Jumpin2drums

I do not have a lot to add myself to this, as the only complete overhaul of a drum I ever did myself was an old 1940 Ludwig snare with wooden hoops I have, which came out beautiful without sanding needed. There is a fellow on our snare line however that bought 10 old beaten up drums one by one off eBay, and went a bit beyond restoration, which we use for our group, as seen in the pic below. He's taken TDR's totally restored them, including recovering as discussed above, as well as restoring all the hardware, replacing it where necessary, and added a Ludwig HV-model twist to them, as well as to our rudimental bass drums, and the snares and basses sound awesome, though my opinion is slightly slanted toward the sound of the older drums. Not to go off in a tangent, in my opinion, all highly cranked high-tension drums now sound like a piece of wood, instead of an acoustical percussion instrument. I'm sure you can get all the answers you need here from what I've read, but if you need questions answered from this guy, his userID is vschaff on our forum accessible via our site, gnodca.org, though he is not always actively accessing the forum, but I can get in touch with him if you need. Here's the pic of the restored drums, I just have to share with y'all. GNODCA (Echoes Drum & Bugle Corps) Mardi Gras 2006

I left the junior drum corps scene in 1980, and have slowly been participating a greater and greater level each year for the last few years with the creation of GNODCA in New Orleans. I am beginning to have thoughts of us someday soon building beyond our current parade unit and participating in DCA shows in the South. Participation in our Mardi Gras parade this year by drum corps from near and far, as Gulf Coast Sounds opens to everyone each year has got me thinking. MAybe this idea has been though of, or is already being done. I have yet to see one DCA performance in my life, so pardon my lack of knowledge discussing the following matter. I saw a short video clip at some point in the past couple of years of all DCI finalists playing a version of "America The Beautiful". Do any DCA corps play a common version as well? If so, is it the same version tha the DCI corps play? I think that would be really cool, if it is not already being done, to have one common version of the song for all DCI and DCA corps, maybe the same version I heard all those DCI corps play to allow a combination of any/all DCA corps to play that song together, as well as any/all DCI and DCA corps to play it together.

Jen wrote: Thanks Jen. So that would make participation from the great states of Pennsylvania, Florida, California, and Texas. Everyone's participation from near and far is greatly appreciated. We hope to see you again, and anyone who wants to come from out of town to join us next year. Gary wrote: Yes, those are TDR snare drums (10 to be exact, but only five used this year, which leaves enough snares available for anyone coming from out of town to march the parade, or fuller participation by members we have "on paper"). Those drums were bought by the second snare from the right (without the glasses) out of his own pocket off eBay. This GNODCA member snare drummer used his own tools and hands to cut, recover, repair, and refurbish the TDR snare drums, and also cut the rudimental bass drums in the spirit of the Hurley-Vogel (HV) model snares produced by Lugwig at one point in the past. They really do sound sweet to the ears, and much louder than the snares (tin cans [in my opinion]) played now-a-days. Our individual members, have their own high tension snares bought mostly off eBay, of varying models and colors (covered for performances) that were used the last two years, but we love the return of a true snare sound, not to mention that we now look uniform without drum covers, and the sound carries better also on those rudimental basses you see from the prior link to the pic. Side Note: Marty Hurley (most famous as former Phantom Regiment percussion/drum caption head), who lives here in New Orleans, has brought New Orleans excellence in rudimental drumming from New Jersey in the early 70's, as Marty, and I presume his brother also, Jimmy, were taught up north by Bobby Thompson. We still have to borrow the rest of the battery instruments as needed from a couple of high schools, whose band directors are old corps alumni on the board of our organization. Silks are made by hand, we have a screen printer in our organization that helped us with the creation and provision of our shirts at cost, and some are putting money out of their own pockets to meet needs for bugles also. After we have enough decent equipment, and written performance music for at least a mini-show production, then maybe we can possibly keep the interest of some younger members who come out from time to time with their vision of drum corps being only what they know from the broadcasting of DCI finals on TV.

Take a look into the hurricane devestated eastern half of the New Orleans metro area, and also a pic of what the dedication and determination of our drum corps members and friends were able to pull off this Mardi Gras last month in a parade in the mostly recovered western half of our metro area. The storm has diminished our numbers a bit, but not our drum corps attitude of determination. Look for great things to come from us in the future. Affects of the hurricane from one of our GNODCA member's web site. A GNODCA members personal pic of their bugle and house after the hurricane flooding of over 10 feet for a couple of weeks. GNODCA (Echoes Drum & Bugle Corps) Mardi Gras 2006

As well, some of our members and large number of New Orleans metro citizens are still located elsewhere around the country, some by their own choice, but most out of necessity for survival.

This is the only second time I've ever posted on DCP, and the first time from coming back from Valley Forge PA since the hurricane. Echoes Drum & Bugle is alive! Let me give you an update on the status of the New Orleans metro area. In the last six months the New Orleans has struggled on many fronts to continue existance at every level, and half of the metro area is still devastated. The western half the metro area ( pop. @ 500,000) is a BOOM TOWN ( life as normal, almost), and the eastern half (pop @500,000) is a GHOST TOWN, with only very small pockets of normal signs of life. Luckily, those small spared pockets in the eastern half of the city, which includes the downtown New Orleans business district and the adjoining historic French Quarter, seems enough to have survived to allow a foothold for a rebuilding effort to start an extremely slow rebuild of the eastern half of the metro area that will probably take 5 to 10 years, barring another devastating set back during that time. Had one levee broke on the western half of our metro area, I doubt that New Orleans would be on any future map. Even so, as I drove along the Mississippi coastline, only one hour away, seeing not one wall of any building standing for blocks inland, stretching for tens of miles along their coast, I realized how much worse it could have been for New Orleans, had the hurricane landed 50 more miles west. There is a thick dark brown dirt line left across every standing object in the eastern half of the metro area where the top of the water line was during the flodding, and as you drive around, you see the line rise from as low as in some front yards, where every living plant and grass blade below it was killed, raising slowly on the outside of houses as your move along for blocks, to areas where the line goes above the roof line of empty houses with all doors and windows now taken out allowing a view of all their inner wall studs, where people have been able to gut their houses. Though the terrain is flat in our metro area, there is obviously unseen slopes in our terrain across the city varying from a foot or so above sea level to about ten feet or so below sea level. The western half of the metro area that is mostly operational once again, now has most all of the housing, gas stations, grocery stores, schools, hospitals, and any other necessity for civilization, and is "flooded" with much needed out of town/state repair workers, making it hard to get around in a car and extremely long lines everywhere. The places opening are finding it hard to find local workers though, and fast food places are offering heafty bonuses and increased wages. Things are slowly beginning to improve as more places re-open in the western half of the metro area, and some places begin to re-open one by one in the eastern part of the Greater New Orleans metro area. It's surreal! Many houses in both halves of the metro area now have white FEMA trailers in the front yard or driveway for temporary residential housing until those residences are repaired, though many thousands of trailers are still needed. The city is covered with blue tarps on houses. To see an arial view of the metro area is quite colorful, though many of those FEMA installed tarps on roofs are not lasting as long as anticipated. I have three FEMA trailers on my five house block, with one house having two trailers in their front yard. Three of my neighbors around me just had there roofs reparied in the past two weeks. My blue roof tarp is gone, as I was able to have my roof quickly repaired months ago. I figured I'd get the work done immediately and pay the roofers later when I got the insurance money, instead of waiting in line with hundreds of thousands of others. I just had my last 20% of insurance re-imbursement funds released to me this week, six months after the hurricane. I am one of a very small percentage of people in the metro area who are EXTREMELY FORTUNATE to have had a house to live in during these past six months as I had no flooding, and more than 90% of all house in both the eastern and western half had some flooding, though the eastern half had levee breaks which caused more extreme levels of flooding for a longer period of a couple of weeks. One inch of water for one day, or ten feet of water for ten days inside your house still causes extreme hardships. Some neighborhoods near levee breaks have had their houses swept away. My description above can not fully explain the experience, but it gives some insight in order for others to understand the determination of the people of this area, and our veteran drum corps members have to bring back the good things we had by making this first post-Katrina Mardi Gras a successful event. For those who do not know, Mardi Gras exists only because of the participation of individuals particpating in community organizations called krewes, who pay money out of their own pockets to put on their own krewe's ball and parade for everyone else to enjoy. The many krewes parades within a two week span concluding on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday("Fat Tuesday", which is the translation for "Mardi Gras") are put on by the members of the local community, for the local community. Mardi Gras this year, was a show of determination by the many thousands of indivudals in our community to show to ourselves and the others that we will overcome the obstacles Hurricane Katrina caused, and a new New Orleans will rise. The dedication of our members to be able to field a parade unit this Mardi Gras was truly a testimate to the determination and the dedication of our drum corps alumni. I'd like to also thank the members from Gulf Coast Sound who participated in our annual Mardi Gras parade, and everyone for there expression of support. We look forward to bigger and better things to come in the future.

This is my first time visiting Drum Corps Planet, so pardon me if I am not placing in the proper section. I am from New Orleans, LA. I have been in Valley Forge, PA at my company's disaster recovery site. The last time I was this far north was when I was instructing the drum line for the Bleu Raeders Drum Corps in 1979/80. I joined drum corps with the Southern Rebels at 15 in 1974 in New Orleans. We have had a rich junior drum and bugle corps history over the decades in New Orleans. Many of our local junior drum corps members over the years have peformed in the top DCI drum corps. For myself, I have never seen a DCA show, but have heard of the many famous senior corps from up in the notheast around these parts. I am sorry to have arrived a month or so too late to enjoy some great drum corps rehearsals and competitions in this area. For the last couple of years, a number of my fellow New Orleanian Drum Corps alumni have made steps, beginning with nothing but an idea, to bring back the drum corps experience to New Orleans, starting with no funding using what old bugles could be found from the last junior corps that existed in New Orleans, purchasing old bugles and drums off eBay with our personal individual funds, and covering individual's various drums for uniformity sake, trying to gather old bugle scores and write new ones, making silks for flags, using many indivudal pickup trucks to move equipment as needed, and we were making some headway, achieving a unit of around 65 or so to march in Mardi Gras parades the last two years under the organizational unit GNODCA, Greater New Orleans Drum Corps Association (www.gnodca.org), until the recent disaster struck. I will be returning to New Orleans next week to travel and work in Baton Rouge, LA, luckily having one of the few houses on the west side of the New Orleans metropolitan area that did not get water inside the house, and not too much damage to my roof, though there was barely a house left without some degree of damage requiring repair if not demolishing. At the moment we are all scattered around the country, but are slowly making our way back to New Orleans. I am only a performing member of our organization, and not anyone who is in a position to officially speak on the behalf of the organization, but it is my hope in making this post that I can find GNODCA help in it's efforts to rebuild drum corps in New Orleans once again, while we are rebuilding New Orleans itself. If there is anyone in the drum corps community who can provide us assistance in any way at all, or just provide suggestions that we will find helpful to gather needed equipment that we need to bring back the sounds of drum and bugle corps to New Orleans and beyond, it would truly be greatly appreciated. Please visit our site at www.gnodca.org. I hope someday to visit back up this way, and experience the DCA experience that I've only heard about since age 15, and hopefully even participate as a performing member in that experience with my fellow DCA corps members from New Orleans. Thank you.