84skyrydr

In your corps that may have existed. I marched three NON top 12 or all girl champ corps and NONE had any of the frills. Especially dot books and A/C. You mention Cadets 60% rookies. How many had never picked up an instrument before? How many never played in a high school band? Big difference in the 2010 Cadets rookies and the 1981 Colts rookies.

Not really an argument, both cases have it rough, just in completely different ways. I just get tired of hearing how easy it was back in the day from kids who weren't even alive, "back in the day". I also get tired of my comrade dinos telling the youth how "easy" they have it. There is a reason kids don't march 12 years of corps anymore. They couldn't live through that beating on their bodies.

No fascination. People like to know what kind of crowd was there and for some unknown reason, numbers that used to be readily released aren't anymore. What is with the fascination of withholding generic information?

It was, when half your corps were complete rookies with NO prior training on any instrument let alone marching technique. the music major was few and far between in most corps. Average age for a lot of corps in my day was less than 16 and a lot of them had 13 y/o rookies, myself included. Didn't know how to play an instrument let alone read music, then remember the drill???? It was hard, but the drill of nowdays would never have been thought of. We didn't have computers simulate the drill and it was all done by hand, including changes. Dot books never existed. You just memorized it the first time you were told it. There are lots of differences, but we can all pretend it was really easy back then. Almost forgot, your bus had air.....if you opened the window. Inflatable beds DIDN'T exist, bring a sleeping bag and live with it. Could go on and on, but you are right, there ain't nothing easy now days.

Touche'

Notice the people that truly know, namely DCI. They won't tell you how many tickets were sold. They just keep that same old, " tickets are selling better all the time, " line. I think they actually believe it, yet they never show the numbers and improvemens on them each year. Where are the numbers?????? It can't be that hard to do. Its not like its confidential info that could doom your organization, is it? It seems that baseball, football and hockey can give you attendance numbers within the 2 hours of their show, yet we don't have numbers from 3 years ago.

Your one line tells more than your whole statement even though it was well said. Drum corps isn't dying but the master George wants to change it to KEEP IT ALIVE. If it ain't broke, there is no need to fix it then, right?

You forgot fans who love the new shows and hate the old shows. I don't only love the old shows, Phantom 2008 FAVORITE show of ALL time, but I quit going to see something I don't find entertaining anymore. Everybody doesn't fit one mold and by the way if you think drum corps IS band, then yes, drum corps IS dead.

Actually you may be right. If those changes hadn't have occured we might have more fans buying more shirts and the shirt companies offering up a wider selection of sizing. Unfortunatly the fan base has dwindled and in such the buyers are buying less. You may be on to something.

Pushups? Running? I saw a kid get kicked straight in the butt by the corps director for not playing during a runthrough in which he was told NOT to play by the horn instructor. He had bad cold sores on his lips. This did not happen in the Ryders, it happened in a previous corps I marched with and I won't divulge the directors name as he is now back in a directors spot of another corps. Abuse is abuse. Can candy coat it all you want, but there is no retribution for abuse by the bigwigs. Suck it up or move on. That is the only choice. On a side note, I was at a rehearsal a few years back in some oppressive heat. A guy in the guard passed out on the field. One of his guard members helped him off the field, where he layed UNCHECKED by the staff AT ALL, untill he finally came to, drank some water and tried to go back on the field. During this heat, their were some kids being punished with laps. Its called HEAT STROKE, it is DEADLY. Some character building exercise. I did notice that the rough and tough character building staff had umbrellas and drinks.

I owuld bet the guy from Crown could argue that he was indeed broken by the end of the year. Just a hunch.

What the last two posts said.

We were told in the beginning of the year that the sound issues were being heavily addressed, then we were told that there was no problem, then we were told the lid might be opened. What was it like? improved, ( even though the judges said it was great ) or still a muddled mess?

A hater this year seems to be anybody who doesn't enjoy the Blue Devils show and think it is the cats meow. You can't just not like a show to Blue Devil fans, you are just a hater. How many threads bantered back and forth with people saying they don't get the show nor like the show, rebutted by overzealous parents, alumni and fans of the Devils spouting "hater", and telling you how wrong you must be for not liking the greatest show on planet earth. Hope that helps, otherwise I refer you to the last 234 threads about the Devils show.

It seems odd that everyone who just doesn't like the Devils show this year are "haters". Can't people just not like a show without being lumped as a hater. I have liked almost every Devil show except for Yowza, so am I a hater?

Yeah, your right, they need a winds scoring caption for something they aren't having.

" Phenomenal success". I marched for the guy in the Colts and can safely say that 28th wasn't very awesome. He didn't succeed until the money started flowing from the multimillionaire he worked for. It takes cash to be good in this game. If he has it backing him, he can do wonders, but Orwoll had the same community Jim did and took the Colts to the promised land without the money.

By your own admission, people say what they think you want to hear, except the three you talked to, right?

SOOOOOOOO DBC03 who's making things up and stating them as fact?????? Apology accepted.

Maybe because they have repeatedly voted it down.

Completely made up? Did YOU look at the scoring breakdown? It has points for WIND instruments . Who made THAT up? NOT ME.

How many more polls can we have begging people to like the Devils? The last one looked bad for them so the powers moved it to an obscure G7 sight. eep trying people. Either you love it or you don't. Life will still go on.

I am glad you will get that option, but you do realise it won't be drum corps anymore? They are adding the rest of the band instruments, so it will be the world series of band competition. Drum corps will continue with the other less greedy corps.

63-19 in favor of the Scouts at this time. I guess that tells you about the greedy 7 versus the rest of corpsdom?

Like bonuses for nothing other than having to get rid of the money. look at non profit leaders salaries. EXTREME at the least.