audiodb

I am not feuding, nor am I singling you out. Your quote was the best example of what many are probably thinking. The press release doesn't say "possibly". It says Cadets2 "will" perform twice in competition....that they will perform in "preliminary and finals competitions". See how one word can totally change the meaning? Too bad you aren't writing their press releases - you'd have gotten it just right! Frankly, you and I both know that making a statement like that cannot possibly be "setting a placement goal". Bear in mind that DCA corps have not even declared open-class vs. class A yet. For all we know, there could be 16 corps in open-class this summer....or we might not even have 10. Where do you see me saying anything remotely like that? Read the title I gave this thread. See where it says "PR writer"? Focus on that, and listen. I know full well that the Cadets do not "indoctrinate" their members to think they're better than everyone else. No corps these days sets 1st place as the only acceptable outcome. To my knowledge, the only person on this planet publicly promising a finals placement for their corps is the PR writer for Cadets2. Hey, I came into this thread believing that humility was the only sensible way to go. The near-unanimous reaction of others was the opposite. I am willing to admit when I am wrong. Perhaps audacity is a valid tactic these days. According to camp reports, it is working so far. Maybe this will be the wave of the future. I don't know yet. All I know is one PR writer is giving it a try.

(sigh) Let's get one thing straight here. I like all corps, from the tiniest struggling last-place finisher to the perennial title contenders. Nothing makes me happier than to see new corps make the field. I have defended Cadets2 and George Hopkins in this forum against the unfair attacks they received back in the fall. I think I made my support for Cadets2 clear back then, but if not, I'll repeat....I support Cadets2. I discovered drum corps in the early 1980s, and marched in the late 1980s. The years in between were extremely difficult times for drum corps, both junior and senior. Corps were folding all over the place; membership numbers were plummeting, even with fewer surviving corps to fill. Some corps publicly declared what size corps they would field and where they aimed to place, as was an increasingly common practice in the preceding decade....only in these trying times, those promises could not be kept. This type of PR failure was devastating to some corps. As a result, that approach was resoundingly rejected. A new conventional wisdom developed where corps refrained from setting such specific competitive placement goals, and press releases no longer promised such specific contest results or exact membership quantities. Corps leaders made it a high priority to convey this philosophy throughout the ranks. I entered the activity right in the midst of this attitude adjustment, so that's what I learned. Evidently, times are a-changin', and I have some more learning to do. One other thing to note....I see many responses alluding to video posted by Cadets2 attesting to their current quality. I'm at a disadvantage here, as I don't listen to pre-season audio/video clips. I prefer to see and hear the shows for the first time as they are intended....on the contest field. From the comments here, it sounds like this might be a debut so historic as to rival the DCA rookie record set by Phoenix in 1975 (5th place). That would be very impressive. Looking forward to seeing all the corps (Cadets2 too) this summer!

Because some think Teal Sound's use of....oops, wrong thread. On this board, any corps can be treated like blasphemers....and most are.

I've seen some senseless press releases over the years, but I don't recall any this audacious. From a Cadets mass e-mail today, here's how their blurb on Cadets2 begins: Does anyone recall a first-year corps having the nerve to announce their plans to perform in both prelims and finals in advance, as if it is an absolute certainty they will make the finals cut?

I'm glad the thread is still open....it allowed you to post. :)

The DCI definition of "full tour" is to join the tour by San Antonio and stay with it from then through championships. Jersey Surf is doing that in 2012; therefore, they will be a full-touring world-class corps.

Yes - good catch. At U.S. Open a week earlier, the short prelim routine was still in effect, but the DCI Championship prelim shows were full-length.

Why should that bother you, then? Maybe your 29 posts in this thread have something to do with it. Seriously, this thread has been primarily an exercise in trolling for many pages now. We all know the advice "don't feed the trolls". Clearly, both the trolls and the ones feeding them are enjoying their roles, or they would have stopped long before now.

No, this thread isn't about "what if DCI had never been formed". Now, asking "what if DCI could do things a bit differently", as I am, fits within the topic. (If you're that curious, we had a thread about what might have transpired had DCI not formed as it did. Try the search feature, and you might find it.) Oh, good grief. Didn't you read my disclaimer? I am not saying that ALL of those corps would have survived....just that more of them could have.

Wow....where to start? Like CrownBariDad admits, his metering approach has it's limitations, and your mileage may vary. This is a topic with which I have some experience from recording shows, so I can see several reasons why. First of all, let me emphasize that there is no way to settle this matter quantitatively. Too many inseparable variables prevent us from "measuring" brass volume in the setting of a DCI field contest. For example: 1. Judging from the dB meters I look at (i.e. on recordings), peak dB moments are almost universally achieved by percussion instruments. This is particularly true in the past 30 years, owing partly to the growth in size of drumlines, partly to the development of their equipment over the years, partly to the end of close-mic technique in recording field contests, and partly to the development of the pit. 2. Bear in mind that CrownBariDad is not leaving his dB meter on for the whole show to catch the true peak moment, but rather, judging for himself when he thinks the peak is coming, and turning the meter on then. There could be reasons for choosing that approach....but that method might catch the true peaks for some corps and not for others. 3. There really is no way to isolate the peak dB impact of a hornline from that of the drumline or pit, given that they play together so much of the time. 4. Along those same lines, crowd noise can't be ruled out either. Sound dissipates over distance, so a loud noise close by can easily top that of a distant sound source. Perhaps CrownBariDad or his neighbors, likely fans of Carolina Crown, are contributing to the chart-topping peak results for their own favorite corps. 5. And then....are peak dB readings really the most relevant measure of a brass section's perceived power? Brass strength, as I perceive it, is not exclusively in the momentary impact of an accent, but also in the sustained volume of a note, preferably one that is four beats or longer in length. My own take on things is that the differences between brass sections are not nearly as wide, in dB, as the data distribution CrownBariDad obtains with his dB meter. And my own impression of the 2011 field is that hornlines were more closely-matched in volume than many other years. With the exception of SCV, the whole top 18 let me know they brought full brasslines to the show. I can't decide who was loudest this year. (But don't fret....Crown is on my short list!)

Oh? Apparently, judging from the G7 fiasco, top corps still haven't learned this lesson. When you set up an organization to serve X number of member corps while using Y other non-member corps, eventually you will be left with only X. Once upon a time, ten corps got together to form their own circuit to serve their best interests....which would ordinarily be just fine. Except in this case (DCI), they promoted this circuit as something that would serve the entire junior corps activity's best interests. So they set up shows, tours, world championships, etc., talking dozens (eventually hundreds) of non-member corps into participating without getting the benefit$ of DCI membership. I'm sure DCI's founders meant well....they probably felt justified that since they were creating the circuit in the first place, why shouldn't they get something extra for their trouble? But this is how DCI has operated for all 40 of their years....and for that entire time, the number of surviving corps has declined in a manner that approaches X asymptotically. Thankfully, at least X has grown from the initial 10 to as much as 25 over the years (now 23), but some member corps are very reluctant to grow that number. Using the "have-nots" to leverage the circuit for the benefit of the "haves" seemed like a great idea back when there were 400 "have-nots". Now, there are less than two dozen....and we're still keeping them in the "have-not" category. How's that working? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of course, your response will be that since you believe there should only be X corps anyway, that the situation is already being addressed appropriately. As we have found out in recent times, your belief is shared among some of those top corps administrators....in fact, some think X should be a smaller number than it is now. You (and they) are entitled to that opinion....and I am entitled to mine. And a disclaimer for the coming wave of posts saying "no, it was: declining veteran support declining church support end of baby boom gas prices inflation societal changes - go read Bowling Alone video games President (fill in the blank)'s policies marching band etc." ....of course, many factors have affected the corps population. Haves vs. have-nots is one, a big one IMO....but not the only one.

But that "almost nothing" involved a significant amount of expensive travel for some of those corps. If you look at the 1975 class A prelims, out of 19 corps....only two still exist. All-girl prelims....all ten are gone. From 1980....all 21 of the corps that went to Birmingham for class A/AG are dead.

That's because you haven't shown a cause-and-effect connection there. It's more than that. Some of these bands are in areas that never had a corps....and conversely, some of yesteryear's corps were in areas that didn't have competing band programs at the time (some still don't). Not buying it. I don't see all these hordes of kids saying "well, I was going to march 27th Lancers, but now my HS has a band so I'm doing that instead". You aren't even giving an anecdotal example of such. From what I know, it's quite the opposite, in that bands are often the mechanism that introduces kids to drum corps. Happened that way for me circa 1980....if not for my marching band, I would never have discovered drum corps. In fact, given that today's corps recruits are exclusively MB trained, it is silly in a way to contend that marching band is taking kids away from drum corps when, in fact, MB is the near-exclusive supply source of drum corps kids. Again though, the adults are a different story. I can see how a whole wave of creative staff/potential drum corps admins chose instead to become marching band staff/band directors, where there was a financial base in place to support what they were doing. And from there, the recruiting and development efforts of that whole wave of people went toward marching band programs instead of local-level drum corps. In what sense? If you are referring to some dinosaur thinking that if we just unplugged the synths, hacked the valves off the horns with a blowtorch, and marched squad drill, that hundreds of corps would spring up like corn in Iowa and the stands would magically fill with legions of people....you're right, that won't work. But let's not discard every single principle that can be associated with "the past" just yet. For instance, cost-consciousness is a principle from "the past" that I think belongs in the discussion somewhere....

I can't speak for anyone else, but I do not discuss the past merely to lament. As the cliche says, we learn from our past mistakes. Successes, too.

No, I am not confused on that. If anything, perhaps some of the adults who were inspired to create more of what they experienced in drum corps chose corps-style marching band as the more economical $ubstitute vs. drum corps, given the nine-figure annual subsidy from our tax dollars that supports scholastic band programs. The kids, however, often haven't had both options to choose between, as my previous post points out. I just saw the perfect response to this earlier today. Oh, look who wrote it....

Oh, I thought your comment was saying every corps was like that back then. Thanks for clarifying. So in the '68-'69 Imperial Guardsmen, no one came from more than two towns away. Got it!

So when you left the Imperial Guardsmen and joined Garfield, you were the very first "import" in the history of drum corps?

But bands haven't "replaced" corps. Perhaps you see them as interchangeable (and choose to ignore people who don't). But even if you accept the band = corps premise, your statement still isn't true. Ever since your marching days, the junior corps experience has been available to kids throughout the 13-21 age range, with no systemic geographic limitations. Competitive marching band is only available to high-school kids whose schools are among the 20% of schools that have a competing marching band. If your kid sees a marching band and wants to join, but your town's HS doesn't have a competing band, tough luck. You can't join the band in the next town. Bearing that in mind, for marching band to have literally "replaced" drum corps, the programs would have to be located in the towns where these drum corps used to be. But reality is quite the opposite. Marching band grew more prevalent in areas that historically lacked junior corps activity, like Texas, Indiana, and several Southern states. Even in the Northeast, the locations of competitive marching band programs don't correspond to past drum corps hotbeds. I don't see scores of competing marching bands hailing from Newark, Garfield, NYC or Boston. I do see lots of them in suburban towns that had no drum corps heritage.

Excellent point....one reason I've been saying that "recruiting" shouldn't be limited to marching members. We need to recruit adults for administrative staff and volunteering as well.

First of all, that is pure fiction. Here are some 1971 contests with placement order different from your supposed "hierarchy": 6/12 Boston: Blue Rock, Boston, 27th, Garfield 6/13 Revere: back to your order 6/19 Toronto: 27th, Garfield, Blue Rock 6/20 Batavia: Garfield, 27th 7/9 Garfield: back to your order 7/11 Hempstead: Blue Rock, Garfield, Boston, 27th 7/15 CYO: Blue Rock, Boston, 27th, Garfield 7/17 World Open finals: 27th, Blue Rock, Garfield, Boston 8/7 Union: back to your order 8/8 Dream: 27th, Blue Rock, Boston, Garfield 8/18 VFW finals: 27th, Blue Rock, Garfield, Boston As you can plainly see, these four corps were flip-flopping all over the place. Secondly, you can't possibly pretend that today's contest results permit the same kind of "any given day" outcomes, where a middle-to-lower finalists could catch title contenders in the manner you saw (and did) in 1971.

Actually, I am....which is what makes my point noteworthy. Yes. And in the face of all that, there are some youth activities that have grown over the past generation. I can't say that....so I didn't. But regardless of how many choices kids have now, there are some youth activities that have grown over the past generation. Yes. Yet no matter how much kids have changed, there are some youth activities that have grown over the past generation. Instead of making excuses for why we should fail, why don't we look at successes and find ideas we can use? Understood. Yet, for all the shortcomings, it is interesting to note that fan (and member) interest was higher, perhaps even stoked by the more unpredictable nature of the competition.

That's a myth. Soccer is a traditional youth activity, and it hasn't seen a decline. And while we can argue endlessly over precisely what those unique aspects are, they do fall into two main categories....art and sport. I'd like to address the latter category for a moment. There's a reason people pay good money to see the non-professional art of drum corps....because it's also a competition. Back in the day, drum corps was a competitive free-for-all, and it drew huge crowds partly on that account. Today, there is a well-established competitive hierarchy due to disparities between corps, and a systemic competitive inertia that further discourages changes in the placement order of contests. Oh, and look....fan interest has dropped over that same time period. If you want to "save" drum corps, figure out how to make it competitive again.

But a small local corps today is still better than the average band. Why are you comparing today's bands only to drum corps from decades in the past?

Wow....this thread has risen from the dead, and all because you chose to take a months-old post of mine way out of context. I'm on your side (if there must be "sides"). I am well aware how much the drum corps activity was flourishing BITD compared to today. However, it is fair to point out that from a technical standpoint, today's corps are more advanced than 50 years ago. (On the other hand, it is also fair to point out that technical advancement has not maintained the same audience draw that drum corps enjoyed 50 years ago.) But anyway....

(boldface by me) Wow....I fully expected to see posts like this from you two months from now, but not before we've even seen the show. You've launched a pre-emptive strike against anticipated fan disappointment. Just wondering....are you so sure fans won't like BD? Or is this just a self-contrived win-win situation, where fans who like it are "enlightened" while fans who don't like it only prove how highly evolved the design must be? (I usually stay out of these pre-season threads. It doesn't matter to me who's playing what, anyway....it's all about how they play it. And I will wait to see/hear that for myself before forming any opinions.)