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Tekneek

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Everything posted by Tekneek

  1. Youtube has some video of Notre Dame doing Super Mario Bros. It sounds pretty good and the drill was good, too... A lot of fun anyway.
  2. Wait a minute. I thought DCI was the elite marching circuit? If marching band is already vastly superior, why are so many people even still interested in drum corps at all? I thought we had to change the rules so more could experience the elite drum corps world. Now I read that drum corps sucks compared to band. Why would they even want to bother with drum corps at all? Wouldn't it be boring after all the incredible innovations that marching band excites millions with every fall? The reasons this change must be made appear to move around and contradict themselves.
  3. Are you saying that drum corps will die without woodwinds? They are the savior waiting around the bend? Or are you talking about some other innovation lurking out there that will make drum corps bigger than it has ever been before? I'm just curious about what you're getting at.
  4. I'm just questioning how it won't change anything. It's ok, though. I'm tired of talking about the bandification of drum corps. I have no doubt that you people will get your way. I can only hope that the marketplace demonstrates the error of your ways and ticket/merchandise sales plummet as it becomes BOA-Summer. Years later, when DCI is struggling for survival, it will be too late to turn back the clock. Hopkins may get his "Supercorps" concept by default, but it won't be selling out a national tour like he imagines it will. Good luck with it.
  5. They should stop a run-through just for the woodwinds to protect their instruments? Based on my own experience, there had to be a clear and present danger to your life for a run-through to be stopped. If they don't stop it, those woodwind players will get killed or at least bring about some injuries by making mad dashes for instrument cases (besides, I cannot remember ever having cases near the practice field at any site we were at all summer). It would definitely change the way drum corps works.
  6. Hopefully more scholarships and sponsorships can come in to help fill some of the void. It's a shame that some fat cat oil exec has never been hooked in by the activity like Bill Cook was. There is enough money flowing through those people and companies to make tour almost free for everybody in every active DCI corps.
  7. Maybe I am arguing semantics with you. An advantage may exist because of the instrumentation of a drum corps, but they weren't "given" that advantage. A drum and bugle corps being brass and percussion goes back quite a ways. It was not something they dreamed up as a way to keep woodwind players locked out, was it? Perhaps it is just too bad that drum and bugle corps replaced the drum and fife corps.
  8. They have not been 'given' anything. It's just unfortunate that bugles weren't woodwinds. When I marched, I had about 2 or 3 weeks of brass experience and it was roughly 7 years before. I learned the Euph from the ground up. I had only played percussion instruments in the years between. You can learn it if you want to.
  9. If I really wanted to march drum corps, and the only openings were in woodwinds, and the corps would teach me how to play? I would be all over it. In my opinion, anybody that would balk at that is not mentally prepared for drum corps. At least half of it, to me, is having the attitude that you will do whatever it takes to be a part of it. Not just what you think is fancy enough for your perceived status in the world. Anybody coming in with those notions is probably not ready to invest the blood, sweat, and tears required to push through to the end.
  10. It doesn't seem to be very hard to break down some of the arguments they try to make. If there were so many dedicated woodwind players that really wanted to do drum corps at any cost, every corps would surely be maxed out and be teaching them how to play whatever instrument they could. I bet 'Open Class' would relish the opportunity to teach new instruments to the already musically trained woodwind players. Having figured it out, I cannot understand why anybody would want these kind of people inside their corps with or without a rule change. I can just imagine this... "Open Class corps suck and I am too good for that. Why don't you just let me play my clarinet in your drum and bugle corps instead?" If I ran a corps, I would write that person's name down and never let them in (even if they did finally become a good horn player.)
  11. Let me make sure I understand this. We should change the instrumentation rules to make it easier for people to join that are already passing on opportunities to learn the instrument within a drum corps? Are there any other rule changes we can come up with to pacify those who are too arrogant to earn their way in? Maybe rehearsal time limits? Quality of field requirements? Quality of food requirements? Perrier available at all times?
  12. The issue is changing drum corps to be marching band, when marching band as a competitive endeavor draws less support than drum corps does (to my knowledge, if it does just as well or better then please enlighten me).
  13. Are there no Open Class corps that they could find a spot with? Maybe they should set their sights a little lower, given their admitted competitive disadvantage. Not lobby to change the rules. They just need to get the skills to make the cut and I suspect there are opportunities out there somewhere in drum corps for someone with musical training that demonstrates a dedication to learn the new instrument. This is beginning to sound like they just don't like that they cannot pick up a brand new instrument (to them) and make one of the elite corps out there. Do we really know that Div II/III corps have not been teaching people to play these horns?
  14. Are there really people out there playing woodwinds that are not capable of learning a brass instrument? Maybe they could learn how to play some pit instruments? Or guard work? I find it hard to believe that there are woodwind players out there that cannot find a way into drum corps if they really wanted to.
  15. Apparently they aren't at that level these days either, given the amount of complaints I read regarding college music programs not wanting students to participate. That's why I call it 'marketing.'
  16. It has everything to do with the discussion that was already happening in this thread. Drum corps is instantly better simply because of being marketed as music education?
  17. That's a good break from tradition. As of right now, Open Class is specifically mentioned as including international units. They should go on that night as well. I know the bando supporters would love to put that new class ahead of the Div II/III corps and continue to push them to the margins of the activity, but I think that is wrong.
  18. I found them! Yes, it was me that bugged Mr. Boo about it (Sorry!). I went up from the main menu and found the audio files that way. I had not opened 1981 (had it just over a year) until reading about the easter egg tonight, so I had not played around with it very much.
  19. So, were they trying to sell drum corps as some type of elite music education in your era?
  20. Then let's do them all together. Doesn't seem fair to send the Open Class off to some other stadium. I can go along with that, but I will never agree that the new bando classification gets priority treatment over Open Class.
  21. You marched in a different era. For today's corps, there are some parts of the score that members have virtually no control over. At the end of the day, it was far better to get an ovation from the crowd than a bump in the score. I don't recall ever being excited about the score, but I can remember being excited about the crowd.
  22. Good. They need to have their championships off in some alternate venue like II/III (now Open Class) had to deal with, though.
  23. You don't believe for a second that I didn't know anybody with as much contempt for the audience as some in this thread appear to be? You also don't believe for a second that when I marched we cared more about the reaction to our show from the crowd than the judges? You sure make a lot of assumptions about something you weren't around to experience first hand. I wouldn't presume to make such judgments about you and your personal experiences. I'd like to say I am surprised by this from you, but that would be a lie.
  24. You're telling me that drum corps was once only supported by the parents of the members? That doesn't mesh well with my understanding of drum corps. Which period was this?
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