cixelsyd

DCI did do that. Multiple times. a. In the 1999 pre-season, DCI established a band division. No one entered it. At the time, there had been a couple of groups like Northern Lights and Regina Lions who had already been touring in parallel with the DCI tour, and yet they did not sign up either. b. In some other year, the voting members of DCI agreed to endorse an anything-goes instrumentation status for two touring DCI member corps. Cadets were going to be one of those corps. No corps followed through on the opportunity. c. Now we have SoundSport, which allows any instrumentation. (This did not happen "long ago", though.)

If more corps embed pre-recorded announcements into their pre-show, the above complaints will lose relevance.

That is why they march 16, right?

Any rule change proposal with the word "palette" in it should be categorically dismissed. Seriously speaking, though, as others have already pointed out, trombones are not practical for world class DCI drill; therefore, the proposal contention that trombone players will be able to participate in DCI on their chosen instrument is disingenuous. Maybe a few can "participate" from the pit or in limited drill exposure, but those who wish to participate fully in the drill will have to take up baritone or euphonium, as so many currently do. So why do this? Trombones will be the next disposable toy for a top corps, like those herald trumpets Cadets used briefly in 2010. The concert French horn has no purpose other than as a stationary solo instrument. Bell-front French horns are already legal, so if we need a new voice, why not start there? Sousaphones add nothing new to the "palette", and the majority of them would still be illegal (plastic vs. brass). The "entertainment effect" proposal will only change one thing - a slight increase in judging costs. We already ask judges to decide what is "effective". They are already supposed to be considering the general audience as they make that determination; yet, as a group, they have become distinctly separate from the general audience both physically and emotionally. Words on sheets will not fix that. The physical separation can be addressed by relocating the judges. Reconciling the emotional separation would require seeking input from a wider variety of people.

That only gets you the 39 corps in DCI prelims, plus any other corps that has a repertoire. There are other corps in their score listings for 1972 that have no repertoire data, and thus do not come up by the method you describe. Wonder if there is an easy way to produce that list...

Not sure how to answer that. There are more corps listed in CorpsReps than what you are finding. How did you get your numbers?

Those numbers are inaccurate. These are much closer to reality. Corps have been folding all through time. The population trend has been downward throughout the DCI era. I think it is heading toward an asymptote somewhere around the number of corps DCI chooses to put the bulk of their support behind.

Southern California is a big place. What was meant by locally oriented marketing, by the way, was the idea of linking events with larger community festivals that already attract a huge amount of people. This was a strategy often used back in the day. If there are already tons of people in town, and you can siphon off several thousand of them to pay admission to see your drum corps contest, the corps involved can do well financially even if you fail to reach every living room and basement in SoCal with your marketing outreach. When someone says $800 - $2500, I take that to mean at least $800 and at most $2500. If that statement was inaccurate, and there are corps being paid less than $800 (or no pay), then my conclusion must change accordingly.

Many pointed questions there. I could pick at the details - for instance, the A-60 format (also known as division III) has not been dead for 30 years; it was done away with in 2008 by a vote of the participating corps. And there are simulcasts of small corps all the time, like those which took place Thursday of championship week. But when you ask if small corps are marketed equally to large corps, I wonder what your expectations are. DCI was formed by large corps, to serve large corps. I do not expect DCI to serve small corps with equal fervor. But they do provide these corps a place in the DCI universe, complete with their own self-governing board of directors, their own tour, access to other DCI events, DCI office support, and so forth. Obviously, it is not an optimal situation judging from the declining population of corps in that category. Solving that problem, however, will require more precise identification of the issues than "dead for 30 years". Now we have yet another glimmer of opportunity for small corps with DCI - SoundSport. It is designed to lower the barrier to entry. Naturally, to reduce costs, benefits will also be fewer (no appearance fees, no self-governing BOD, no Blu-Ray discs). If the benefits of event organization by DCI and inclusion in their web environment are not enough, then small corps will pass on the opportunity and seek out other forums like SDCA instead. I am glad, then, that there are other options like SDCA (and now, SoundSport) for smaller corps. I would prefer that the market provide several options for corps to choose from. Vive la difference.

You sure about that? Because if they are able to attract enough revenue to get the corps $800-$2500 each in appearance fees, I would say their marketing approach has something going for it. Would a cool website have compelled you to attend their shows? I doubt it. So rather than waste resources on web design, SDCA has taken a locally oriented approach to marketing. If it fills seats with paying customers, then it is a valid marketing strategy.

Then you have not been around recently. People have complained frequently about fluctuating volume levels on Fan Network. And levels on recent CDs are so messed up that it is pointless to even bring up the issue.

That is true. On the other hand, they say "This blu-ray disc contains performance edits due to music licensing and permissions that are not available for distribution:" - yet, they do not mention that there are also "performance edits" made to correct performance errors.

Was Ms. Moreno in competition that night? No. And thus, the account you give is not comparable to a DCI contest. Now, here is something that corresponds better to what you describe. A number of corps schedule a recording session into their championship week activities. The corps is recorded standing still, with preferable staging and acoustic conditions. Any number of mics can be used, and mixed optimally after the fact. Multiple takes enable the best phrases to be combined to create an end result showing the corps in their best possible light. You know this well - as I understand it, you have made quite a few of these recordings yourself. That is where the editing should be done. Ironically, by condoning such editing for DCI field recordings, we defeat the purpose of these special standstill recordings.

I chose Pioneer because in recent years, they only have one championship week performance, so I know they are not getting the best bits and pieces of 2 or 3 shows put together. Like I said before, if circumstances are as extreme as 1989 Blue Devils, I have no issue with using semifinals or quarterfinals as long as they use one whole uncut performance, and tell us which one it is.

Yes. Come to think of it, when Holy Name needed a new building and cut back funding to the corps, was that "bad management" (of the corps) or "good management" (of the church)? Depends on your perspective.

Could you name those eight corps? My count comes out differently.

In that vein, I would not mind either as long as the performances are identified for historical accuracy. If you take Blue Devils from Friday, just say so. But taking a solo from one day, a song from another day, and the rest of the show from a third performance - no. This is the record of a contest, and it needs to be accurate. It is unfair to fix mistakes in the editing room. They will not be performing a similar service for Pioneer - why should they do this for Blue Devils? If a corps wants to splice the best notes together for their own product, that is fine - but the DCI product should consist of single, complete performances.

If you are allergic to sports analogies, do not read this. You have been warned. Yes. Thank you for contributing this observation. It relates directly to what I have been trying to say - when I stated earlier how drum corps has never been sustainable, it was this behavior that motivated my statement. Drum corps all through time have sunk money into their competitive quests with no expectation of financial return. They are not operated for the sake of generating profits. I like to think it is more nuanced than haves vs. have-nots. For anyone interested in a defense of the haves, please bear with this long winded, sports analogy laden explanation. To start, there is a difference of degree. No one is sinking $10,000,000s or $100,000,000s into drum corps. There are no "owners", or donors of that order of magnitude. No, the entire budget of even a top drum corps is more like $1,000,000, split between numerous small donors and a number of related revenue streams (i.e. DCI revenue sharing, appearance fees, member dues, merchandise sales). As for why DCI does not do what major sports leagues do to promote parity - like many things here, that is debatable. Obviously, there are differences that render certain ideas incomparable (for instance, the salary cap on pro players has no current relevance to DCI corps members, who do not have salaries). But consider this: It is interesting to observe a difference in the soccer leagues that we do not have in America - the promotion/relegation model. Many of the top soccer leagues have one or more league levels under them, what we refer to here as "minor leagues" or "semi-pro". In a more developed nation like England, you could have four 20-24 team tiers of nationwide, professional soccer, and below that, more tiers filled with a mix of pro, semi-pro and amateur teams, in leagues that are more localized. Every year, the few top teams from one tier are promoted to the next tier upward, and the few bottom teams relegated to the next tier down. In a sense, you really have somewhere around 100 pro teams in England who are all in some degree of competition with each other in the grand scheme of things. This is quite different from American sports, where minor league teams (if they exist) are permanently installed in their tiers, do not compete with major league teams, and in fact, often serve as feeder programs for specific affiliated major league clubs. Two things worth noting in all of this: a. Parity is not as much the goal or concern of the leagues in this promotion/relegation atmosphere. For one thing, the losing team is now in a competitive situation just as captivating as the winning team, as they fight to stave off relegation. American major leagues focus more on competitive parity. They use it to generate more interest, and more revenue. Without the multiple tiers and promotion/relegation, the best way to generate interest in losing teams is to make them potential winning teams. Also important, top teams go on to compete in larger multi-national tournaments, which for some can be just as big a deal as their regular league play. Forced parity in the domestic league might hinder the ability of their top teams to compete with their counterparts from other nations where disparity permits empire building. As long as the model works, and a large enough number of teams can perpetuate the promotion/relegation life cycle, the league is satisfied. b. Additionally, in many of these nations, fans (like their societies and geographies) are much more locally oriented. A team that ranks 90th in the competitive pecking order can still have stable and sizable support from their fan base. American people are more spread out geographically, and our culture is and has been more travel-centric. So getting back to the haves and have-nots... we must realize that, like the soccer culture, this activity existed relatively happily for decades with hundreds of corps competing in a number of circuits on different tiers, and the ability to move between tiers to find the appropriate level of competition. The need for DCI to take steps to nudge the league toward competitive parity has not become readily apparent until more recently, when we no longer had enough corps to perpetuate the promotion/relegation model of those multiple circuits. And now that it is apparent, activity leaders have not responded because they are mired in a dysfunctional, archaic system of governance handed down from a 90 year old tradition of having the winners make the rules for the rest of the corps. If the haves were simply unwilling to let the have-nots get any pie, there would be no corps ascending to world class and DCI membership; there would be no Blue Devils B/C and Vanguard Cadets; there would be no DCI open class. Making sure that remains true, though, will involve a little thinking outside the box.

It would have zero relevance if it was zero cost.

I know that. That is my point. All that freedom, all that creativity, and all that time - and what was the one change marching band made that was most impactful, most successful, and most relevant to any current trend? The corps-style marching band movement! That sounds more like giving up, not keeping up.

How to convey this concept? No corps folded over amps. No corps folded over synths. No corps folded over Bb/F brass. No corps folded over 14-person pits. No corps folded over marimbas. No corps folded over vibraphones. No corps folded over tympani. No corps folded over tuned bass drums. No corps folded over multi-tenor drums. No corps folded over tymp-toms. No corps folded over rudimental bass drums. No corps folded over mylar/kevlar heads. No corps folded over 3-valve horns. No corps folded over 2-valve horns. No corps folded over valve-rotor horns. No corps folded over valve-slide horns. No corps folded over 1-valve horns. No corps folded over a nationwide trip. No corps folded over a nationwide tour. No corps folded over a longer tour. No corps folded over full season touring. No corps folded over rising fuel costs. No corps folded over rising insurance costs. No corps folded over rising leasing costs. No corps folded over rising food costs. No corps folded over rising housing costs. But how many corps folded over some combination of factors from this list?

Did I say sound systems were "the" problem? What you described is useless for pit amplification without microphones - certainly not a complete sound system. As for the quality, well, I am sure the salesman said it was top of the line. I will repeat this as often as needed. People in high places say costs are a problem. Rather than question and verify their claim, I am trying to suspend my own opinion on that and be part of a forward moving discussion. Progress is very slow, however, because every cost has a constituency that will complain at the first suggestion of cutting that cost. Are you just one of those constituencies, or are you interested in solving the problem? To solve the problem, we need to consider every cost - not based on its raw amount, but on how much it can be cut. Okay, as an example, you and others keep saying that A&E is a small budget item compared to food and fuel. But a corps cannot participate in DCI without food, or without fuel - those are necessities. Their costs can only be reduced in small percentages, if at all. A&E, meanwhile, is a cost that could in theory be completely deleted from the budget of a DCI corps. So show me a bigger cost saver than that - because that is what we should be discussing.

Usually, I ignore these sort of empty arguments. But traffic is light on this forum today, so here goes. Drum corps has never "kept up with the times". What does that mean, anyway? There are two ways to interpret that reference. The one that seems germane to the discussion is instrument selection. In that sense, the premise of "keeping up with the times" is fallacious. We live in a time of advanced technology, where electronic synthesis and editing have rendered the live instrumental music performance unnecessary (or as some on this forum are fond of calling it, "irrelevant"). There was a day when the prevailing popular music was instrumental, decades in our past. Today, it is out of the spotlight. It persists largely due to tradition, and partly due to ego and a sporting interest among pockets of the population. Instrumental music is centuries old, and is not predicated on "keeping up with the times". As drum corps - and marching band, for that matter - both focus on instrumental music, they choose not to keep up with the times. They are activities predicated on the fundamental use of dated instruments. Of course, there are other ways to "keep up with the times". Playing the latest music, performing the latest visuals, developing our own trends within the activity... those are a few categories of examples. Drum corps has never remained stagnant in that regard, even when relegated to slings, leg rests and single-valve horns. So there is no reason to believe that it would ever remain stagnant on account of not making frequent equipment-related rule changes. Marching band makes no such rule changes - has it remained stagnant?

And do not forget Corps D, who has no vote in this process because they are in open class. Speaking of which, I think your overriding point may be too conservative: I would venture that a minority of corps (with a majority of the votes) have the power to increase the cost of equipping a fully competitive corps. Even now, we still have 40 corps, and it only takes 12 to impose a rule change. Your idea for a supermajority to approve costly changes is a good one... but we do not even require a simple majority of the affected corps yet.

I think HockeyDad gave the most concise version of our point. These things are not "optional", so let us just drop that pretense moving forward. And now, they say costs are a problem.