TAFL

I generally explain that I'm a trained percussionist--I'm a drummer and I can play all them fancy drums, too. Seems to keep the discussion away from playing triangles and castanets....

The very same. The music now is much less engaging, in general terms, I find. Are you serious? In the event that you're not just trolling: All judgements of arrangements are, essentially, subjective. By the standards I (and others here) use in judging arrangements, most contemporary arrangements we hear on the field are lacking in many ways. Thus, we judge them inferior because they are inferior by our standards. For you to offer that my judgement shows that I don't understnad music is so much fart gas; I can just as easily claim that you don't understand music, with just as much authority and evidence behind the claim. Indeed, had I eaten a burrito or two earlier today, I suspect my charge would have much greater ...um, impact.

Yes, we have listened. Indeed, everything that's been posted thus far lamenting how inferior the contemporary arrangements are comes of listening to them and comparing them to old arrangements.

Bass clef parts are non-transposing, so write them in concert key. You only have to worry about what key the low brass horns are in if you're writing treble clef parts for them.

Stop being reasonable. A reply along the lines of "It takes some real delusions to think that new fans and potential marchers will be turned on by obscure tunes they'd never have on their iPods and pretentious wannabe music snob staples." Keeps from confusing them unduly.

Our mix, when we have all the parts covered, runs as many mellos as sopranos and baris, so we'd have a mix of 6/6/6/2. The sops, mellos, and baris are split two ways each.

Yeah. Our youngest horn player up through last season played using an adapter and frenchie mouthpiece. He does the same in his high school marching band. He prefers the feel of that mouthpiece.

Shoot, I've had to write a couple of shows without benefit of that crutch called a "battery." The first show we did minimized the need for a battery and those 8-count breaks stood out in their silent glory when we performed. The past two years, I wrote with the thought in mind that we might not have a battery so the horns have to carry the whole thing. Makeshift motto: "Have horn line, will perform!" We're not going to add A&E, even should DCA allow such an abomination in the future. Jurassic Drum Corps all the way.

As "modern DCI drum corps" is not the actual definition of "drum corps," then one can be a fan of drum corps while not being a fan of modern DCI drum corps. One can be a fan of drum corps in general without being a fan of one particular facet of drum corps. I know, I know...elementary reasoning can be difficult after too much Kool Aid.

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It is incorrect. The fact that many people use apostrophes incorrectly does not make such use correct. The second acronym in your example actually means "Meal, Ready to Eat" and the acronym is singular. When changing the acronym to plural, then adding the "s" to the end is correct. "Meal" would be changed to "meals" only when writing out the originating phrase. It would be correct to write of the multiple "A"s on the report card, as each A is unlikely to possess much of anything. Note how the letter grade is specified by the use of quotes and the plural "s" simply added to indicate multiple such grades.

What utter nonsense. an alum could have spent the last three decades donating time and money and never have had any effect on the direction of show design. Indeed, many alums have donated regularly over the years and don't care for what appears on the field now. I don't blame anybody for walking away when they quit enjoying what appears on the field, for they have no obligation to continue to put time and money into anything that doesn't provide them with enjoyment.

As I've reported before, many of the people who helped me find drum corps no longer support DCI. That's just with the changes over the past 15 years. I don't know why anybody would think it's difficult for fans to walk away from DCI when it happens quite a bit.

Teaching swing is more difficult than teaching any straight feel figures. Most musicians do *not* "have swing in their blood." It can be done, though. We have one experienced jazz player in our horn line, yet can swing decently now that we've spent time on swing charts. I marked the articulations on the parts instead of expecting everybody to automatically add them in, then taught syllables when we were learning the parts. It's still more mechanical than an experienced swing band would play, though loose enough to make for an enjoyable listen.

Don't apologize for that. I'm a drummer. I'm also the arranger for our little corps. I've loved dissonance from the time I got to dive into the score for Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (I was 15 at the time). BD's arrangement of Kenton's music left me cold--and I'm part of the prime audience* for that particular music! * Meaning I know the original tunes and greatly enjoy them.

The fans might pass out from hearing accessible music. Too big an insurance risk. Can't do it. I've taken up taxi driving, which allows me to program the music I want to listen to all day. I have a lot of jazz from the 20s through 40s that I play. I've gotten comments from several passengers about the music. What tickles me to death is that they've universally been positive comments, to the point of asking what radio station it might be and who was performing--indicating an interest in further listening. That includes the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Folks aren't left cold by the dissonance Kenton's band played, nor are they put off by not recognizing the tunes. They *like* that unknown, dissonant jazz. Well, they like it when it's arranged in an easily accessible fashion. If you're putting off listeners with Kenton's music during a show, you're doing something wrong, I'm thinking. Sort of speaks to the notion that arguing for accessible arrangements means only familiar tunes can be used. It also speaks to the notion that dissonance is automatically going to turn off listeners and thus limit what can be played in shows. Both of those notions are shown to be unsupportable, at least, in the setting of my taxi. Folks like dissonant tunes that they don't know, if those tunes are arranged in a fashion they can relate to. At least, that's how it works out in my taxi. One can argue that only weirdos from other planets ride in my taxi and so it has no bearing on the rest of the world, though one shouldn't then be surprised by lots of people laughing nearby. I get much the same response from the music of Basie's band, Ellington's band, Miller's band, and even a whole slew of earlier bands unrecognized by almost everybody. (Except for the elderly. Had a wonderful chat about KC jazz with a lovely lady who grew up listening to Bennie Moten's band, the Clouds of Joy, Jay Shann, and so on. I found that I have one of her favorite tunes by Moten's band in my collection. Bonding over music with a woman almost twice my age--she's almost ninety--was cool.)

Hogwash. Many of the people who were instrumental in turning me onto drum corps all those years ago no longer attend shows or even follows scores because show designs left them bored and indifferent several years back. Claims that the direction DCI has taken (the group of corps taken as a whole) hasn't driven fans away is complete and utter hogwash. I've spoken with too many people whom I know to have been serious fans in years past who aren't interested any more to even consider your claim anything resembling credible. Please, do stop; it's undignified.

"...that we’re not maintaining an audience because people aren’t that interested in the classical, creative, avant-garde approach." I wouldn't use "avante-garde" to describe anything about any drum corps show. Please....

The complaint, it appears, is that the repertoire lists tunes that are then unrecognizable when played. A tune is purported to be, say, from a song by Billy Joel, and the music played on the field is unrecognizable as such. Or arranged in such a disjointed fashion that listeners get annoyed trying to follow along. Or new music that would be warmly appreciated were it not also arranged in such fashion. I know...it's so much easier to respond to a caricature of a person's position....

Plus being familiar with West Side Story, plus Kenton (and many other jazz performers) have been played in many different settings over the years that it's safe to say at least a portion of the audience has heard Malaguena before, and so on. Unless one posits an audience of teenagers who've listened only to Top 40 radio and MTV in their lives.

Lots of folks seemingly unable to figure out that the drum is level so there's no need for a different grip on the left hand--it's a weird fetish, it is.

My favorite song about the current wars: American Idiot, by Green Day.

There's something in the kool aid that causes that sort of nonsense.

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At the time I described that show as "the best executed turd I've ever seen." In keeping with your meat analogy, I gues I'd describe it as "prime rib au excrement."