Mike_Bonfig

Things that I remember about 1990 (my rookie drum corps season in the Colts): - DCM was still a Premlims/Finals show, and only 6 of 7 open class corps made it in. The first spots were pretty well filled by Phantom, Star, Madison, Blue Coats and Cavaliers. The last slot was to be filled by either Colts or Glassmen. We had a 2 day camp leading into DCM and went in guns blazing but were edged by the Glassmen. Actually the only time we caught them was one night we tied with them after they had a laundry day. - I also remember how early in the season we were using the Blue Knights as a measuring stick thinking that they were within our reach to catch. Well, as the summer went on, they got better and better and in the end we were 23rd and they had made the top 12. - The Blue Devils were icons of drum corps to several of us in the corps, particularly soprano players who had the screamers of 88 & 89 to entice us. We were all interested to see what "Tommy" would be like. The first time we saw them was at the Omaha show. Everyone (generalization) was awed because they were the Blue Devils, but at the same time, left cold by the show. One soprano player who had a particular love for the Blue Devils was nearly reduced to tears because they hadn't lived up to the hype he had built for himself of seeing them live for the first time. The funny thing about that show was watching it evolve over the rest of the season and grow on us until we all ended up thinking it was very cool. - The Bluecoats went away in the middle of the season and coming back with nearly a whole new show. They and Madison had a pretty fierce competition going on that summer. - I couldn't get enough of Madison's show in 90, partcularly Remembrance - though 98's version is cleaner, I still prefer 1990 for excitement/energy. - My first memory of Star of Indiana was that we were nearby them in retreat one night early in the season and I was in awe of how sharp their uniforms looked and now classy they were. They had a tight block for their hornline and then they did a ripple through the rows to put their horns down (because finale used to be an additional hour at the end of the show as all of the corps played off).

Hey there drum-folk. I've got a question about drumming that I'm sure several people have opinions on. My question relates to "professional set drummers": Not including the people we know came up through the drum corps ranks, how would the drummers for rock bands or even professional jazz ensembles stand up in a setting with a corps drumline? I've always considered that to be in the drumline you need to be a real "pocket player", strongly schooled in the fundamentals of the craft rather than the glitz of playing set. At least going from the "best" (term used loosely) set drummers in my highschool, there was always an element of slop in their playing, but they could get away with it because they were a lone drum in the crowd. However, if we were to consider people like Neal Pert, Peter Erskine or Buddy Rich, from a drummers perspective, do they have enough of the fundamentals of drumming to come in and throw down with a corps? Pardon my ignorance. B)

Prayers to the whole family in a difficult time.

I think I've marched pretty much everywhere in terms of size- Colts in 1990 were around 90 members, and could have probably gone Division II. Northmen in 1994 we only had 8 horn players - 3 sops, 2 mellos, 2 Baris, 1 Contra. I never marched a show, but was slated to be in Madisons hornline in 1995 and obviously, that was huge. Govies 98/99, we sat around 20 members in the hornline and then in Minnesota Brass around 50. So what was best? Different things for different situations. Being in a hornline of 8 and playing in tune enough to get overtones on the field sometimes was pretty cool. Playing with a hornline the caliber of 1995 Madison was a rush. My senior corps experiences had their own sets of pluses. To answer the question asked in this poll - yes, I wish I could have done a show with 1995 Madison, because I feel I missed out on being a part of something still reflected on as an example of greatness. However, I don't feel that my time with the Northmen was a wasted summer. Additionally, being in a "big" hornline of 60 isn't half as cool as the rush I got twice in 1998 with the Govies at the end of the season. We did two gigs where we got to play with various massed hornlines. First at the Wisconsin state fair we played Auld Lang Syne with the Kilties, Chops, Bayou City Blues, and Crusaders Alumni. Then a couple weeks later we went to Ishpemming, MI and got to play Syne, America the Beautiful and You'll Never Walk Alone with: Minnesota Brass, Kilties, Marty's Goldenaires & the Blue Notes. Now those were big hornlines....and talk about being deep with screamers!

I'm going to be a Johnny-Come-Lately on this forum. And I haven't read everything that has been posted. But I do want to tip my hat to the Cavaliers for their hornline the past couple of years. There was a time, even in their early championship years (1992, 1995, and the first two years of the three-peat) I wouldn't say that the Cavis had a horn quality that I would have asked a line I was teaching to emulate. That has changed over the last 3 years. Though the Cavaliers have never been one of my favorite corps in terms of show selection, their sound has richened up, become significantly less abrasive in the low brass and overall is a pleasing product. Kudos!

Dave Jewett was working on his masters degree in Jazz Ped at the University of Northern Iowa while I was doing my undergrad there. He was a graduate assistant for the UNI Panther Marching Band and also instructed Jazz Band 4 (both of which I was in). We talked corps some - at the time (around 1995) he was telling me that his brother (I assume Dan) was in the works of reviving the corps. I always found Dave's instruction ability to be very good and additionally, he had an incredibly dry wit to him, so if you hung around him you were likely to hear someone get slammed out of the blue.

I used to work for a guy who had a quite a few years in drum corps, both with a small corps from Iowa and a major corps from Rockford/Loves Park, IL. B) He and I used to sit around for hours some nights after work and talk about corps and things we had done and seen. His stories were great - it always sounded like there was a lot of social time to being in corps back then. Anyhow, a couple of the stories he told me really left me wanting to say BS. They were two stories of "rumbles" he observed in corps. I was wondering if anyone could substatiate these stories, throw their own input into them or share stories of their own. Story 1: One day a bunch of bikers were hanging out harassing a large corps for the typical "band" stuff. The corps members told them to show up at the show site that night and they'd settle their hash. So the show is over, and the bikers show up looking for trouble. The snare line of the corps they had been harassing lined up in front of a group of the guys in the corps and started a slow "open stroke roll" and built it up to a frenzy, then started taking long slow strides toward the bikers. The bikers kept coming forward, and then all of a sudden from the side, the snareline of another corps did the same thing and doubled the size of the corps members about to take on the bikers. Pretty soon other corps added and it became aparent that it was going to turn out badly for the bikers, and they bailed out of there before any fighting ensued. Story 2: At some show in the midwest, there were two east cost corps who were in deep competiton. Also at the show were Madison and Cavis, and several smaller corps. Aparently at the announcement of the scores during grand finale, the lower scoring east cost corps blew a gasket and decided to have a physical altercation on the field. Long story short, I heard that ranks were broken of Madion & Cavis, involving them in the fight as well, and all of the small corps bailed out. These stories were entertaining at least...but I just wondered if there was any truth to them. Now through the miracle of the internet, I was wondering if we've got anyone on here who was there.

I personally hated the first version of the BERP, which went directly into your lead pipe before your mouthpiece. It made your mouthpiece jut out about an inch and I cracked myself in the mouth 2 or 3 times because of muscle memory. The newer "to the side" design is better. However, I've never personally found a berp to be much better than just buzzing the mouthpiece while holding it. However, where I have found it good is in teaching people who have NOT done drum corps and haven't gotten all of the breathing training that corps seems to give. They don't equate the mouthpiece as part of the instrument so if you tell them to buzz the MP, they blow differently. By using the BERP, it keeps them thinking of playing like they would through their horn. The other benefit is if your hornline is having problems keeping their horns up, the BERP keeps that exercise going. The theory of the BERP goes into the theory of any brass playing - if you can get people to play better on their mouthpiece, they'll play better through the horn. The mouthpiece is the real instrument, the horn is just an amplifier. The best players out there can buzz a tune on their mouthpiece and the sound has a resonance that is just, well, cool.

SCV '92 is one of the best drum corps shows ever for one reason: ENERGY! From a placement standpoint and having been at finals that year, I would say they're in about the right place. Frankly, I found the show to be far from clean - hornline overblows constantly (but in a great way) and in comparison to some of the other shows out there, the complexity of the book was not there. However: You cannot listen to the show and not get tied up in how much emotion and energy is being put into it by every member on the field. It's just like everyone on the field decided at once that they had nothing to loose and let it all hang out. It was great - in fact, I use it as an example of what to strive for in terms of "bringing the A game". I'd rather over-hype than wuss-out on the field any day.

On the same line, I heard (through the rumormill) of a few people from Europe who got away with an extra year because of the format of the dating on their documentation. You know, here we do Month/Day/Year, and they do Day/Month/Year. So for January first 1973, our format would look like: 1/10/1973 but theirs would be 10/1/1973, and someone not paying attention might let it slip for an October birthday and an extra year.

In addition to Jon Schipper who was one of the best rounded players I've ever met, 1995 was a great year for soprano players overall in the Scouts. It's just that Jon got so much press time, that sometimes they got missed. Any one of the lead players from that year could have easily been on the superstars list at another corps less blessed with talent, as well as many of the seconds. That sop line was by far the most talented line all the way down that I have had a chance to play with, and possibly one of the best collections ever. One other great sop player of mention: Tim Meehan - BD, SCV, X-Men, VK - I never thought any one thing he played was "outstanding" however, you have to give props to someone who has played solos in this many top-notch corps.

I'm going to be lacking some names here, but I'll try to be as specific as possible. Early 90's BD Bari player - Jim Rogers Mid-80's Colts - Dave Lang (Had the opportunity to see an old video tape. Good stuff.) 1994 Contra Soloist from Pioneer - talk about making the big horn speak!!! Flugelhorn soloist from Glassmen 2002 - Wow. And on a field nonetheless.

Unfortunately, there are only a very few stores that carry them, so you can't easily try them out. Brasswind (at least when I bought mine) would send you up to 3 mouthpieces at a time and if you bought one, you could sen the other two back with no restocking fee, or if send all three back, they charge like a $6 per piece restocking fee. Before I bought from Brasswind, I actually e-mailed back and forth a couple of times with Scott Laskey about his mouthpieces and company. He seems like a really down to earth guy and was a great help. If you check out his web site, he hangs out with some pretty good company too (see the photo album link). The Scott Laskey Website

In my fledgling days as a "screamer" I played on a Schilke 13A4A that had been bored out. It served me well, but as soon as I stopped playing every day (after high school) it was not a good mouthpiece to just "pick up" on. I tried the CG3, and MF Jet Tone and a Bach 3D. I'm sure many of you are thinking "ok, those are pea shooter pieces". Well, despite being a big guy, I don't have very large lips, so those seemed to work fine. I went to Mars Music when there still was one in Bloomington, MN, and was looking at some Marcenkiewcz (sp?) pieces. I didn't really care for any of them. Then the guy who was helping me said, "Just a minute" and went back to his gig bag. He pulled out a pouch and handed me a Laskey 60S*. Compared to the other pieces I had just tried out, this thing felt like an ice cream pail on my chops. But I liked the sound, and even though I had pretty much blasted my chops playing a bunch of highnotes on the Marcinkewicz pieces without warming up, I was still able to play with a pretty big sound on his piece and I noticed that the rim held things in pretty well. I now play on a Laskey 60S* in all situations, lead or otherwise. I've found that it gives me a good round sound, and I love how much air the piece will take.

Definitely warming-up does things other than get blood to the chops, like gets proper breathing going again. And yes, you're probably right about blood flow and not making things "warmer". However, I would still have to argue that at a normal "rest" state, my chops are not as flexible as they are after doing some lip calisthenics.

I agree strongly with the Tastee Bros philosphy: Practice often, not long. Also, I will personally attest the Arnold Jacobs thing - the more I play in general, no matter what range I'm playing in, it tends to get my flexibility going, my air moving right and my chops back in shape. This allows me more high notes than if I specifically work on high notes. And yes, using the fast air and flexibiltiy that it takes to play low notes will do as much for high notes as actually trying to play high notes. I just agree with everyone today! :P

I would wonder if the "being shot" after 45 minutes of warmup was because you were overplaying during the warm-up - no personal offense intended by this statement. However, it has been my experience that many times when people complain about being spent after a warm-up, it's one of two things. Either they're not playing enough on their own to build endurance, or they're overplaying the warm-up which is intended to be less "chop" and more "air". Personally, I'm a huge fan of a long warm-up, especially when playing in a hornline. To me the warming up of the ears is just as if not more important than the warming of the chops. Certainly, the more you play in general, the faster you can warm-up individually, because your muscles remember where they need to be and you are used to breathing properly right away.

w/Stp: (minus the stupid part) Scott Laskey (who used to design for Schilke) has a winning product in my book. I personally hate Bach mouthpieces, but the Laskey seems to take the edge off of what I don't like about the Bach's - and have the most open throat of any mouthpiece I've played on. I use a 60S* for all of my playing - legit to jazz, and feel that I produce an even-quality sound in all registers. Additionally, it doesn't loose my lips like a lot of the other shallow mouthpieces (JetTone, small Schilkes) do when I start to get chop-tired. I think if I were going to buy a different mouthpiece, I might go to the 60S instead of the S* just to get a little more depth in the cup for a darker sound, but overall, I'm a big proponent of the idea that a person can produce a dark sound on any mouthpiece if their throat and mouth are open enough.

Ah-men, brother! I know that it is possible to be loud and good. But I'm taking the loose interpretation of the question on this poll to be "would you rather hear a corps let loose and rip" or would you rather "experience a controlled hornline with great virtuostic qualities". I'd definitely rather hear a loud as heck F-Tuning sequence (as long as it is indeed in tune - which may play to the quality argument) even if it goes a bit out of controll rather than listen to (no offense inteneded here) any part of the Cavaliers show this year. I've even gone on record as stating that I liked the Cavaliers this year which is unusual for me, but I never in any of the performances I saw them at hear them "pull the trigger". And truthfully, I'm not sure how appropriate it would have been in their show for them to go beyond that controll level anyhow. Some of the most enjoyable performances to hear in my book are victory concerts. Where the kids let loose and just play for the joy of playing. Perhaps that's why I lean toward senior corps more than junior.

I acutally saw Glassmen for the first time at DCM finals this year. That monster that they had playing the Flugle was awesome. Clean, bright sound, very virtuostic.

The other positve thing that lemons do is help to break up the gunk in your mouth, throat and to a lesser degree your lungs often giving a much more "free" feeling of air movement. We used to take a shot of lemon juice before All-State Vocal auditions.

I went to a small Catholic grade school with no instrumental music program. In 8th grade our vocal music director, a retired band director from the local high school, brought in several horns one day to play for us. He played a flute, a clarinet, and some piece of low brass. Then he pulled out his coronet (he was a trumpet major in college) and played some Dixieland. My ears perked up a bit, but what really set me straight was when he pulled out his trumpet. He was about to play and then he said, "Hmmm...I better muffle this or I'll blast your ears out," to which he lifted the top of his briefcase and played into it to muffle his sound....but not much!!! He nailed some highnote and played a jazz lick, and ended it with a lip shake and a kiss off. It spoke to me instantly. I was right up there at the end of class asking him what I could do to start playing. He got me connected with the public school band director and I started playing coronet with the band. Oh yeah, I pretty much sucked for my first couple of years, but then through the patience of my high school band director and then marching 3rd soprano with the Colts under Chuck Naffier, the chop fairy came to visit....the rest, as they say, is history. Sidenote: I went back to my hometown about a year and a half ago (approximately 15 years after I first heard that retired band director play for my grade school) to hear my little brother play trombone with a group called "The Don't Quit Your Day Job Band". It's a bunch of people in the community some music teachers others just people who still play. The old vocal music director was playing with them. He has to be at least in his early, possibly late 70's. He's the only trumpet who has a stool to sit on during most of the show when he's not soloing. So we're sitting around watching these guys play. The vocal director's son is the lead trumpet and he's totally having himself, and I'm crawling out of my skin at his weak-### attempts at highnotes. Well, then it's time for his dad to solo. So this old 70+ year old guy stands up puts the horn to his lips and starts wailing like a son-of-a-gun...outplaying the entire band, out screaming his son and making the trumpets look like school-girls. He ended every solo with a shake and a kiss-off. Old habits die hard I guess!

I enjoy the solos in the 1990 Bluecoats version of Caravan - not solos that you're going to think of as "great" because they're pretty short, but they just really fit in and add the sprinkles on top of the piece. 1989 Colts ballad - I forget what the name of it was, but Erin Wher, now Erin Wher-Flowers who I believe still judges sometimes, did a really nice job on the solo. 2001 Chops - Freebird solo as played by Greg Hiniker. 1995 Pioneer - Contra solo as the "drunken Irishmen"

The one hour soprano warm-up isn't so much for the chops as it is to loosen the arm muscles for the pressure about to be used! ;)^

One of my favorite things to do in a parking lot is watch the Blue Devils warm-up. It's almost like the "show before the show", with all of their exercises and chords. F-Tuning is one of my favorites to play, as long as it is really F-Tuning and not just F-Loud, F-Nasty or F-Annoying.