ironlips

Scott is an outstanding musician, arranger, and teacher. He's earned this honor.

"Mc Duffy"...what a piece of work! In a time when bugles had only one valve, there was no pit, nobody read music, and drum lines played rudiments (whether they complemented the brass charts or not), Mike took the rest of us to school, creating arrangements that sang. Whether for Anaheim, Blue Stars, Kilts, Troopers, Garfield or any of a dozen more iconic units, his work was "the sound of DCI" and we all knew it. And never mind all the "should have happened a long time ago" stuff. Those in the know have acknowledged for years that he was a master, and now it's time to celebrate his "official" recognition by his peers (as if he actually has any).

A wise and generous man who devoted an enormous amount of energy to the activity we all hold so dear... that was Joe Colla.

Both shows offer great music, Superstar being the the more musically sophisticated and Godspell the more accessible. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the iconic take on the former score by the Argonne Rebels. Fans and their fellow competitors loved it, but the pure musicality and seamless coordination between brass and percussion were woefully undervalued back in the Dark Ages of the adjudication system. The Opies were far ahead of their time. Godspell would play well today, given a treatment similar to the 'Coats "Lucy". It would stand out against all the darkness offered up by a good number of other programs.

Drilling a bit deeper, I think you may find that spreads among captions are not equally applied. Differences in Effect categories are often miniscule, and the same seems true in Music. Percussion scores often feature the widest gaps between placements. As for Visual, I'd need to do a bit more analysis. Perhaps the perception that Music has diminished in importance springs from the fact that, though the actual point allocation does not show this, Color Guard may be the real driving force behind field shows today. Program designers are often visual experts who have made their bones in WGI where sound, though essential, is cut and pasted in service of the visual effects, which appear every few seconds in a 4 to 5-minute routine. Translated to the field, this results in truncated sound bites that support rapidly occurring visual ideas but leave no space for musical development, presenting the impression that the music is a secondary consideration. Which it is in fact, the relative point allocations among captions notwithstanding. And everybody sounds good. The music is much simpler (any really challenging segments usually presented at a halt), played on superior instruments in comfortable registers for brass, percussion avoiding most rudiments (which can not be jammed into the faster tempos anyway), and all of it supported by a (usually) over-modulated pit contribution. Ergo, the real decisions do have to be made on the visual side.

Very well put.

That seems a bit of a stretch. Would you expect that for a baseball game? I understand the notion though, and there have been "applause meter" shows in the past. The corps, for the most part, found these rather unsatisfying.

Hey, he was supporting the arts, in his own way.

Deal! FD

Thanks for the info! Whoever was making the management decisions for the Glassmen did a great job.

There was great innovation within that "traditional" music. The rope drums in the opener were a nod to the ancients but a brand new sound for modern ears. Was Dan Acheson the director that season?

Indeed, and both pre-date DCI. My first hearing of Debussy's Clair de Lune took place the night I joined the Sunrisers in '63. John Sasso's chart was spectacular and, the cursed mellophone not yet invented, the score was enhanced by 8 glorious, heavenly French Horns! A bit later, I heard the Verdi Requiem for the first time, courtesy of Red Winzer's pen and the Reading Bucs. The generation before me witnessed Commonwealth Edison playing Wagner, ... it goes on and on. Drum Corps served to introduce many of us unwashed to the wonders of musical styles we would not have otherwise experienced. It's been happening for over 100 years!

THAT'S what I'm talking about, and some of these corps produced some pretty big surprises. Two in particular, from Bridgeport, CT, are prime examples, the PAL Cadets and St. Raphael's Golden Buccaneers. The former performed in that legendary 1965 VFW Finals mentioned earlier, finishing just a couple of tenths behind Madison, and the latter established themselves as national contenders that same year, finishing 3rd at the World Open. Those achievements surprised many in the Drum Corps community. Most of these folks are still around and managed to stay on the right side of the law. In fact, one became a police chief and mayor. Surprise, surprise.

I couldn't agree more, and I'm not kidding.

Ok, climb into "The 'Way Back Machine": St. Kevin's Emerald Knights at the Dream in Roosevelt Stadium, August, 1964 B.M. (Before Mellophones) They had been solid for years, but that show had always belonged to Jersey corps like Garfield and Blessed Sacrament. Not this time, though SKEK won by only a whisker thin margin of less than 3 tenths, on the tick system. Truth be told, it really wasn't close at all. If the "Stars and Stripes" company front (complete with obbligato sop on the piccolo part) wasn't evidence enough, by the time Barbara Bergdoll had stepped out of her Color Guard captain role and finished conducting the concert of "South Rampart", all of us in the stands knew it was all over. (Note the crowd response.) To this day, I have never heard so many "fuggedaboudits"! (This may sound primitive to "modern" ears. Bugles were barely more than glorified plumbing parts, with most accidentals played by pulling the tuning slides. Acceptable intonation was more of a hope than a reality and brass sections averaged about 32 members. Multi-toms and tympani were not yet on the horizon. Nobody could read music, save one or two instructors. Corps were not arts education entities, more like musical reform schools. It was the best of times.)

"Ken Norman was pretty tuned in, I guess." That's putting it mildly. Compared with all the other arrangers in the history of this game, he came from another planet. (I can imagine Yoda saying, "Tuned in, he was, Ken Norman.")

"(Steve Beard) solo was in 1974 and he nailed it .." I stand corrected. I wish I had seen that show, too.

I wish I had witnessed Anaheim in '72 at the first DCI Championships in Whitewater. Saw the movie, but it would have been far more satisfying to have been in the stands when Ralph Hardimon and Tom Float were anchoring the snare section and Steve Beard was wailing that bari solo in "Artistry".

Whoo, good call. Lucky me. I hitchhiked from NY with a buddy to get there. In the scramble for seats at McCormick, we ended up on a picnic table just behind the GE judges. Life's priorities underwent a seismic shift that evening.

Depending on alumni donations to fund a contemporary World Class drum corps to any meaningful extent is folly, and that's been the case for a very long time. These units do not have "mom and pop" expenses. One could run a small country on what it takes to staff, feed, equip, insure, and tour such a group these days. Alumni ties and loyalties can be strong but contributions from that sector will always be at best ancillary, at worst, insignificant.

I see what you did there.

As Gerry Shellmer might have said, "That Frankie kid has a heavy pen." I particularly like that Ticheli is confident enough to end a "modern" piece with a Major Triad. How bold, to give the tritone a rest.

No question. Consider this: some of these folks are grandparents today.

I really do get where you're coming from. It's the way I feel about the once-great corps I marched with for 10 years (back in the Stone Age). They still exist, but only just barely. And you are correct, it's holistic: you need financing, warm bodies, a visionary at the helm, a good staff, design, desire...etc. Re-inventing the wheel year after year won't cut it. That said, I also can sympathize with those who are trying to dig their corps out of the depths. My advice to them is to avoid repeating policies that are not working. If that means new leadership, in whole or part, so be it. But none of us are walking in their shoes and may have difficulty appreciating the nuances of their problems.

Here's my suggestion for source material: William Grant Still composed this in 1930, four years before the Greshwin boys put pen to paper for Porgy and Bess. It may very well be in the Public Domain by now.