Orpheus

Wait a sec ... forgot to talk about uniforms. Spirit's a tough one. I didn't see how they worked within the show, but just as uniforms they do look very sharp. I say it's a tough one because, although I like how they look, they're a far cry from the Spirit unis we've come to know and love. These ones'll probably grow on me. Crown's new looks is great. Very classy and stylish. Bluecoats ... huh. Like with Spirit, they're perfectly nice, but they're a bit of a shock for those of us who've know the 'Coats for many years. Like a friend said, they look a bit like something Cesario might have drawn up for the Blue Devils, and when they declined it, he figured he might as well show the design to the 'Coats. (And no, I'm not sure if it's a Cesario design, but it does have that look about it, IMO). Cadets -- hooray! (And I'm not talking about the wacky overlays from the past couple of seasons.) They finally got rid of the cheapo generic-looking "Cadets-lite" unis they've been wearing and gone back to their traditional old school look. Looks like they got the "frogs" back on the jacket and a real cummerbund and everything. I was pretty high up, so maybe looks are deceiving, but I think I liked what I saw. :-)

First of all, a perfect day and a great stadium for drum corps. Would love to see this show remain on the schedule. And kudos to all the corps, too -- all of 'em presented pretty much complete shows for the audience. Yeah, there's a lot to be added and tweaked, but none of 'em gyped the paying customers by standing still for four minutes or whatever, like I've seen at very early season shows in the past on occasion. Didn't see Spirit. Sorry. Glassmen -- The show isn't spectacular, but it works. I agree that there is definitely a lot of room to grow. Fairly solid performance across the board. Enjoyed their horn book immensely ... another good job by Robert Smith. Guard costumes are great. Crown -- I've become a total Crowniac over the past couple of seasons. They had my favorite show last year and this might become my favorite show of '07. The horn book is absolutely gorgeous and this brass line is definitely going to be great in another couple of weeks. Like I said last season, they may not be the "best" hornline by whatever technical criteria you want to apply, but they have developed a really gorgeous sound. The "horsey" theme is almost clicking, and since their next show isn't until the 21st, it ought to be fine by then. Second favorite guard of the night, after Cavaliers. Expect Crown to be banging on the doors of the top six again. I would've had 'em above Cadets tonight for sure. Looks like brass & drum scores held 'em back, while visual & GE had 'em 2nd or 3rd ... which sort of fits with my gut feeling. Cadets -- what can I say? My friends and I, and apparently many of the people around us in the stadium ... from high school guys to grey-haired old fans ... thought the narration spoiled what might have had the potential to be a nice show. It's just silly, mostly. "Confessions of an emo band geek," as one said. Altho that prob. wouldn't work as a show title. I mean, honestly ... it's just sad. And let me say that I don't always hate all amplified voice. I thought Crossmen used it brilliantly last season. Here's the problem, though: when you're thinking more about the talking than about the music and visuals, then you're being distracted from what you came to see ... basically, we couldn't concentrate on the show for all the nonsense. And, you know, when (as an artist) you're trying to be serious and dramatic, but the audience is laughing, then something needs tweaked. I'm sure Hop & Co. will make a lot of changes over the coming weeks, but I don't see how this one will ever be top-five caliber. I've been a Cadets fan for 20 years now, so it's painful for me to bang on 'em, but I really didn't like this show. Their horns sound good, though, when you actually remember to listen to them. I'm hoping a lot of rewrites are yet to come. Bluecoats -- didn't quite click for me, but still awesome for June 16th. This show'll be a real treat very soon. This could possibly become one of my favorite 'Coats shows ever, actually. I'm eagerly looking forward to how it'll be evolving over the course of the summer. There's tons of potential here and I think this corps is gonna be a holy terror come August! Just solid, solid, solid across the board. Watching the evolution of the 'Coats from a very popular and entertaining "also ran" into the hardcorps contenders they are today has been quite an adventure. I've always like 'em, but nowadays they're really going places. Cavaliers -- wow! I'm surprised this show ain't getting more love from the couple reviewers I've read. I freakin' loved it, man. And so (from where I was sitting) did pretty much the rest of the audience. Yeah, it's not a collection of Billy Joel's greatest hits, but if you're familiar with his stuff you'll recognize a few melodies. But unlike some of their more "far out" themes of the last six or eight years, this one is definitely what any old-timer would call "accessible," whether you know the tunes beforehand or not. My hats off to the Cavies' design team! Of course there's plenty of cleaning to do, and I guess the final ~ minute of their show isn't on the field yet ... but man! I haven't seen BD or PR or anyone else yet, of course, but I'd bet real cash money that this one is top three for sure. I'd have to say that I think the margin of victory was appropriate, especially in visual. And you can even see the spots where there is gonna be a lot more visual effects yet to be put in. Watch out for the Green Machine, folks. Even if you rolled your eyes when you read about their choice of music for this season, I predict this one'll be a fan fave. Didja like "007"? Well, you'll love this one, too. And oh, yeah -- the guard unis are absolutely perfect. Wish I didn't have to wait three whole weeks 'til I get to see 'em again.

Forget "America/O Canada" and the Champions Fanfare ... bring back the real traditional retreat format with each corps playing themselves off the field one by one and trooping past the champion! (That's all I have to say about that. :) )

But how can we add 15 members to the corps if we have to fill those seats up with prop handlers? ^0^

According to his proposal, Hopkins seems to think those things won't be much of a factor. I'm dubious about that, though. Is there really a lot of extra room on the busses these days, like Hopkins says?

Well ... there's a few really 'gung-ho' college bands, but generally it's not supposed to be anywhere near as intense as drum corps. It's just supposed to be fun. Sure, you want to sound good and look decent, but it's about entertaining a crowd that generally knows nothing about music. There isn't any higher purpose, unless you count 'tradition.'

Then they could almost qualify to march in the Rose parade ... they wouldn't even have to be any good!

Like EKBari said in reference to electionic instruments, "Does this benefit the junior corps activity as a whole or does it simply give the top corps more of a competitive edge?" In the case of the 150-limit, the answer is clear. edit: Wow ... I quote someone from another thread at the exact same moment that he's posting to this one!

Define "deserve." If you're a tenth or two back in most other captions, but well ahead in one or two, in my mind you ("you" as in "the whole corps") deserves to win the show, if that's how the numbers add up. They still would've won the championship, but it's interesting to note that in 1991, Star of Indiana didn't win a single caption outright, though that was under an older adjudication system. They tied BD in Brass, there was a three-way tie in Percussion, and they placed second or third in Visual. Looking at the recaps on fromthepressbox.com, I see that they won overall GE despite the fact that none of the three GE judges had them in first place! In fact, only two of the nine judges had them in first place, and they ended up winning by 0.7! I'm sure there's some more recent examples under the current system, but I'm not as big a numbers junkie as I used to be and I don't wanna have to look to hard to find facts that I don't remember. :)

I know this isn't part of the proposal, but I'm just putting it forth as food for thought -- what if there was a limit to the number of "prop folks" (say, four or six) and they had to meet DCI's age restrictions just like any other corps member? I'd be fine with that, but not with an indefinite number of staffers having the capacity to have a direct impact during the performance. As far as this proposal goes, you could have one corps with no props at all against another corps with a dozen or more people, probably staffers over the age of 22, moving junk around on the field. Like others have said, if you're on the field, you should have to be part of the corps.

Right. One corps could easily win more individual captions, each by a small margin, and still lose to another corps that is especially outstanding in one or two other areas. If my Percussion score is that much better than yours, I'd think that my corps deserved to win even if a greater number of judges had you in first place. If corps A wins Music Ensemble by 0.2 and corps B wins Brass and Percussion by 0.1 each, which corps has a better musical program? Besides, with eight captions, especially at regular-season shows with a small number of top-tier corps, it seems very likely to me that you could have a lot of situations where, for example, the Cadets win 4 captions and Phantom Regiment takes the other 4. Then what? You use the numerical score as a tie-breaker?

"something so immediately recognizable in pop culture ... becomes that much more difficult to create a show that will appeal to the audience" ... Sound familiar?

I say if you can't handle the props, leave 'em out of the show.

You and I think a lot alike. That's exactly what I thought when I read the proposal.

Sounds like you're both suggesting that no corps should ever play any music that's well-known or popular!

Exactly.

If the movie music is any good, you don't need to be able to see what's going on in order to enjoy it. I've never seen "On the Waterfront" or most of the Alfred Hitchcock movies, but I know the music is great and can translate very well to the field. And I loved the Freelancer's version of "Jim's New Life" long before I ever saw "Empire of the Sun." I think that Howard Shore's music from the LotR trilogy easily fits into the same category as those compositions. Probably not quite on the same level as "On the Waterfront," needless to say, but it's still darn good stuff that can easily be appreciated on its own terms. And the color guard certainly doesn't need to do a literalistic interpretation of the music in order to portray it to the audience. (I remember that Les Etoiles played a lot of film music, and I don't think their shows ever tried to tell you "about" the films that the music came from. edit: in fact, a non-literal interpretation is usually better, IMO) If it's good music, then it's good music and some film music is just as capable of standing on its own as any other form of theatrical music. ... somehow that statement doesn't seem quite right to me. LOL ... see some Sondheim shows and see if you still think that. - - If you ask me, in most of the best musicals, "Cats" notwithstanding, if the music doesn't compliment the story it's not going to be a very interesing show! How often do the lyrics of songs from musicals written these days even make sense outside of the story? Sure, you want the music to be great, but the book usually has to be worthwhile, too. (edit: Well, come to think of it, I guess there are a lot of musicals of both kinds. Some where the story is just a framework for the music and others -- like 'RENT', any Sondheim show, and maybe even 'Miss Saigon' -- where the songs are a vehicle for the storyline. Most are somewhere in between.) Be that as it may, though, good music from any outside venue should be fair game for corps!

But after all these years, would there even still be a parade if it weren't for the stupid football game? :D

For real. How many of us have had the experience of going over to the busses after a performance and saying to a marching member we know, "Man, you guys were great. I loved it!" And then our friend replies, "Aw, geez, man ... we sucked tonight ..." B)

I always go into each season hoping that all the corps, no matter what they're playing, will perform it in such a way that the audience can appreciate it. - - Sadly, that's not always the case.

OT ... but please, for the love of all that's holy ... don't refer to Spirit as "JSU." They're affiliated with JSU, but the corps' name is still "Spirit."

Is that because you love it or because you hate it? Personally, I think the music is fantastic. It's not one of the world's greatest masterpieces, but it's well-written and it's enjoyable to listen to on it's own terms (i.e. not just as accompaniment for the film). Better than some of the concert band music that corps loved playing so much a few years back. It'd easily make a fine show ... especially since the arranger could chose the best 11 1/2 minutes from hours & hours of music. One plus is that there are a lot of different themes, each of them pretty good, unlike a lot of movie soundtracks which tend to be a series of variations on just a couple of different melodies. As for the de Meij "LotR Symphony," I've always felt it was pretty over-rated. Like with Holsinger and all those guys, it's one of those things that we band geeks kind of like because we've played it in school, but there's really not a lot to recommend it. I know a lot of you will disagree with me, but a lot of that stuff that is written for HS and college wind bands ... well, I'm not a music major type myself, so I don't know the correct terminology, but it always seems to be lacking something in terms of sophistication. It's fun enough to play, but when you actually sit and listen to it, sometimes it seems more like educational exercises than something that' meant to be entertaining. Does that make any sense?

A lot of great corps shows have included "movie music." Just think of PR '93, Blue Devils '00 and '06, and "On the Waterfront" (Cadets '86, SCV '97). It s a fairly ignorant statement, anyway ... that the music isn't "meant for the field." If that were the case, well ... isn't orchestral music meant for the concert hall? Isn't Broadway music meant for the theater (... not to mention "Carmen," "Candide," "Porgy and Bess" and other operas)? Rock and jazz certainly aren't generally "meant" to be played by a 64+ member hornline. See what I mean?

That's correct. And for the first couple years of "Brass Theater" when they still performed a couple of tunes on G horns, too. A Star FMM I used to know in college told me that, at that point in time, the staff just never found a new set of 3-valve horns that they thought were superior to their old 2-valve Kings. Plus, they probably just didn't want to waste the money when the horns they had were perfectly satisfactory. Good for them.

What is a "corp?"