Dale Bari

Ya know, I've been following this amplification debate for many years over on the DCI side of things, and I've read with interest all the posts in this thread, both pro- and con-. I've noted who's lined up on which side and for what reason(s). Many folks have said things both pro- and con- with which I find myself agreeing. Through it all, I keep coming back to two thoughts. One is small and technical. The other is large and philosophical. Given my inherent conservatism, maybe these aren't probative, but in the end, my opinion is, after all, MY opinion. Take that for what it's worth. Point #1: Much has been made about the technique that pit (though this only really affects the keyboard instruments) players are forced to use for achieving dynamic balance with a brass and battery percussion ensemble playing at full volume. This brings up two otherwise-unrelated questions: A) Is the average DCA fan THAT educated and knowledgeable to discern the difference in techniques at the extreme ends of the dynamic spectrum such that he is clamoring for amped pits so as to enjoy the most-professional sound possible? I consider myself an above average DCA fan, and I cannot tell the difference. B) Can somebody prove that keyboard instruments are wearing out faster than necessary due to the technique required for high volumes? From a first-principle view, it seems to me that the wear and tear of transporting these instruments dwarfs the extra wear from playing them loudly. Modification #1 for Question A: Is this rule change for the fans, or for the pit players? If the latter, why do we care? As a brass player, I realize there are going to be compromises on the quality of my musical performance. A symphony brass musician will deliver a higher-quality performance sitting down than he will running around a football field, and so will I. But there are other returns I get from doing drill that make up for that. No one has suggested that individual brass players be micced (or, say, abolish drill) so we can deliver more professional performance. (Yet, I might add. See below.) Modification #2 for Question A: Assuming that fans do want amping, is the increased enjoyment worth the detrimental buzzes and snap-crackle-pop noises that inevitably also come from these devices? Point #2: Philosophically speaking, as for DCI, doesn't this open a can of worms that probably ought not be opened? I believe the "slippery slope" theory of history is operative here. Once the acoustic-only wall is broken down, what justifications are not out of bounds to stop at any given point? Where and how does the line-crossing end? Modification for Point #2: DCA tries hard to show that it is a different entity from DCI, with different models, different goals, and different philosophies. Why emulate DCI on this point? I can see how Bb brass has pushed G aside in DCA as well as DCI. (I don't really care what key the brass are actually in. But, G is traditional, so a compelling reason should exist to ignore tradition. BTW, "Because we can/should" is not compelling.) That's an economic-only argument. But this is different. DCI opened itself up to major discord by allowing voice - with soloists and small ensembles coming next year - to be amped. Does DCA really want to copy DCI on that? While interesting, it probably is all a moot point, unless one of the 10 DCA member corps brings this amplification proposal to the Rules Congress. Does anyone know if this is actually the case?

So, this post has been up for about 1 entire day, and I see no reply yet from anyone at Cru. Paging the Rochester Crusaders. Hello, is anybody there? ("Is this thing on?") OK, I know that they didn't do their entire show on PaaE, but they played "Great Gate" and "Baba Yaga" two years in a row, and they also played "The Promenade" from Pictures in 2008. (scene... Boat: leaving. Cabin: empty. Passengers: "CrusadersNo show".)

To clear up a question... Then, this is like how DCI did it this past winter: Only if a corps director feels the proposal to be important will it be brought to the Rules Congress. No one can walk in off the street to address the Congress. Could a DCA director do as the Blue Stars' director did, and provide someone an "in" to the rules process, even if the director did not necessarily agree with the proposal? Is the "official format" similar to DCI's where it asks for various impacts? (If so, then does DCA suffer from the same malady as DCI does, where such "impact analysis" is sometimes not exhaustive nor in-depth?) Will we DCPers have a chance to peruse .pdf files of the actual submissions like we could with DCI's?

Now, now Actually, I think MikeD should go to the DCA Rules Congress to make his proposal, and we should give him an honest debate. DCA can give him his due, which would be more than DCI showed to Tim Kviz back in January. Then, his proposal can get voted down 10-0.

I'm sure that Renegades could pull off a show (using PR's 2006 Faust production as an inspiration) based around the "Seven Deadly Sins" (ie, pride, wrath, gluttony, sloth, envy, lust, and greed) The movie "Se7en" could provide some inspiration as well (along with some possible music - scored by Howard Shore). Maybe a story line based around Milton's "Paradise Lost" (esp the battle between the angels in Heaven and Lucifer's banishment from Up There) might be within their grasp. I'm lousy at knowing the great music to use; others of you out there are better at that than I. The ones I could think of have already been suggested. (Carmina Burana, Rocky Horror, Little Shop of Horrors, etc.)

Great pics. No need to be sorry. You've got great reason. HPIM0588 is my favorite.

No, "Rhapsody" was in 1988. 1987 Sun was a space theme: ET, Mars, Jupiter, IIRC.

Uh, yes, I added the bold. (Hint: that's why it says "[emphasis added]" at the end of the quote. I was highlighting the particular words you wrote to which I wished to respond. It's a very legitimate usage, done on DCP [and other media] all the time.) Well, you were the one stating that there was no Finals for 1 year in the midst of Bush's championships. By your logic ("one year off"), the 1987 championship is vacant; therefore, Sun didn't win (not "shouldn't have") in 1987. No, you didn't knock Sun in particular, but by saying that DCA didn't have a championship you denied that anyone won. (Or, don't you read your own writing?) There WAS an official final competition, it just wasn't called "Finals".

I don't claim it to be "greatest distance", but I was at a DCA show in St Charles(?), IL, in June 1988. SCA, Sunrisers, MBI, and Chicago Vanguard I know were there. Seems like there was a repeat the next year. (If so, I wasn't there.) I believe there was a DCA show in MI in 1990. (The last show ever won by SCA.) ES helped put on the Salem, OH, show last season. And, they traveled to Toledo, OH, to do exhibition in the DCI season-opener this recently-concluded summer. These have been discussed before. Everyone appreciates the effort the far-away corps make to travel east. Imagine the buzz surrounding a 2009 NE contest that includes the DCA Runner-up Minnesota Brass. Or another intersectional show like Salem, OH, 2007 where the NE, MW, and South get together. Or, another W-S type show that draws in the Renegades. Those would automatically spike on the Billboard Top 10, just like an appearance by the Caballeros in Atlanta, GA, would, or the Bucs in TN. Many people still talk in awe-inspired tones about the legendary Racine, WI, show in 1972, just before the Chicago AL Nats - and it was an EXHIBITION! With the stresses placed upon individual corps as well as their governing orgs, being conservative and not trying to do something that jeopardizes a corps' existence is perfectly reasonable. Same for DCA as a whole. Unless/until it becomes reasonable to take DCA Finals out into the interior of this vast country, it will remain tethered to the area where it has been able to survive for the past 45 years. Ultimately, it will take more than us speculating on who/what/where/how. It will take a serious group to make a serious bid that is the best deal DCA gets that year. Until then, the only result is lots of bloviating. (And I include me in that "august" group.)

Uh, we did have a final result, even if we didn't have an actual Finals performance in '87. The membership decided that Prelims results would stand. One should be careful suggesting that Sunrisers have one less championship than they actually do. On another note: OK, now I have to find some way of seeing the '93 ES show, if only just to see King Rex appear on the field.

I'm not expert on every NE corps, but of the ones I do have some knowledge, their dues are a lot less than that, but all travel $$ is on the members. And I would think that most members spend at least $1000 traveling just to shows. Most corps in NE do about 8-9 shows - including Finals weekend, so $125 average per weekend isn't outrageous. And, that doesn't include their dues. (I'm assuming that the $1000 for Dream included hotel and bus in Rochester too?) If someone was well-situated: meaning close to a bus pick-up point, or carpooled with several other members, slept on gym floors when available, they might save serious $$$ in travel, but most of us aren't that lucky. Just based upon that info, it sounds like this all washes out. No corps has an advantage or disadvantage for travelling. Yes, the pain is more visible in the one weekend that the non-NE have to wing it to ROC, rather than being spread out across the 2+ months of the whole season. Personally, I'd like to bring the entertainment of Cabs, Brigs, ES, et al, to Atlanta, California, Dallas, and/or Minnesota. Maybe, after I win the Powerball, but I'm not holding my breath. Imagine a scene like out of Smokey and the Bandit [Where Big Enos Burdette asks Bandit (Burt Reynolds) what he needs to get the bootleg beer from Texarkana to Atlanta in 28 hours. Bandit says, "New car. Gotta have a new car to block for the truck." Little Enos starts counting out the $100 bills, and Bandit says, "Speedy." Little Enos stops. Bandit says, "Speedier than that!" Little Enos keeps counting.]: Drum corps fan/Powerball winner: "So, how much to get your corps from NJ to SoCal this weekend?" Corps director: "Big, new bus." Moneybags starts counting out bills, stops. Director: "And a new, A/C equipment truck." Counts some more, stops again. "And, new perc equipment.... A new set of horns.... And, a new...." PS - So many movie references for today. Hmmmm......

Do the Renegades' members pay the cost directly for traveling via airliner to Rochester? Or does the corps pay for that travel (via fundraisers and dues, which I would call INdirect costs to members)? In 2006, I posted some comparisons like Sayre did above. And I received some of the same criticisms. I'd venture that, depending partly on the answer to my above question, the average NE corps member's travel costs (even including Finals) would be equal to those of a similarly situated Renegade member, mainly because the NE person would be traveling to shows every single weekend, and the equivalent Renegade would not. Of course, my situation was a little odd because I had shorter trips to shows than to camps (being in VA and most shows being in PA/NJ/Southern Tier NY vs camps in Rochester.) From a $/mile POV, air travel is probably cheaper than driving. What's the cost in gas from SFO to ROC vs the cost of flying? The hassle of going to an airport every single Friday/Sunday (which I have done) is worth a lot of gas. It's a good thing for the Renegades that they only do that once a year. (Twice in '05, which, come to think of it, will be four (4!) seasons in the past come next summer. That's not good for those who continue to cite that as evidence that Renegades do a lot of traveling besides to Finals.) I'm not saying there's no burden on non-NE corps to get to Finals (or even regular season shows). I'm saying that (esp if the flying is factored into the costs the Renegades charge their members) the non-NE corps understood this as a cost of doing business in DCA and budgeted accordingly. The NE corps still have little incentive to leave their area - THAT'S WHERE THEIR FANS ARE! It still comes down, as Sayre has said (very well), to being a "build it and they will come!" scenario. Build up the show and fan base in other areas, and the corps will gravitate toward those areas - whether it's the home-grown corps or the occasional NE visitor corps. A couple posts ago, a comparison was made between current non-NE corps and past NE corps traveling to far corners of the country for VFW/AL contests. That's a little disingenuous because, first of all those were many decades ago, and second, those corps had no say in where the national contests were - the veterans' orgs decided that FOR them! Cru travelled to Portland, OR, in 1965 to win AL Nats because the AL said that's where Nats would be, and Cru, Cabs, Sky, et al, had to choose to go or not. But, the ultimate point is that, when faced with that choice, those corps packed their bags and ventured forth from New York, New Jersey, etc and trekked across the continent to compete. Shortly thereafter, those corps took control of their own destiny and built their own competitive circuit closer to home. Now, Renegades, Dream, et al, are doing the same exact thing. Keep working on building up the local corps scene. Present-day sacrifices and hard work WILL pay future dividends.

Usually, I think that the weather folks who specialize in hurricanes issue their predictions every year in a way calculated to scare the bajeezus out of us. But, now, this kind of announcement IS scary - scary GOOD! (Unless you're affiliated with the other DCA corps, that is.) The latest, in a long string, of fantastic news for this corps. Kudos to the Connecticut Hurricanes.

Your answer reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite movies: Apollo 13. Towards the end, Jack Swigert (played by Kevin Bacon) tells his fellow astronauts that their path for re-entry to Earth is too shallow (and their ship is likely to "skip" off the earth's atmosphere.) Fred Haise (aka Bill Paxton) questions his calculations: "What are you talking about? How'd you figure that?" Swigert replies, "I can ADD!" (The irony being that, while not complex, it takes quite a bit more than mere adding to perform said calculations.) As an additional note (pun intended), notice that the sub-title of this thread is "Pure numbers".

You are taking notes, right? There will be an exam at the end of this thread.

Probably so. In 1965, they placed 4th in DCA, which sounds pretty good. (Hurricanes were 4th in this year's Finals.) But, they only beat 2 corps (Rockets and I-men). The same happened in their next DCA season (1967): 8th of 10. In their 3 years at the top ('69-'71), DCA had 15, 15, and 17 corps respectively, when the average for DCA, once Prelims was established (1968), in the years YR attended was 16.8. So, they failed to catch the breaks that would benefit a corps under this kind of analysis.

I thought it might be interesting to compare the two different ways of measuring competitive results. The OP used average placements. I used average # of corps a particular corps beat. OP list: 1) Caballeros 2.89 (43) 2) Empire Statesmen 3.19 (26) 3) Bushwackers 4.30 (27) 4) Buccaneers 4.36 (44) 5) Brigadiers 5.26 (23) 6) Sunrisers 5.89 (35) T7) Hurricanes 6.00 (44) T7) Skyliners 6.00 (39) 9) Yankee Rebels 6.46 (13) 10) Crusaders 7.54 (41) 11) Renegades 7.86 (7) 12) Mn Brass 8.19 (27) 13) Matadors 8.25 (16) 14) Steel City 8.33 (12) 15) Westshoremen 8.80 (30) 16) Corpsvets 9.29 (7) 17) Grenadiers 9.64 (11) 18) Hamburg Kingsmen 10.13 (8) T19)Erie Thunderbirds 10.75 (12) T19)Pittsburgh Rockets 10.75 (8) My list: 1 Caballeros - 14.1 (43) 2 Empire Statesmen - 14.0 (26) 3 Renegades - 13.9 (7) 4 Bushwackers - 13.5 (27) 5 Buccaneers - 12.4 (44) 6 Brigadiers - 11.7 (23) 7 Hurricanes - 10.8 (44) 8 Sunrisers - 10.6 (38) 9 Skyliners - 10.2 (41) 10 Corps Vets - 9.9 (9) 11 Crusaders - 9.63 (41) 12 Steel City - 9.58 (12) 13 Minnesota Brass - 9.52 (27) 14 Matadors - 9.3 (16) 15 Yankee Rebels - 9.0 (13) 16 Westshoremen - 7.7 (28) 17 Kilties - 7.1 (10) 18 Thunderbirds - 6.4 (12) 19 Grenadiers - 6.3 (13) 20 Kingsmen - 5.8 (11) 21 Royalaires - 4.9 (18) 22 Rockets - 3.6 (8) I whittled my list down to try to match up with the OP's. His screening requirements, I think, were 7 DCA appearances and Finalists. I’m not sure why his list doesn't include Kilties and Royalaires. Maybe it's because they weren't Finalists 7 times. But, not only does that not line up with the numbers he supplied in parentheses, it seems too highly restrictive too. So, I'll let him explain that. It appears that I am including Class A data too when the OP did not. I wonder if the difference in # of years for Westshoremen is because the OP's list includes data for Bonnie Scots, or mine excludes it. (Not on purpose, mind you.) Ditto for Grenadiers, the opposite way (I include the 1960's Grennies; the OP seems to not.) The reason for using my method would be it rewards corps that place more highly against better attended DCAs. A corps that places 10th, say, when only 11 corps attend DCA is a lot less impressive than one that places 10th when there were 26 corps. The greatest difference between the two lists is for the Renegades. They place 11th on the OP's and 3rd on mine. The Yankee Rebels change the next most, placing 9th on the OP list but 15th on mine. If the data sets were mostly congruent, the average place (measurement from the top) added to the avg # of corps beaten (measurement from the bottom) should be consistent for all the corps. Let's take a sample: Cabs: 2.9 +14.1 = 17.0, Rockets: 10.8 + 3.6 = 14.4; Steel City: 8.33 + 9.58 = 17.91; Bucs: 4.4 + 12.4 = 16.8; Renegades: 7.9 + 13.9 = 21.8; Yankee Rebels: 6.5 + 9.0 = 15.5. Renegades' result is definitely an outlier. This may be explained by my using Class A corps, which would inflate the number of corps beaten in recent years, as DCA has had an influx of small corps recently. (Although this would affect all corps equally, the longer established corps would have more years of smaller DCAs to hold their averages down.) And, Renegades fortuitously timed their highest placement to coincide with DCA's largest attendance year, giving them a strong bounce in this analysis. To be sure, we'd have to make sure that both lists used exactly the same data, and that is in doubt at this point. I wouldn't use only this kind of statistic as a basis to judge the "Greatest DCA corps of all time", but it certainly does help.

"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control, and we'll be lucky to live through it." The Hunt for Red October (movie version), Adm. Josh Painter (aka Fred D. Thompson)

You can interpret it how you wish, Chris. My statement was a warning for anyone starting a thread to choose their words carefully, lest someone take a thread in an unwanted direction due to interpretive differences. Discussion is always more interesting when we can look at a subject from different angles, and oftentimes that comes from someone reading the same words differently. Many threads have gone in slightly different directions because of an unanticipated discussion begun from a creative reading or salient point that the OP didn't expect. It's just that there's a fine line between a pleasant diversion and a hostile takeover. Which one happened here? The answers prob depend upon one's POV. Me? I'm indifferent - it could've gone in a positive way, but too many others tried to stifle it, so it turned negative.

Yeah, it could be there were some mix-ups possibly. I used fromthepressbox.com, which I think uses DCW as its source data. Those recaps weren't too discriminating as to which "Diplomats" because I never saw any "Les" in front of them, and I know that the early 70's "Diplomats" were of the "Les" variety. As for Westshore/Bonnie Scots/Westshoremen-Bonnie Scots, again, the website didn't show them as "W-BS", which I know they were at some point. No, I'm not going back for all the caption stuff. Go bug Christine (Brigscontrachik05) for that; she did a thread on that back in the spring on DCP. Recaps from the 70's and 80's are missing anyways. Yes, we could start getting into the whole "consecutive years blah, blah, blah" for this, that, and the other. Someone else can do that research.

Creating a formula, as I suggested earlier, is a pretty subjective process in this type of analysis. How does one weight the various factors? So, I quick worked out a short one, based upon years attending DCA, # of times placing in Top 10, # of titles, and average number of corps each corps beat each year. Surprisingly, Cru came out ahead of ES and Bush, which got me to noticing how that kind of analysis weights toward longevity. (Cru having been in many more DCAs than ES or Bush.) But, as for my suggestion that avg # of corps beaten rather than average placing might be more valuable, try the following list on for size. (Truncated to corps that attended DCA 7 or more times, or at least 5 consecutive years.) Cabs (14.1) Empire Statesmen (14.0) Renegades (13.9) Bushwackers (13.5) Bucs (12.4) Brigs (11.7) Hurcs (10.8) Sun (10.6) Sky (10.2) Corps Vets (9.9) Cru (9.6) SCA (9.6) MBI (9.5) Matadors (9.3) Yankee Rebels (9.0) Carolina Gold (8.2) Westshoremen (7.7) Kilties (7.1) Govenaires (7.0) Erie T-birds (6.4) Grennies (6.3) Kingsmen (5.8) Les Diplomates (5.8) Guelph Royalaires (4.9) PittsburghRockets (3.6) Hanover Lancers (3.0) Chicago Vanguard (3.0) Bonnie Scots (3.0) Boys/Spirit of 76 (2.9) OH Brass Factory (2.8) Heat Wave (2.8) Capitol Brass (2.0) Chieftains (1.6) Gulf Coast Sound (1.6) Milton Keystoners (0.8)

Again, we are seeing that, since the word "corps" is both singular and plural, the way an OP chooses to word his/her thread title lets others interpret however they wish, even if it is indeed quite different that he/she intended.

Keep your eyes peeled. Yes, this is similar to what you produced, Christine. You went a little more in depth into captions and scores. This is purely based upon final results, corps vs corps. As to what's more accurate, well, beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.

I think that is a typo. SCA's first DCA was 1981 and its last was 1992 (and went every year in between). So, that should be 12, not 19. First year: 1981, first finals 1983. Top 5 - 1985, 1986, and 1987. Last finals: 1990. Folded in Fall of 1993. Now performs as an alumni corps. I think it's also a big that Cabs come number one on this list. More interesting is the race for 2nd, with ES beating Bush handily, or at least moreso than I would've thought. But, then ES has been Top 4 for 21 (of 26) years. Bush has been more up and down, but has been in Finals every year of its 28 years of existence. I would try using a points system: W points for average placing, X points for each year participating, Y points for each year in Finals, Z points for each championship. An even better way is to award corps not for placing, but for how many corps they beat that season. That gives a more objective view of the corps' strength than average placing. DCA Prelims numbers vary a lot, the corps that placed 13th (whose name escapes me right now) out of 24 corps in this just-completed season has to be stronger than the 1993 Chieftains, who finished 13th (and last).

I haven't seen Pioneer much in the last 10 years (prob not even at all actually). I only know what I've read here on DCP. (Yes, that does mean I may be setting myself up.) I've read with interest all of the comments here, and I can't improve upon them from a nuts-and-bolts aspect. The ideas about staff retention, great source material, recruiting, improving the drill, guard, uni, etc all sound wonderful - but they all revolve around a common theme. All organizations that are or seem (arguably the same thing) mired in a rut get out of them by being imaginative and BOLD! (Not that I want to inject politics into this, but whatever you think of him, a great recent example of a bold choice to change a static situation came from the Presidential campaign: John McCain made a bold but risky move in choosing the person he did for Vice-Pres.) I suppose that, even though last place is still last place, the corps that seems stuck there (as Pioneer is) may feel that jeopardizing even a tiny bit of improvement (like finishing just 0.1 behind the next corps vs being last by a lot) is too risky. But, at some point a decision for strong change must be made. (Remember the old adage about insanity being the expectation of different results from doing the same thing every time.) The key is knowing what change must be made and when it should be implemented. A great NFL coach (I think it was Bill Parcells) put a book out about 8-9 years ago about leadership. One of his precepts was knowing when to stick to the plan and when to deviate from the plan, so proper timing is essential. Pio needs a game-changing move. DA recognizes this. Whether anyone else at Pio does or not is crucial. I've not met the guy, and I can only guess at his personality (as it involves the corps), but it seems that Roman is quite the conservative guy. That kind of steady, unflappable leadership helps see a corps (and any other org) through many a tough time, but sometimes that can get in the way of making the kinds of changes necessary to move forward. I think, though, if he's convinced of a necessary change, it will happen, whether he makes it himself or delegates it to someone else. It's his corps; Roman has to be onboard with the changes(s). Tradition is important to him and the corps (and to me too), and it should not be set aside lightly. But, eventually even the most conservative leaders, and their orgs, have to be aware of seismic changes and adapt or be swallowed up. However, any change should be made to turn a weakness into a strength, not to weaken something that is already strong. (McCain's choice of Palin eliminated the "experience" charge against Obama, but that wasn't working for McCain anyway. His choice had more to do with shoring up his weakness with his base voters.) It takes good self-awareness to know what your strengths and weaknesses are. Many people have referenced the Irish theme. Is it a strength (an easily recognizable theme for the corps - not the shows, but the corps) or is it a weakness (repetitive show designs keeping potential recruits away)? If the former, keep it. If the latter, it may be time to break from that tradition. But above of all else, remember: when it comes time to make a change, make it a strong and clean break. Be BOLD! (PS: It does not have to be a highly visible change. It may be that the most important thing to change is something that only the corps itself sees, unless/until it shows up in improved competitive results.)