CheezMaster

People don't realize how hard Vanguard's book is simply because of these reasons: 1. Paul Rennick's books have a very distinct sound. When you hear a Paul book, you know it's a Paul book. Now that these books have been so prominent for so long, people are just getting sick of hearing them (I don't at all, but I've heard this numerous times).... But can you blame him for writing similar books with the success he has had? No. He writes a book that he knows will be attainable by the players early on and will fit PERFECTLY with the drum corps. (There are some questionable orchestrations with some of the groups beating SCV at the moment). This the reason SCV came out slammin' this year at the first show. Now does THAT make it an easy book? No. The players in his lines train literally to be in THAT line. I guarantee you none of them would want to go anywhere else....not in a heart beat. It's almost like a business. Most people go there to stay, and know how to play Paul's beats about as well as they know how to breathe. 2. The book is not overtly showy. Yes, the Blue Devils probably play more back sticks and flam drags than SCV... (the attempt is there!) But from the videos i have seen they can't play one triplet roll together (achievement is not). Whereas the SCV drumline has a hard time to not play a triplet roll together. Why write stuff that is going to be dirty till finals week? This book is a modest book that stays true to the activity. It's not as "innovative" (... I guess back sticks and flam drags and decrescendo rim shots are innovative now) as others but it never goes out of it's way to have a pretentious vibe to it. They have a few super clean drum breaks (...can't complain about that, seems like this is the first year there ever have been complaints about super clean drum breaks!) and it orchestrates with the hornline better than any other drum corps this year.... it's actually a genius book!!! Did Mahler ever write back sticks or have the drummers hang upside down when they played??? NO! And he would have been laughed at is he did. 3. People don't realize but playing spaces the way SCV does is actually a lot harder than people think. It's easy to ram like Crown does because there is no space at all! Did you ever think that less is more?!?! Remember that old saying? Because I barely do. Also - I dare someone to count the flams or inverts in the show and compare to one of these lines they are competing with. I will guarantee there are just as many!!! If you think that these other drumlines are better or cleaner than SCV, I'm terribly sorry to tell you that you are wrong. Clean is clean, and dirty is dirty, and from what I've seen of the drum lines this year (and believe I've looked CLOSE), there is not one drum line playing with the touch, accuracy, balance or just straight up crunchy clean sound as this drumline. STOP BLAMING THE BOOK! IT'S REALLY HARD! How much easier really could it be to these other books? Not even as a drum corps alum, but a MUSICIAN, SCV is the cleanest, and their book is the tastiest, most well fit book in the activity. If you want to just "see another drumline win because Paul's lines have been winning so much," then you need to get over it. Clean is better than dirty and that's that. Here's a question.... What made last year's Phantom book so much harder than this one? If anyone even thinks so.... I think it is just as hard or even harder than last year's book... And they're playing just as clean as last year???? Everybody RAVED about last year's drumline and they won and this one is getting fifth and no hype...But the level is the same!!!! Are our ears lying to us?!?! Are we being brainwashed by DCI judges?!?!? Riddle me that...?!?!?!

SCV has some hornline holes. 2 or 3.

everyone get over it. its done. not worth #####ing about anymore.

Boston.

Anybody attend? Just wondering how you thought it was...

1. Phantom 2. Cavies 3. Devs 4. Boston 5. SCV 6. Cadets 7. Bluecoats 8. Crown 9. Blue Knights 10. Madison 11. Glassmen 12. Blue Stars .......... 13. S-dub 14. Spirit 15. X-men 16. Colts My biased/reasonable prediction...

At Boston, we move in kinda late in contrast with some other corps move ins (May 26), but the actually day is prettty long.....9:00 (sometimes 8:30) rehearsal till about 9:00, then at 10 a sectional(ish) kinda block till about 11:30, sometimes midnight, depending on the day...They get to be tedious.

Not sure if there is a name for them but my most frequently played likc/rudiment, or most favorite i should say, is the hurtas, grammas, with backsticks on the 2nd note, and swisses with a diddle on the second note and backsticking on the first grace note. good ####.

I know Scouts are using VF because a few weeks ago I got a MDBCA newsletter and sure enough, on the back, it read: Deg/Dynasty, Vic Firth, and either Paiste still or Zildjian. I didn't see anything about Yamaha though.

The judge obviously knew that he was being recorded. Those are about the lightest comments I've ever heard from a judge. Either he's an easy pleasing guy, or they told him to clean it up a little.

:P

If anybody is looking for somewhere to march this summer, the Lighthouse Brigade always has spots open. We're a marching band out of Racine WI in the MACBDA circuit and are out this year to play hard and win. We won the drum caption last year in Canada for the MACBDA finals and are planning to set out a good line to do the same thing this year. It runs from January to mid to end of july, and tours around southeast wisconsin ending in a tour to michigan for finals. If anybody wants any info on this go to www.macrohead.com/brigade or send me a messege. Later

You're comparing apples and oranges when you compare snare chops with bass chops . I think more than anything in a bassline, you're going to need to have LISTENING chops, as well as playing. Snarelines also use a great deal of listening to play together, but chop-wise, definitely snare drums, hands down.

I really can't think of the "greatest" drumline. I relaly don't think theres such a thing. Every good line attributes to their own style and musicianship, so every year I have a few off my favorite lines for different things. Last year I liked Cadets for just how clean and together they played, BD for how bad a## they were, Santa Clara for how intense they played, although every corps has their share of that. I could go on all day with this. Later

I'm taking lessons from Spanos in Madison and I don't think he knew it was coming either, probably had an idea. I think it was not a good move on Madison's part. They will be missed.

...my friend was telling me how his drumline at southern illinios was using the drums from 97 blue devils. I was wondering if anybody knew how to get a hold of someone where i can buy some used drums from companies or if anybodys selling any drums. I'm just looking mainly for a couple snares probably. So if anybody could get a hold of me and tell me thatd be awesome. Thanks

Alright, so PASIC is coming up. Now everybody know and thinks that UNT will dominate again like usual. I don't really know, I've heard some things about Penn State, Michigan State, I'd like to here some feedback on this stuff. Will UNT have any competition?

?

Tower of Power, Jimmy Buffet, Slayer, Pantera, Dave, John Mayer, Hatebreed, Smashing Pumpkins, Year of the Rabbit, Radiohead, Incubus, Aphex Twin (my icon), OAR, tons of mallet stuff by Keiko Abe, Leigh Howard Stevens, Evelyn Glenie, Michael Burrit, I have just about everything you can think of.

I know a few age-outs weren't happy to leave the corps with the new uniforms. But I think towards the end of the season, I really started liking the unis. Hey, either with or without the traditional uniforms, they will still be the bad @s$ Madison Scouts. Gotta love 'em!

Cap Sound line: Snares: 0 of 6 tenors: 0 of 4 basses: 1 of 5 Plates: 0 of 4 Pit: 1 of 11 I believe

You might want to e-mail someone from the Yea! organization. I'm sure you can get an e-mail address from the site. www.yea.org

We used lithium grease this season in Cap Sound. That seemed to work just fine!

You might want to check out the BD stuff, like 94, 95, they had some tight visuals. figure 8, thunderbolt, the classic drop mallet behind hand and catch it on the other side(scouts, cavies, etc). You could also probably find lots if you just check out a DCI video or WGI vid.

im hypin em!