FTNK

That happened when I was in Texas once...I'm actually not sure what the concessions stand was for but the tuba line bought several pieces of pizza per person and some soft pretzels, we ate in shade under the bleachers, and it saved us the walk back to the food truck.

I have been watching PR and Cadets shows a lot these days to hear for myself both sides of the PR/Cadets debate that is raging right now in multiple threads...Anyway, it occurs to me that PR had a tuba hole at Finals. What happened?

I seem to remember putting my horn on the field and dancing in the last drum corps show I marched. And that was The Cadets!

I stand by my perception.

I have to stick up for gj--I think he's just expressing his opinion, namely that PR's brass sounds harsh, and unfortunately for him, that opinion is not very well liked on DCP. I think PR gets more unabashed gushing on DCP, no matter what they do, than any corps. Anyway, about the poll, I put Cadets, because I'm a visually-oriented person, and they have consistently put a lot of "wow" visuals out there nearly every year. I mean, that's pretty much why I marched there. Last year specifically, I remember my reaction to watching their closer drill on the SA webcast as being "wow wow wow wow wow." Runner up overall has to be SCV; they're an amazing corps that has put out some really wow moments both visually and musically. Last year, it was the amazing refinement and clarity of their opening statement and their drill. But generally, neat stuff performed well, with intensity and confidence, by any corps always gets a "wow." I believe my first reaction to BD last year was "WOW, they just performed the #### out of that."

I was just thinking--with Indy hosting finals for the next 10 years, how willing are Indiana high schools (known for their intense competitive marching programs) to give up facilities (rehearsal fields/parking lots, etc.) to host a corps for Finals week? I know many corps have staff connections with bands in the area (Cavaliers with Carmel through Saucedo, Crown with Avon) but what about the rest? Also, what about the prospects of having a secure site for 10 years? I'm sure most corps are looking to develop a relationship with a high school in the area so they can count on them every year for finals. But what if something happens (stubborn athletic director, change in leadership, incident at a school--anything can happen) and a corps loses its site for the rest of the Indy tenure? With other corps occupying the other area schools, it could be hard to find a new spot.

52 age-outs in 2005. There were a ton of rookies in the '06 corps. The show design wasn't very good. And I know I'll probably #### a lot of people off by saying this but there were a ton of new people from Magic who acted like they were still in Magic.

12 tone serialism =NOT= atonality. All 12 tone serialism is atonal, but not all atonal music is 12-tone. And there are types of serialism that are not 12-tone. The terms atonal, serialist and 12-tone get thrown around a lot as if they are synonyms. NBC public service announcement song **the more you knooow!**

Oh, just saw the "National Park" option...a NP would be pretty lame because there's not a lot to do besides walk/hike around (which is not what I want to do on my day off) and they're really crowded in the summer. However, we did stop in a State Park/Recreation area in Tennessee in '05, and that was probably the best free day that corps ever had. There was something for everyone to do: there was a barbeque, the place had horseback rides, we played ultimate frisbee with our brass staff, and there was a big lake with a beach. The tuba section got together and rented a boat, then cruised around for a few hours, swam, and cracked open some Bud Lights. Then we sat on the couches in the airconditioned main lodge and watched TV

Amusement parks can be good or bad in my experience. In '04 we went to King's Island and it was awesome. In '05 we went to some Six Flags in Kentucky and it was almost 100 degrees, there were few good rides, and the place was full of drunk rednecks. And our guard staff quit that day... Beaches are good, but not as good if it takes you an hour to drive to them when you're less than 2 miles away, which is what happened in '05 (anyone sense a theme?) So I'll have to go for major cities. Cadets went to Boston, Chicago and Boulder (in that order) in '06. My activities centered around eating massive amounts of good food (lobster in Boston, steak in Chicago, Mexican in Boulder) and otherwise just sitting around. Excellent.

I like the Dr. Zoidberg icon. His quote "Your music is bad and you should feel bad!" comes in handy so often...

Ondes martenot + ###### modern music anyone? http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/forums/inde...howtopic=109088 My bassoon teacher took that video of the instrument demonstration. Actually, funny story--he wanted to march contra for SCV the summer after his senior year in HS, but his parents wouldn't let him ended up going to summer music institute and eventually landing a spot in a major orchestra...oh well, choices.

For a long time I've been wanting PR (or maybe SCV; they can really pull off classical but cutting edge in a classy way, like their shows in 07 and this year) to try some more really out-there 20th century "classical" music that still falls into the idiom of Western European musical tradition. I think a good fit, especially with the passing of electronic instruments, would be Olivier Messiaen's 1947 epic "Turangalila Symphony." It's quite a long piece, so there's a lot to draw from. It's an order of magnitude more complex and dissonant than the usual drum corps repertoire, but I am really fond of it. As I said, it's quite complex (rhythmically and otherwise) and verges on atonality in many sections, but I don't think it would totally repulse audiences. There's a lot to appeal to not only intellectual musical snobs but average corps fans. Messiaen's program for the piece includes references to the epic love story of Tristan and Isolde, and one of the movements is entitled "The Joy of the Blood of the Stars," so there's a lot of passion and emotion in the music. And by the way, it's LOUD. The score calls for a massive orchestra with doubled wind and brass sections, massive percussion section with lots of mallets and such, etc. When I saw the Pittsburgh Symphony play it in June there were several moments that almost made my ears hurt in a way I've only experienced in the "blast zone" of a corps show. I could only describe it as "drum corps loud" in a good way. There are lots of bits of it on YouTube if you want to check it out. The piece has important parts for the ondes martenot, an electronic musical instrument invented in 1928 (before DCI! gasp!) which could be at least somewhat simulated by an electronic keyboard, though missing some of the fine timbres and inflections possible with the real instrument. There's a video demonstration of the ondes martenot (videotaped by my private bassoon teacher) here: So, what do you think?

2. I assume every corps does it differently. Cap Reg had normal Director's Showcase brand no-grip gloves for rehearsal and long-wristed ones for shows (so they would be easier to tuck into the gauntlets). Cadets used short-wrist, gripless gloves (of an inferior brand IMHO) for both shows and rehearsal. I still tucked them into my mini-gauntlets even though we weren't told to--if the point of the gauntlets is to remove the exposed arm between jacket and gloves, why not tuck them in so they actually do that? Anyway, they usually got pulled out in the course of the show, and it's a moot point with the new (old), arm-exposing unis. 3. That symbol was used by Capital Regiment AND Spirit in 2004 for their shows. I remember that people were surprised/upset to see the symbol of our show on Spirit's souvie shirts in Orlando.

In '05 I had my dot book on a shoelace slung over my shoulder. Naturally I got a thin white stripe going diagonally across my chest and back.

A little statistic for people who argue that music majors are a small minority even in the top corps: The 2005 Cadets (one of the best performing corps ever, regardless of what you think of the show design) had 72 music majors out of its 135 members (source: Hop's blog). Though most were probably Music Ed. majors, we did have two members with COMPLETED Bachelor's degrees in Music Performance in 2006.

My total out-of pocket cost for The Cadets in 2006 was around $4500. Of course, that included travel to camps. But yea, drum corps is expensive. I feel like a lot of talented people don't march because the cost, plus not being able to do anything else all summer, is too much, and I can't blame them. I mean, as just one example, you can go to some pretty prestigious summer music programs for that kind of cash, and you will improve on your instrument and learn a lot more about music there than in a drum corps. That's not going to be a popular statement here on DCP, and I know people are going to talk about how musical drum corps is and what great teachers are there, but I'm gonna stand by that statement. For a lot of people, doing that makes a lot more sense, personally and career-wise, than what the majority of the world (and a majority of the music world) considers summer marching band. Which it basically is. Don't get me wrong, I like drum corps. I marched for three years. But contrary to what some people say, it's not always the best choice for people.

This is an interesting topic...I can definitely see ballet background becoming a sought after trait in top corps, but I just don't see enough corps using tons of ballet movement throughout the show (with exceptions like Blue Knights) to the point where it'd be a requirement. The basic things like tondeau etc. are pretty easy to teach, but I see the point about having the skills in place to save time. One of my all-time favorite instructors, who by chance taught me both years at Cap Reg and my year at Cadets, had a degree in dance, and from what I've heard was a pretty awesome marcher in her day. If I had gone back for my age-out, I probably would have wanted to take a ballet class at college just to learn as much about my body and develop awareness of movement etc. in order to max things out as much as possible.

I wore my Cap Reg jacket to the homeshow...I'm pretty sure a lot of people did. No problem

Ignoring hyperbole, I'm going to address the opening post. Marching and playing at different tempos: The Cadets did this in 2006 to a point, at least in the original introduction to our show. The pit played (and sang) "History Repeating," which is about 140 bpm, while the corps marched the drill from the last minute of Cadets 2005 at its proper tempo (190 or 200; something like that). The drumline also air-sticked their parts to the end of the piece. The effect that Sully was going for was that it would be like a movie, where things are happening but aren't literally synched to music. It was quite difficult to ignore the pit and keep time silently; we ended up having people in the hornline with a good view of the DM giving "duts" to keep in synch. We spent a lot of time trying to get that to work, but the judges just said things like "why is everyone out of step with the music?" No one got the message that the piece was trying to convey, so it got scrapped in July in favor of an opening more like 2005 (though we may have still been marching part of the intro at a different tempo than the pit's music--Joe, Nick, can you confirm this?) Anyway, actually playing and marching 2 different tempos which weren't easy ratios of each other (like half/double tempo or 3 steps per 1 or 2 beats of music or something--I think the drumline did that, actually, transitioning from the ballad to the closer) would be a nightmare. I just don't think people could divide their brains and resist the training to "move their feet to the Dr. Beat" enough to make it clean. Improv drill: It wouldn't work, for the reasons people have said, unless it was within a very small set of parameters...however, I would like to see some actually improved music in drum corps--like have a small ensemble section that is just improved for a certain number of bars, with people following each other, like real jazz musicians do; or an improvised jazz solo (BD anyone?) Unfortunately, I think people would be afraid to try it--what if the stuff they improv up isn't very good, or they miss a chord change?

This is a really interesting thread and an eye opener on the conditions that that existed (and still exist) on tour. Pretty brutal stuff... My personal story isn't really that bad compared to some, and it was really my fault... My rookie year (2004) I was a very shy 18 year old who was afraid to ask questions. We had one week of spring training, a standstill performance in uniform, then a trip to another site for our second week of spring training. Being the clueless rookie I was then (and the disorganized person I still am), I left my rehearsal shoes in the gym...after the standstill I was entirely without footwear. I was at least able to borrow some shoes from one of my fellow tubas, but they were his skater-style free day shoes and were two sizes too small for me. On the ride to the second spring training site, the bus (guard bus) broke down, the first of dozens of breakdowns that summer. All the luggage was hastily crammed into the other buses while the guard bus was towed to get repairs. When we got to the rehearsal site, my luggage was nowhere to be found. I never thought to look under the staff bus, and figured that my luggage was trapped under the out-of-comission bus. So I spent four days rehearsing with the same clothes, in skater shoes that were too small, getting sunburned and eaten alive by mosquitos (no sunscreen or bug repellent) in the middle of nowhere, Indiana. I slept on a sheet I borrowed from another guy in the tuba line and bummed some shampoo to shower after a few days. It was pretty brutal. At our first laundry trip, five days into the ordeal, I had no clothes to launder and no money, and my feet were covered in monstrous blisters because of my undersized footwear. I called my mom and just broke down sobbing...fortunately I was able to borrow $25 when we went to Target and buy some underwear, soap, and cheap shoes that acutally fit. The next day I found my stuff under the staff bus and my summer improved markedly from there on out.

We didn't (or at least weren't taught to) finger our horn parts, though a lot of the 2005 vets did that and air and valve, at least in rehearsal. That section was probably the part we rehearsed the most over the course of the season. Marching at 190 bpm while the pit plays/sings at 144 is extremely difficult. The reason we changed it was because the audience and judges didn't seem to get the introduction (didn't pay attention to the singer's words) and not playing anything about mezzo forte until 2 1/2 minutes into the show made for a long, boring intro. With the new intro, we got to smack the audience in the face with "Kill Bill," which we all enjoyed. Another reason, as I mentioned, was the difficulty in marching out of time with the pit. We tried just looking at the DM, dutting, listening to the drumline sing their air-drumming parts...nothing really worked. In the new version, the pit started off very soft and not with such a driving beat, so it was easy to ignore it and stay in time. Hope I added some insights to that for you! Jon The Cadets Tuba '06

Hey, I'm a member of the Cadets and while I love the traditional uniforms and hope they don't change, I have to say that your stuff is really really cool. Especially the fantasy. I just imagine wearing that in a show based on Anime or something...fantasy-like. Regardless, you're a very good artist.

You could probably take an upright on tour, but it would sound bad...I think bad is an understatement. (Thinks of how bad the pianos in the music building here are, and they just sit in the basement). I mean, with all those strings, and the mechanisms, and temperatures going from 120+ in the day to 50s or 60s in the truck at night...you think marimbas get beat up getting loaded and unloaded, you ain't seen nothin! Oh...legality...strings would be illegal, but you could probably get a piano loopholed in as a perc. instrument...I can see it now, the judges consult the Hornbostel-Sachs instrument classification system to determine legality!

I don't know nearly as much as I wish I did about piano or orchestra repertoire, but some of the Bartok concertos that use the piano more "percussively" could be good...or not good. More traditionally, the Tschaikovsky 1st piano concerto is a great romantic pience that would be right up PR's alley.