Jim Nevermann

http://sorisomail.com/email/16993/exibicao...imperdivel.html

I still don't like the choppy, frantically high & low, frantically loud & soft, frantically fragmented music that corps have been playing. Now I don't expect or want "Battle Hymn" and "Malaguena" [sp?] from every corps. But for me, today's single-minded obsessiveness at producing "excellence in constructed musical obscurity" [my phrase] does not make for; does not come across as entertaining "precision field show music" [a more accurate phrase lacking]. That said, I'm reasonably certain that my counterpart sitting in the stadium in 1974 Ithaca NY, as PR marched into Finals for the very first time, opening with excerpts from the last movement of Dimitri Shostakovitch's 5th Symphony, was asking himself "What the hell is that fancy-pancy crap? Why aren't they playing real drum corps music?"

Really, I still can't think of any redeeming features for the Slingerland tenor carriers: the tubular or the extruded-strip versions. Those hard white shoulder pads on the tube carriers were devoid of any cushioning in any sense: all but worthless. To this day I have to wonder what their designers were thinking of and, particularly, who in management approved their production.

Moving back to the Seattle area from Illinois in 1982, I later taught a few HS lines here for ten years [though never more than one line at a time]. One of those HSs bands regularly ended their school year with a neat, extended weekend trip to bustling Victoria BC, at the south end of huge Vancouver Island, for the annual Victoria Days celebration, which always included a massive parade. Warming-up our band's roughly 20-person drumline, standing in a shallow arc, as always attracted spectators: many, of course, from other bands [some 60% of which were local]. One of those local marching band's drummers had clearly never seen 'American style' rudimental drumming and, as we soon started working simple, common 16th note 32nd note roll patterns/grids, his mouth and eyes opened and, in full uniform, he dropped to his knees, centered in front of the arc and...

Newbies will find this enlightening in several ways: non hyper-tight drum heads, match-grip snares, drums carried on slings [which meant that your forearms & hands were ALWAYS moving up and down with your drum!] and marching tympany --five here-- all featuring SCV taught by the legendary Fred Sanford. Yet much of this, in one form or another, is routinely used today.

Reminds me that in fall 1968 I saw the USAF Academy D&B [then an enlisted corps and not all Cadets like now] do a halftime, in which at least one of their lower brass [the late Keith Markey, maybe?] was playing a shoulder-carried horn distinctly smaller than a contra, and more like a bari... almost certainly a custom horn. Anyone recall seeing or even playing it?

And on the near horizon... DIGI-CORPS

(posted earlier in DCP's drumming forum, for your consideration) This from another marching percussion site: "I believe vibes, marimbas and a great deal of pit equipment are on the way out. They will be replaced with more synthesizers and guitars and basses and sound bytes from laptops and ipods." Mmm-hmmmm... http://www.walkaboutcarriers.com/default.asp And on the near horizon... DIGI-CORPS

From another drumming site: "I believe vibes, marimbas and a great deal of pit equipment are on the way out. They will be replaced with more synthesizers and guitars and basses and sound bytes from laptops and ipods." Mmm-hmmmm... http://www.walkaboutcarriers.com/default.asp

For me, the whole issue of "what marching snare stands to buy" is completely circumvented by a supremely practical feature of Dynasty's Wedge snares: their light weight. Only 11 pounds. No sore shoulders, backs and muscles. Period. Consequently there's no need to purchase, set-up, take-down, transport, store, and replace stands for them whatsoever. Stands aren't needed. The problem's solved before it becomes a problem. Wedge snares take up only half the storage space of conventional snares, too. And one final, very minor point: Wedge snares don't cost as much as conventional, bigger, heavier snares either... which means (dare I write this?) more bang for the buck. No, I'm not a rep for Dynasty or any store.

(click-through all) http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international...V5L?photo_num=8 Their lady soldiers MUST be better marchers than the guys: they march in heels! And they're definitely braver than the guys, too: they march that way in skirts!!

Those lady soldiers MUST be better marchers than the guys: they march in heels! And they're definitely braver than the guys, too: they march that way in skirts!!

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I have to paste it in my browser [it doesn't link directly] and it takes me to... http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=www.buens...;fr=yfp-t-701-1 Nothing about corps there.

Not a thing. Note, please, the "OT [sort of]" title, though in a few days YouTube likely will have vids of NK's HUGE military bands at those uber-political, saber-rattling festivities.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international...V5L?photo_num=8

The link goes to an unfinished page.

I saw him at a July 4th parade. He's getting treatment for sciatica, which may allow him to march again. Sure hope so.

OK... I watched it again just now: wasn't obvious the first time. Sort of like the Cavie's snares in '78 or '79 briefly spelling out "NICE T*TS" with their sticks.

For many years here in the NW, I've thought: how ironic that I'm surrounded by a vast local population of folks who are screamingly; obsessively; ravenously; addictively interested in the Seattle Seahawks, Mariners, Thunderbirds, Storm and/or the also-Seattle based UW Huskies football and basketball teams... when I, on the other hand, don't have the slightest, tinniest, most infinitesimal interest in any of these sports teams: pro or academic. Zero. Zip. My interest in football, for instance, extends to what the marching band does at halftime. And if no marching band, then I'm not interested. I taught HS & U marching band drumlines in Illinois and Washington for 12 years, yet never, ever found the football teams they played halftimes for to be anything more than the opening acts for the marching bands. So, yeah... try as I might, I still "cannot manufacture the interest." There's no accounting for individual taste.

I don't understand what you're pointing out or drawing attention to in that link, nor what the subsequent two photos you posted are for.

Ummmm... "get away" with that down-the-line visual, how or in what way? I just now watched it for the first time, but saw nothing extraordinary. The juggling at the end was interesting.

Dynasty's "squint" quads are the lightest weight because of uniformly shallow shells, as opposed to conventional, slant-shelled [and thus heavier] "cutaways".

http://jimnevermannart.carbonmade.com/ Please eMail me directly if any trouble opening the site or components.

My first year in HS marching band was 1964 and in drum corps, 1965. Back then, apart from instrumentation, the overall differences --in general-- between marching bands & corps were distinct. I eventually taught [always as a hobby] HS & college marching bands, jr & sr corps and also, for a couple years, judged HS & corps contests. I note that the former distinct differences --again, in general-- between marching bands & corps [including, certainly, their instrumentation] have become almost nonexistent. Corps & bands have become and/or are becoming 'McMarching' groups, separate and distinct only by whether they're academic or non-academic in sponsorship, if they use woodwinds or not, and by how "polished" and complex/simple are their shows. My sense --increasingly of dismay-- is that corps and marching bands [with, that I can think of, the notable exceptions of "show bands" and "mummer/string bands"] will eventually be all but indistinguishable from each other. And this trans-formative overlap; this merging of marching music identities has happened in roughly 50 years. Closing with a question from a higher perspective: apart from the differences or percentage in the numbers of groups, have fife & drum corps as well as pipe bands undergone such pivotal changes?