flashofthunder

DCP is how I found out about a hole in my former corps. I ended up marching there for two years, too.

Lake Havisau wasn't one of my better drum corps experiences. I was on field lining, so I was out in the heat from about 7 am until around noon. I had to line a field and then go to rehearsal. I ended up drinking to much water too quickly, and threw it up. I made the mistake of not rehydrating enough, and I ended up passing out from heat exhaustion. I remember being led off the field and having my water poured over my head and neck, and then being led inside. I spent the next half hour shivering under blankets while my body readjusted.

I really enjoyed the free day in Chicago we got each I marched. It was a great city, and the pizza was fantastic. In 2006, we were given the choice of either going to the Wisconsin Dells or going to a water park/amusement park. We knew that we weren't going to do very well in finals, so it was nice to hang out with my friends for one last time instead of rehearsing. I and a few of my close friends from that summer chose the amusement park, and I had a great time. I rode some rollercoasters, went down some water slides, and witnessed people laughing at my snare drummer friend's weird tan line.

There were some people who used army cots. They were comfortable, could be set up and disassembled extremely quickly, and fit in a bag the size of one of those bagged folding chairs. I might get one for this coming summer. http://www.qm-supply.com/zenstore/images/cot.jpg I had an air mattress that developed a pinhole leak about 2 weeks before finals. I couldn't find the leak, and it took about 5 hours to deflate, so I would wake up with my back on the floor a few hours after going to sleep. That wasn't very fun. My first year I used a sleeping bag, and I think I got better sleep with that anyway.

Oh, I forgot about Whitacre! I love his choral music, especially "Sleep," "Lux Aurumque," "When David Heard," and "Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine." His wind ensemble arrangement of "Lux Aurumque" is incredible, as well. When I play that in my car I crank it up and just wait for the climax with the bass on maximum. It's hard to believe that Eric Whitacre never had any musical experience until he was in college! On the line of choral music, I really like Morten Lauridsen, and some John Rutter.

Wow... I have fairly varied tastes in music. I really enjoy anything from bluegrass to screamo. About the only kind of music that I don't like is modern hip hop; I like old school rap, though. Classically, I really tend to like romantic and contemporary era composers. I like really meaty stuff like Mahler, Bruckner, and the like. Also, you have to love those angry little Russians like Shostakovich. And I've never heard anything by Bach that I didn't like(I especially love his fugues). Other than classical, I listen to a lot of rock, particularly groups like Sum 41, Breaking Benjamin, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Blink 182, Disturbed, Bullet for my Valentine, Linkin Park, Flogging Molly(I'm wearing a FM shirt right now), Yellowcard, etc. I also like punk and ska. I've started listening to a lot of country lately! I used to hate it, but the more I listen to it the more I like it. I like Kenny Chesney, Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts, and Tim McGraw a lot. Some of it's just good music, and can be really sweet. I love trance techno. I also like groups like Ugress and Crystal Method. I like classic rock like Chicago, Lynard Skynard, Neil Young, etc. One of my all time favorite musicians has got to be Ben Folds. I LOVE his music.

Why yes, I believe it is him. Judging by his signature he marched the Cavaliers from '03-'05. I believe that he also won the I&E woodwind category in 2005. That would be my guess for why he's holding a saxophone.

"Always dress diagonals to the shadows. If the shadows line up, then the diagonal will be right." Sometimes there are moments when you just want to cry.

I think that's why we have more breaks. We can spend one minute to go to the sideline, get a quick drink from our personal jugs and come back on the field, as opposed to standing in line for a cup of water. It takes much less time to give the corps a water break, so we get more of them. You would be surprised how different the rehearsal schedule and intensity varies from corps to corps. I marched 2 years with the same corps, albeit with 2 totally different staffs. The first year, we were pretty much beaten into the ground. The second year, although we did have blocks where it was akin to hell-on-earth, was much more relaxed. We got a lot more done the second year, by the way. We were told by the staff that we were working smarter schedule-wise, but while we were in rehearsal we better not be dragging ###.

I wouldn't really mind doing a full retreat at regionals, but for every other show I would definitely NOT want to do it. I really enjoy the downtime after shows, and especially changing out of my uniform right after the performance, when everyone on the bus is still charged up from the show. Besides, if there were a full retreat, that would be even less time that I would be able to spend with my friends and family at the one show they get to come to.

Well, when I came back from drum corps to high school band, I was tan, skinny, and buff. My transition back into the world was made easier by the attention I received from the females. Of course, after my first year I gained it all back. However, after this past year I've kept it off, and I'm now several pounds lighter than when I came home at the end of tour! I've been lifting weights and running, and I'm in the best shape I've ever been in. I really tried to make a conscious effort to come back to my HS marching band and just have fun. I ended up having a blast. I was pretty chill during rehearsal, and it didn't take much effort to march and play our show. Every now and then I would make a comment to the group, but I was nowhere near a nazi, and people respected me for it. If anything, I came back from drum corps and I was less uptight than before. I've been told by numerous people that I am much more likable I am after drum corps. My band wasn't very good, and we didn't win much of anything, but that doesn't matter. To me, it was more about spending time with some of my closest friends and performing our show which was, god forbid, fun in some sections even if it wasn't drum corps(I know, I know, "BLASPHEMY"). I think that everyone in my band had a really fun season, and that's what counts. I don't give a #### what any drum corps elitist says, I had a great time in my HS marching band, and I'm happy to say it. Of course I would get frustrated sometimes, but then I could always entertain myself by watching people trip over themselves.

My school charges $50 for wind members, and $65 for percussionists and guard members. The extra $15 is to pay for an extra week of instruction for their respective sections the week before band camp. I know that ours are cheap compared to some other schools right down the road who charge upwards of $1,000 to participate. However, I live in a low income area, and there are people in my area who have trouble meeting the money requirement even for our band. Thankfully, my director's have been very helpful to those members by reducing their fees, or working out a payment plan. IMO, there should NEVER be an instance where a kid can't participate in marching band because of money. Some fees are necessary, but it is absolutely ridiculous to expect a family to pay $1,000 for marching band fees. My time that I had in marching band was some of the most fun I've ever had. It was a very different experience than drum corps(at least for me; I know that some other bands are more competitive). I was in my marching band for 5 years and I had an absolute b.l.a.s.t., especially during my senior year. To think that someone wouldn't have the chance to experience what I did is very disappointing to me.

I think that a successful music ed program should do both of those things. At the moment I'm working very hard to refine my level of playing to the point where I can be offered a scholarship based on playing ability. If I can get a talent based scholarship, that would help a great deal. However, to do so I know that I need to be such a standout that it's almost ridiculous. The competition for scholarships is driving me to better myself as a musician. I know that when I pursue a career in music, there are two things that will get me a job: my level of proficiency and who I know. I know that I won't be given anything, and that for every hour I spend practicing, someone else is practicing for two. A teacher I had once(my caption head, in fact), said one day that in order to make an impression in the music world, you have to be absolutely ridiculous. That has stuck with me, and the more I see, the more I have found it to be true. I'm not interested in being good for a person my age; what will that get me? I am working to be someone who's considered outstanding in general. I think that competition is vital to drive someone to be better so that they may attain their goals, and I think that it is an important thing to teach.

I seem to remember something about a yahoo news article several weeks ago that stated that something around the area of over 80% of Americans with graduate degrees were involved in musical endeavors while in high school. My former band director wrote about the importance of education in the arts in a thesis he wrote for his masters class. He researched about many top universities such as Duke, Harvard, and Yale, speaking to admissions directors about the importance of applicants taking some sort of arts class in high school. Every university stated that applicants who have some sort of training in the arts had an inherent advantage over applicants who do not.

From what I understand, Andre Feagin will be at the audition camps as well as most of the rehearsal camps to help ease the transition between brass caption heads. I don't think that Memphis Sound is in a bad place.

In response to some of the earlier posts about more regionalized corps, I don't think that I would enjoy that. One of the major draws for me is the chance to go somewhere and perform with the best from across the nation, as well as the opportunity to spend my summer traveling. Unless localized corps were pretty close(within 1 hour driving distance), I wouldn't be able to participate, anyway. As MikeD posted earlier, I have high school marching band for that kind of thing. I had a lot of fun in my high school band, but I want to be in drum corps for the competitive atmosphere and the high level of performance.

There is a top 12 corps that's within driving distance near me. I auditioned there last year, but I didn't really like the atmosphere or the instruction methods. So instead I went back to a corps I had marched previously. I still had to fly to the camps, but they were much smaller and it was easier to negotiate a situation where I didn't have to attend every single camp, so I was able to save money on airfare. The corps I will be auditioning for(and I have every intention of making it) is the corps that I would like to march the most, and I have always wanted to march there, so I'll find some way to work it out.

My fees this year will come to around $5,000. That's counting tuition and fees for the corps, airfare, and other general expenses. You can't really blame DCI or the corps, though. It's not as though they're raising the price to make a profit; I don't think anyone's getting rich off of drum corps. If I want to march every year until I age out, I'm going to need some good scholarships. I'm applying for one that, if I get it, will give me a full ride through college: tuition, books, room and board, meal plan, etc. I really wish it was cheaper. There would be a lot less stress on me and my family. But I'm also a realist, and I know that there's little that can be done to make the process cheaper.

Name: Philip W Gender: Male What age were you when you marched: 16, 17, will march until I age out. I'm DCI c/o '11 What age are you now:17 Which instrument did you march/play: baritone, but I was originally a saxophonist Which corps is you favorite (besides your own): Phantom Regiment What is your (intended) college major/degree in: Music Education/music theory Which corps did you march with: Memphis Sound What years: '06, '07 Why did you join drum corps: I was really into band, and I thought that the idea of spending a summer rehearsing all day and sleeping on gym floors sounded awesome. It is. :) What was your best experience: Div II/III semi's in '07. We had a bus breakdown, and literally ran onto the field to perform a great show. We left the field with about 20 seconds away from getting a penalty. Despite everything that happened that morning, we ended up getting the corps highest score so far, and we proved that we were a professional organization that could muscle through adversity and still perform at a high level. Do you intend to continue to support DCI after you retire from competition: Definitely. Whether it's as a fan or an instructor, I plan on being connected with the activity.

The sheer power of the Cadets bari line did it for me. As for contras...go coats.

Try this: take your bare hands(the meaty part right under your fingers on your palms) and try hitting them on your desk at the same time. Now take two pens or something else hard and hit them on a metal pan or something. While it's possible to have clean attacks on either, as well as dirty attacks on either, it's not nearly as noticeable when your hands do not hit at the exact same time as it is when the two pens hit. This is also compounded since a brass note would last longer than a note played on a snare drum. It is very possible to have different interpretations of a DM's pattern. Someone may interpret the downbeat as being slightly ahead of the hands, and another may interpret it slightly behind. I really don't know how else to explain it, but I'll try. I would bet that if you took two snare players watching the same DM, and placed them in separate, soundproof rooms where they could see the DM but not each other, and had them play 8th notes with a DM conducting at 200 bpm(a speed where it may be fairly difficult to precisely distinguish each beat), then the two snares would probably not play together. However, if you had them both play with the same metronome... On a personal note, I also kind of like hearing the duts right before a big hit.

I never said that DM's are not important. They are who the brass watches, and the main person responsible to keep the corps together. Attacks for brass players do not need to be as accurate as the attacks for snares or tenors. What I'm saying is that there is usually one person in the battery responsible for interpreting the time given by the DM. He then communicates this tempo to the other members of the battery in his immediate area. To try to given an auditory cue for anyone over 5-10 yds away is impractical. As for your comment about symphonic conductors, I don't think I even need to explain why your analogy doesn't hold water.

A crisp and clean "dut" is much easier to understand than watching a conductor at very fast tempos. At speeds of 180+, the ictus is more difficult to find than a short auditory cue. As for sound delay, that's why the center snare is generally the one who duts. In the corps I marched with, there were specific instances where a different member of the battery would dut because he was located more centrally to the battery than the center snare in that particular instance. When the battery sections would be broken up, the tenors and snares would dut seperately. The basses, however, except in some specific parts of the show, were told to go with the DM for tempo at all times.

Think about it this way. If you have 18 different marchers watching the DM(that's 9 snares, 4 tenors, and 5 basses; fairly standard numbers), then there are 18 different interpretations of tempo from watching the DM's hands. Have you ever closely watched a conductor at 190 bpm? To get the level of precision required for drums is very difficult. Even though each player may be "right with the hands," there's still room for a person to be slightly behind or ahead of the beat. In the case of tight kevlar heads, the smallest difference can make something very dirty. This problem is solved by appointing one person(usually the center snare) to watch and interpret the tempo, and then communicate through duts. A short, crisp "dut" is much harder to misinterpret than a conductor flopping his hands around. As for saying that it was done back in the 70's...didn't corps generally have heads that were closer to animal skin than to kevlar? Those heads would generally have lower pitched, "fatter" sounds, right? The attacks could be a little bit farther apart than on kevlar heads, and it would still sound very clean.

It seems that corps who consistently have very difficult shows are the Cadets, BD, and Phantom. Of course, many other corps sometimes have very challenging shows, but those three seem to be corps that have a very high demand year after year. Cavies also seem to have difficult shows, as well.