Land_Surfer

Every second of 1987 Appalachian Spring. That show plus SCV’s Russian Christmas Music (in the same year), especially the low brass at 2:26, hooked me on drum & bugle corps.

It’s likely that even if it could be fought and dismissed, it’s going to be a total drain on finances. Best to completely: fold, distance, re-group, plan and start completely over.

I guarantee you, the first top five corps that returns to 90’s style drum corps, focused on (unplugged, uncluttered) power, speed and precision will have everyone eating out of their hand.

Hopefully their budget has been limited enough this year that the sound system and electronic instruments had to be cut and props scaled way back. It’s time for today’s DCI fans to see and hear what Old School SCV can do in a new era.

Jim Wren’s arranging is so powerful and just true enough to original score. The only arranger to make a brass line sound like the CSO… the Leopold Stokowski of DCI, and Dan Farrell made that horn line emotional and LOUD. Both made “dark, rich and soulful” a trademark I long to hear again.

The 2022 Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert featured an interesting version of the finale to Saint-Saens’ Symphony #3 “Organ Symphony, a “hymnified” version, and a bit of a challenge to follow given its variation on a theme but, an interesting rendition nonetheless.

Not this year. Next year questionable.

Well, with The Cadets and SCV missing, their odds have never been better.

Stop trying to be all things to all people. It costs too much and results in compromise… becoming ordinary, just another commodity. Drum corps is a niche, the last great bastion of precision marching brass and percussion that never once got old or ordinary… always been a crowd favorite! Leadership has led drum corps to the positions they are in today, as they endeavor to one up the competition with spending power over creativity.

Moving their base of operations far away from their core region of supporters, with whom they have the most history and support from, was a terrible idea!!! You can’t expect folks, unfamiliar with any new-to-the-area organization, especially an arts & entertainment NPO, to automatically start donating. What have the Cadets done for Erie? Drum corps are actually more of a burden than a benefit, if you think about it. Always asking for money. I know the modern drum corps community can’t stand “tradition and nostalgia” but, they have likely been the most significant keys to maintaining drum corps since their beginning and likely always will. Therefore, I am not surprised to hear about their hiatus. They have let down their supporters and are paying for it.

The majority of corps field rehearsals are conducted on grass fields. I don’t see an issue with performing on it too. Besides, the grass fields are in better condition than most of the practices fields.

I quite like the recent Star discussion taking place in this thread. Shows the influence it had and still has today.

Agree! This has been my main concern with using amplification and electronic instruments. The costs of a glitch / failure can be disastrous, especially during finals week, because the entire show is so reliant on this technology today. No one should have to deal with that risk.

Madison’s 1988 show was the “winner” and was, without a doubt, the loudest show of the season. It could never have been played in an enclosed stadium with the same emotion, none of the corps of the 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s could. Today’s DCI championship crowd and members will never know the awesome sound and power of a DCI finals week hornline in an open stadium. The top 5 or 6 corps back then could play as precise at deafening decibels (ffff) as they could at mf / f. Combine all that sound with the speeds at which many marched and played, it was unreal. 1990 Star of Indiana instantly comes to mind. There was no need for props then. The marching members were the props!

What exactly are “the newer ways soloists are playing”?

A DCI soloist does not need a microphone to be properly heard throughout a stadium.

Every coach I’ve been in, those hatches can be open. Oh well, I still don’t buy bus temp as issue.

How would you get that from riding on a bus without a/c? There are hatches in the roof that open from the inside that will vent the entire bus with rushing air. No bus a/c can’t be the reason. They get much hotter practicing during the heat of the day.

I also feel the same about electronic instruments and amplification… it’s a punch in the gut to a brass player. I’m still waiting to hear how electronic instruments & amplification compliment a DCI world class horn line.

WGI’s influence is progressing. It’s not enough for the percussion to compliment the home book and theme of the show, and have a couple features of their own. Before long brass instruments will be seen and not heard.

Same happened in the practice room of the old Roosevelt school building, in Rockford, during the ‘91 pre-season. Structure damage!

What’s wrong with that? They were once known for causing “structure damage.”

Pyrotechnics! Let’s do 1812 right.

Better get that natural “dark, rich and soulful” sound back!

This is all that comes to mind when I hear someone say modern classical music.