John Schmitt

"In the end, the piano part would have one less flat than the G horn part." No matter what you do, that is definately the test. G baritone up a minor 3rd +3 flats (You play in Gb, first note is a Bb) Piano as written (Db) or G baritoen as written (You play in Eb) Piano down a minor 3rd -3 flats (Piano plays in Bb, first chord is g minor) Isn't transposing fun?

Ah, ok. Yeah, you need to play up a minor third with three more flats then. Guess I left that one out. So you'll be in the key of Gb instead of Eb. You can write it in F# if you do better that direction.

I'm guessing the piece is scored for an Eb instrument? Such that a written C is intended to sound the Eb above? If that's the case, you write the part up a minor 6th; that is if you're reading treble clef G baritone. If you're reading bass clef G baritone, you need to write the part up a diminished 5th or an augmented 4th, whichever is less ridiculous. If you're talking about a concert pitched part that happens to have 3 flats, you take the part up a perfect 4th for treble clef G bari and up a minor 3rd for bass clef G bari. Be sure to take the key signatures along for the ride in both cases. Clear as mud? If someone wants to check my math you're welcome to it as always.

The last three years I marched I found a great way to keep my shampoo from blowing up in my bag. I shaved my head and left it at home. There is a "self-inflating" air matress that works pretty well. You open the valve and a foam pad inside expands drawing air in. They're not very thick but they help. People seem to go both ways on how much to eat, but here's what I did. I would grab 2 pb&j sandwiches to eat in line, take everything they offered at the truck, come back for seconds, and eat two more sandwiches for dessert. Lunch, dinner, and snack. Breakfast was usually 3 sandwiches if there weren't bagels, whatever fruit there was, and 4-5 bowls of cereal. You can probably burn a good 12,000 calories a day doing this is what I'm getting at. All that food also ensures you're getting enough salt to counteract 3-4 gallons of water a day. Or it does if your cook staff is planning the meals correctly. If the practice field is close to the school and you get an extended 15 minute water break, take a cold shower or at least get some cold water on the back of your neck. If you taper your water intake at all, I would do it during eat-pack-load. Maybe increase your salt intake more than decreasing water, then keep a full water jug on the bus for after the show. Yeah you need the water, but you don't need to do the pee-pee dance at the gate. Ibuprophin. Like a 10 pound sack of it. Lower dose for pain, higher dose for inflammation. Take it on a schedule with food when you need it. Find the second bathroom when you get to the housing site. That's all I can think of right now, except for things already said that I agree with: the drum major is your watch, bring less than you think, eat any and all food whenever you can, sunblock, hat, shower shoes, etc.

Great, now someone in magic just died. I hope you're happy with yourself.

It's kind of odd... a "death of DCP" thread crossed my mind just before I pulled up the browser window a second ago. Not that I would agree. To me the off season just seems like CNN trying to fill 168 hours of programming on a really slow news week. "We now go live to 'Cat in tree, hour 37'" and things like that. It's easy to turn what would ordinarily be a tiny thing into something larger when nothing else is going on. I'm just happy we have somewhere to discuss things of this nature without setting up killfiles and dredging through what's mostly tripe on the usenet scene. Can't wait for the season!

Start with one of the bigger harmon mutes on the market if you can and add cork until it will stick to the bell and play in tune. My old roommate played on a modified kanstul col 103 (same bell flare as their powerbore) quite extensively for a while and that seemed to work.

81 brass 26 trumpets 14 mellos 26 baris & euphs (17 & 9) 15 tubas 37 percussion 10 snares 6 quads 6 basses 5 plates 10 pit 30 colorguard 2 majors sounds like fun to me.

They're playing music from a little- known segment of Sun Ra's career in which the saturn native lead 'The Jet Set Omniverse Arkestra' in some convoluted version of what is now known to the baltimore inner harbor ampitheater, kenny G, and some squirrels as "power jazz." There will be no survivors.

It happened to me twice last week, but I was with a brass quintet not a drumline, and it was in a bar not a dark field.

...me too actually, 8/18. Not to you though for anyone wondering.

Gonna go with Doug, but I remember playing a nice arrangement of autumn leaves by salman rushdie.

"It's always been an association for me.... I've always wondered what it's like to associate color...but I think my directional association is waaaaaaayyyy off the beaten path" ...so like you'd hear a G and feel like you're falling? That would get a little weird.

One for the megavox side: 16 wireless channels. We've all heard stories of other corps, preachers, radio stations and whatnot coming over the ranger.

I've used both somewhat extensively, and I'd say they're both pretty much even as far as functionality. The only reason I'd use the megavox over the long ranger is that the megavox has more 1/4" inputs on it. This year a group I taught with used two metronomes to facilitate count offs with programmed tempo/meter sequences. I'm not sure about durability. I know the wireless transmitter mic cables for long rangers were designed to last about 15 minutes on tour, not sure about megavox.

A bunch of people said: From what I've heard, these do not exist. Discounted horns, maybe, but not free. The main financial benefit is the ability to turn them over every couple of years. You depreciate them on the taxes then sell them. It eventually has the potential to make money. This doesn't work with something with such a small market as bugles. Not that I don't miss the sound of course. Just saying the horns are not free.

The 2001 Pro Football Hall of Fame All- Star Band. Jay Dawson conducted our hornline along with maybe 6 to 10 bands at the massillon show. Don't remember if they were full bands or just brass. Weird anyway, to say the least. I still have the t-shirt of course.

"The sound is so well blended I can't hear the melody!"

Well here's an arial photo of the area. Nothing corps-like, of course the streets were named some time ago and it's cool anyway. The dump truck location is indicated in red (because that matters) and where the camera was pointed is in yellow. Why don't we drive to anchorage and ask them what the deal is? It's only 4,373 miles from my house in Baltimore!

"You may be good fro your age, but at 15, there's simply going to be people older, more experienced, and ebtter than you." So you don't make upper lead maybe. Supervets have to come from somewhere. Show dedication and work hard. Go at it like you're the new soloist rather than some guy getting experience for next year. Just learn from it if you get information about joining Northshore instead of a contract. (I know Northshore is gone but that's how I got cut)

I'm just going to start typing and see how many of these make it, startintg with the sopranos' names. (somebody tell the filter to start stretching... you know what, I'm going to filter some of these myself because some are more about combinations of words. ### puppy fester benson (aka little fester) erikharris (no it's not moon day) #### sucker woody BLT- Bearded Lo... something about mexican food i think oswald fat ######## queer bait (whut's that thang doin', pickin' up golf balls?) squirrel bait ADIDAO- All Day I Dream About Oswald zoobamoofasaurus as previously mentioned by Rubble. ### dumpster (a straight guy actually) On to the other sections... Staples jersey trash crack whore meatloaf evil troll man elmo little boy (son of little boy's mom) chewy Ding Ding- shortened version of Risa Rony the san francisco treat, ding ding. As her name was risa. SHBABJ and SHBAHJ figure it out. Not sure if these belonged to anyone in particular or if it varied depending on who was most deserving. I'm sure there are plenty more, but that's all for now. edit: can't believe I almost forgot Blackula and Suzy. The name suzy didn't last long once blackula left tour though.

I think a corps' affiliation should change every year. It would be the average location of all the members' hometowns. To simplify, if the corps had 3 members, 2 from new york and 1 from LA, then the corps would be from Lexington, KY.

That's new?

$2.21 at the Spirit in baltimore county. A half mile up the road it's $2.39 of course. I saw $2.17 in Ohio last week.

Pro footbal hall of fame parade in 98 I think... the thing must have been .0000000000002 miles long. For some reason or another we were the grand martials. Every one of us. I'm not sure which was better, our confusion when the people at the end were freaking out trying to direct us to the first aid/ water tent since it was such a short parade under overcast skies and upper 60s temps or kemo's shot on TV marching the parade with one bass drum head. Another parade in the chicago area in 2000 we were towards the end of our warmup playing some kind of loud something or another. Might have been pants, can't remember. We didn't notice the helicopter 200- 300 feet over us until we stopped playing.