cursory evaluation of the situation, PBR grew a niche brand into a fairly large, world-wide phenomenon. I don't know how they did that, unfortunately, as that's not documented that I could find (again, with a very minimal search). I would guess that when the organization was fledgling and got a TV deal somewhere it caught on ratings-wise, whereas for whatever reason DCI did not. Bull riding seems to me like it's a fairly short-term bit of entertainment, where you could show a 30 or 60 minute broadcast, see lots of different personalities, and not need to get super-invested as an audience member flipping channels. One DCI Finalist is a full 15 minutesish production, that is so dense that often multi-camera productions miss something. I think a DCI production is pretty hard for a mainstream TV viewer to latch onto and immediately "get," whereas Bull Riding is not (as someone who has never paid attention at all, I know the point is for the guy to not fall off the bull, and I imagine it might be at least partially funny to drink beer and watch a cowboy get thrown off a bull). IMO I would think that for DCI to take a giant leap into the mainstream they would have to sacrifice design ideals to appeal to the uninitiated audience: instead of Fellini they would need to Wizard of Oz ala The Ohio State University Marching Band. I suspect if that is the choice, DCI is fine being who they currently are, and trying to improve what they have going now (improve attendance at their Regional shows, get more FN subscribers, improve online presence, etc)

I'm just tickled to learn that one of the circuit's stars is named Bushwacker.

I'm not sure I get what you're saying: are you saying a DCI merger of some sort with an entertainment agency and/or entertainment endorsement agency would be awesome? I would guess that DCI or its member corps haven't thought too much about that (though maybe BDE has), and to be kinda blunt I'm not sure DCI would have much to offer at this point. Assuming the figures in this article are true, DCI doesn't have near the national, let alone global reach of PBR (which FWIW I had to read/look up to see what the H it was). It would be cool to see a power agency like WME/IMG help broaden DCI's reach, though I would assume that partnership would come at concession for DCI (such as, maybe, change in programming to better attract new, mainstream audiences). I think at this point, after DCI's attempts to partner with ESPN kind of fizzled out for one reason or another, it's OK to accept that DCI is a niche of a niche entertainment/educational activity. They currently don't have the infrastructure to be much bigger than that, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are OK with where they're at. I get wanting to see our activity grow to a larger audience is enticing, but I also think it might be more prudent to focus on more attainable goals/improvements DCI can work on

there are a few reasons why there are big complications with the idea of 'buying' the DCI tour and trying to increase its market. but DCI-lite, 'Soundsport,' would fit this model really well. it can be year round. it only requires a modest sized venue. it has a greater potential to be 'dynamic' from event to event. a for-profit competitive mini-corps circuit, heavy on the advertising and head-to-head competition element, is a model that Could have legs If it could capture interest.

Rodeo is a professional sport. Its athletes are paid professional athletes. Rodeo a For Profit enterprise. " Professional Bull Riders" in this article speaks directly to that For Profit Status. DCI is a 501 (c ) enterprise.. a Non Profit entity. So I'm not getting the connection, or what you would like to see happen similar to this Professional Sports aquisition by a For Profit Company in the Business World interested in making a profit for itself and its shareholders ( or its private owners )

I thought the cummerbund changes were cool. A simple way to visually illustrate the various sections of the show.

Just daydreaming as an armchair uniform designer, wondering what you could do with the Cadets uniform for this show that might tie in. The most obvious would be to add a second cross belt, a la classic Blue Stars, to make an X on the front of the jacket. Even if not in white (so it doesn't hit you in the head from a distance), it would still create a similar effect. Of course, also keeping in mind the dark nature of the music, black variants would work as well. As a one-off, though, it might be cost prohibitive, but they would look stellar in the classic Cadets uniform in varying textures and shades of black, a la Regiment in '96. Just some random Wednesday morning thoughts... Mike

After reading a few posts I have this to say.... This years show announcement has me as excited as the 2008 show announcement. 2008 is one of my favorite shows and I really do think this years show has the potential to match that type of excitement and energy. I think visually and musically this can be one of the best shows we have seen from this corps in awhile. I am actually mostly looking forward to seeing further development in all visual aspects... It had been a steady improvement since 2012. All I know is that I have a lot of faith in this years staff compared to what the 2012 staff put on the field.

Or they could just play it? GROUNDBREAKING. I know, let that sink in for a second. I can just see your faces right now. Spoiler alert, this isn't the Cavaliers of the early 2000s any more. Last years book was no Crown book, but it wasn't a walk in the park complexity wise. It had some nice licks in there. To me their brass is headed in a very good direction if the improvement from 2013 - 2014 is any indication. I don't think they'd just select some brass band music to water it down. I agree with what was said earlier, if they're picking music like that they obviously have some faith in their kids and staff. I could be COMPLETELY wrong, which would be really disappointing, but I think they're going to start to really grow. I think the strength, speed, agility, flexibility, and mental power they mention in their show announcement could apply musically as well......we'll see. Not trying to get too feisty, but it's like we can't let go of the Cavaliers we see them as from the early 2000s. I think the sooner we realize this is a new group really improving after where they were in 2012, the sooner we can enjoy. I mean these two clips made me more excited than a bunch of stuff I listened to pre 2012 from them (no offense). They did that stuff great, but it's gone now. Time to move on and embrace the future! https://twitter.com/CavsBrass/status/579783309472976899 https://twitter.com/CavsBrass/status/579775889459798016

Differences in recording equipment, acoustics, etc. You can't get a good read from a rough video like the ones from the cadets and crown. I'll reserve my judgement for the first few full performances. Something tells me Crown isn't ready to lose the Ott this year.

Love like space-time has no bounds...e.g...infinite. That is really all you need to know.

From what I recall, Wednesday Addams said pretty much the same about Gary's Thanksgiving pageant.