Dave

You may find the 50 to be a little big, at least in my experience. The new System Blue mouthpiece is a good one, the cup is similar to the Helleberg but it carries the heft of the Perantucci. I've always preferred more bowl-shaped cups, though, so if you're in the same boat you may find a better experience using a smaller PT. Best thing is to try out a few different ones, but that isn't always an option given that most music stores aren't going to keep a huge variety of tuba mouthpieces in stock.

It's gotta be a tie between UNT and RCC.

Yeah...that's not true.

What do you normally play on? A lot of corps have their members get a Conn Helleberg and that's a good one if you want to avoid having a woofy sound, but there a lot of ones out there (that don't also require spending hundreds of dollars). Perantucci makes some great mouthpieces, but I would advise against getting one that's too large; I'd pick one that's more in the middle, like a 64, to preserve articulation clarity. A 48 or 50 is going to be massive and you may come out sounding muddier than you want to. You can usually get one of their mouthpieces for around $100-$120.

Giving to pay a member's dues is not tax-deductible because it's not a donation; the member directly benefits from that money. This discussion comes up on a semi-annual basis when members come looking for sponsorships and some have been erroneously informed that they can tell would-be sponsors "It's tax-deductible!" as an incentive.

It's gonna sound awful either way. It's cheaper to just get a practice mute.

I've never heard of that definition of conical. The easiest way to tell if an instrument is conical or cylindrical is to take out the main tuning slide and turn it around; if you can reinsert it it's cylindrical, if not, it's conical. You can do that on a trumpet and a sop because both are, by typical definitions within the brass manufacturing industry, cylindrical instruments. Sopranos are, as I said, just trumpets with extended tubing and (at least in the case of Kanstuls) modified bells. I don't know if they're still making those bugles (probably not), I was just using them as an example of the transition in bugle design from the older-style truly conical bugles (like these) to the style that led more directly to what were using in the first civilian corps (like this one). There used to be a bugle website run by a guy who either does or did judge brass for DCI; as I recall, he mentioned that bugles weren't standardized in G until the later style was adopted.

No, they're not. A G soprano actually has more cylindrical tubing than a Bb trumpet. The reason is that in their manufacture, horn makers basically are taking a trumpet body and just extending the tubes (which is also the reason G bugles have issues with tuning; they weren't designed to play in G, they are essentially horns altered to be pitched in that key, when you really get down to the horn making basics of it). They use a lot of the same tooling to make G and Bb horns, they're just using longer tubes to lower the pitch. Now, old-style bugles were certainly conical--but the bugles that were used in the establishment of the first civilian drum & bugle corps post-WWI were actually dubbed "field trumpets" because they were so much more trumpet-like in appearance than their much more conical predecessors. I am a fan of the bugle terminology as much as the next guy simply out of respect for history, but the reality is that the only substantial difference between a soprano and a trumpet is a few inches of tubing--cylindrical tubing.

What? Are you going to seriously pretend that every finals before this might as well have been on some vacant lot before this? We've had finals in many excellent stadiums, in great cities around the country, and without half the issues that have been consistently brought up since finals moved into this stadium. Not one single finals has been rained out that I'm aware of. Frankly, Ed, your argument is irrational.

But remember...that's how the whole thing was sold to us in the first place. "It'll be great, we can open the roof or close it if it rains!" Then once DCI is in there..."No, we can't open the roof, it's too hot!"

With all due respect, if he was having trouble doing basic things like feeding and housing the corps, who exactly failed to hold up their end of the contract first?

Didn't Les Etoiles do the upside down drumming thing like 15 years ago?

Moving to Reviews forum.

Moving to Reviews forum.

Amen.

It's called polyphonics or multiphonics. You have to sing very high or it won't come across over the note you're playing at the time. I do it from time to time, or sometimes just do the "scratching" imitation with my band. Nat did the multiphonics, but a lot of his scratching was layered in. He was inspired in large part by "Scratch" from the Roots, and YBBB has a couple songs that are lifted straight from the Roots' rep.

Have finals ever been cancelled?

Duplicate threads merged.

There's already a thread here.

Thread closed.

Since this problem has been dealt with, thread closed.

DCI is responsible for securing housing for finals week, or at least it was when I was marching. I haven't heard about that changing recently.

That's...troubling.

IANAL but I'm not sure if they could just sue without at least sending a cease and desist first and giving the offender an opportunity to remove the illegal work. Still, a wise move.

A fantastic band, and that sound is so classic; it wouldn't be the same if you changed out the alto horns for French horns, or the Bb and Eb tubas for C and F. I am not a G bugle hardliner, but among other thigns it's the British brass band tradition and the long and staid history of amazing musicianship with little change to the actual equipment that convinces me, drum corps belongs as an acoustic brass and percussion ensemble. There is so much that can be done and expressed in that idiom that you can't simulate any other way.