CrownLeadSop

Drum corps are competitive people. Heh. What are you driving?

FYI I hate to burst your bubble, but the people buying those cars are almost always the guys that grew up with them. A lot of the reason prices skyrocketed circa 2007 was because boomers were getting to an age where they could start throwing their cash around a little bit and they all wanted that car they dreamed of when they were younger. Clean cars were hard to find and a run was made on most of the barn finds over the past decade or so (especially at the height, just before the collapse in 2008). Even still, interest is now waning, especially on American classics - see Rob Sass' great article in Car & Driver for more info. Source: http://money.cnn.com/gallery/autos/2014/02/14/classic-cars-bear-market.fortune/ It'd be similar if there were limited runs of recordings of drum corps from years past and the boomers snatched them all up. But otherwise, that analogy doesn't much hold up.

And yet everyone who owns a 911, Corvette or Mustang (these are the longer-running of the bunch, so they're easy) generally think their car or the one they grew up knowing and loving was the absolute best, and the new stuff is less desirable. See it all the time working in the automotive and classic car industries. I grew up in Indy with the Corvette as the Pace Car of the 500 (the purple/yellow colorway caught my eye the most). Loved the car aside from the flip-up lamps. When the C6 came around, I was in love. I don't like the lines on the C7, or the taillights, but I understand how many do, and it's apparently a fantastic drive, so I won't hold it against Chevy for making the car. Just not my cup of tea. Applying that to DCP - very few actually express their opinion that way. "The activity is dead." "I'm leaving, go have fun band nerds." You see it everywhere, though - see my post above about Porsche.

The irony is that when the 911 went to a water-cooled engine, people lost their minds. When Porsche started making an SUV (GASP), purists said the brand was dead. Then, they stretched the 911 out into a sedan - what a MONSTER!!!!!!!! HOW DARE THEY?! They will certainly feel the pinch of all of the PCA members who are outraged and won't let SUVs or Sedans into their clubs! Porsche had their best sales year last year by a very large margin, breaking 40,000 units in the United States alone and taking that money on to produce one of the most insane cars money can buy today: the 918 Spyder. All on the backs of the Panamera and the Cayenne. It's less about your opinion, and more about the way you express it.

A couple things: 1. The notion that "the horns are expensive and therefore shouldn't be implemented" is a flawed one, considering the horns likely get sold at-cost or for profit after the season is over. Even in the case of uncommon solo instruments (piccolo trumpet comes to mind), I've seen situations where Yamaha has lent horns to different corps across different years. In 2008, we considered putting a piccolo duet in the show. What horns did we play? The same horns used in Cavaliers' 2006 "Machine" production. Expense is not really a problem. 2. The most talented kids on any instrument are being lured away from the activity by other performance opportunities - many that their teachers fully endorse over drum corps because of the lack of need to swap to another horn. Will this get 100 new horn players into the activity? No, but it sure does make recruiting Jeff Nelsen's student for a solo much easier. To me, this is the #1 reason Jim proposed the rule (he recruits for the Blast! cast out of the recent classes of ageouts). 3. "I completely agree with the idea of not molding the activity to suit others if it means destroying our tradition" - unfortunately for you, the "others" portion of your statement refers to all but three drum corps directors. Plain and simple, DCI cannot keep that kind of overwhelming majority from getting what it wants. DCI is a facilitator for the needs and interests of its member corps. If you don't like this change, you'll have to take it up with the corps' directors and staff members. We have a decade and half of recordings of shows free from the burdens and tyranny of horns and trombones. We have even more recordings of drum corps using the mighty and good G bugle. That was drum corps then. This is drum corps now. It has - and always will - change. To what degree is determined by the organizations themselves. Luckily, if you don't like it, you have the ability to vote with your dollar. But if I ever teach again or even have kids (yeah right), I'll encourage them to get into music and will introduce them to drum corps, past and present, and let them decide for themselves.

Getting a laugh out of the people that are ashamed of the words "marching band" but are proud of the words "drum corps." I just can't get over the irony. I guess it's just all about perspective, isn't it?

I think we've been over this, but most drum corps don't really lose money on the horns they are buying at wholesale and turning around at the end of the season for slightly under. You'd have to look at their books to verify, but this was my understanding when I was working at Yamaha.

Kinda like football?

As good an alternative as there is, I'd wager, though it's still unfortunate. I love Minnesota's stadium for drum corps.

Okay, but that fact doesn't mean anything without context. Facts don't tell the juicy bits of a story, context does.

Good post, OP. To me, the most telling thing is the answer to this question: What is a Top 10 BOA program more akin to - a drum corps, or a college marching band?

Comparing raw numbers without assuming percentages does not really provide much meaningful insight, as it completely divorces the statistic from context.

My context is this: the world has changed, and drum corps has suffered as much (and in many cases more) than other youth programs that are on the decline. I posit that it has less to do with DCI's evolution as an activity and more to do with environmental factors. Again, we don't live in a vacuum, where DCI's rule changes are the only things that drive ticket sales, activity levels, etc. Market research is a big business and this is one major reason why.

What constitutes "official?" http://bit.ly/1dkzlWH

Fewer kids are getting their drivers' licenses these days - does that mean the automobile is doomed to failure? Context matters.

The social connotations posted without context don't really make much sense. No one in the "real world" and unfamiliar with the activity see marching band or drum corps as two separate entities, and I'm guessing it's been that way for, well, forever.

Here's the thing about staffing: if you cut staff members, you have to pay others more money to stay on longer. Staffing is not an hourly gig, you generally get a set base for the summer paid out over the course of it. So people that are planning to be on all summer long would likely demand higher pay. The people that are in and out (your band directors, designers and generally the A-list guys) probably won't stay on longer even if you do pay them more, but you've gotta have coverage and get instruction done daily, so you have to pay others to come and cover. Or, you could fire all of your talented instructors, the quality of the product would go down and you'd make less money in souvie sales, etc. No one does it for the money, but even fewer do it for no money.

Speaking from professional experience (I work at an agency with a market research arm), it's disgustingly expensive to get something truly accurate and worthwhile, especially in the "niche" zone. Here's a question for the class: How do you lower the cost of the activity - tuition, operating costs, or ticket prices - in any discernible way without taking away from the quality?

You are much more likely to get an amicable response if you are able to explain that the student will play horn every day of the summer. Not mellophone, but horn, in some capacity.

My guess is we know a different group of people. :)

Are you seriously telling me that I could convince Jeff Nelsen to let his student come play mellophone in the name of ... versatility?

Of the 20 or so I saw, the response was resoundingly positive. I'm on vacay trying to stay off FB though, so I was only on for about 20 minutes. And yes, Crown was about as good a marching band or drum corps as there's ever been in my book. :)

Ah, those are the good ones aren't they - the ones that... agree with you, I guess? The young generation can form their own opinions based on their own exposures and experiences. It's fairly immature to imply that they don't "think" just because they don't agree with you. The irony of this is that the Madison Scouts may have the most integrated group of current marching members and alumni of any era. The Nail and the various alumni/member mixers have always been a big envy of mine. And yet, I've yet to see any of those guys decry this change. Many have come out in support of it.

Most young people would agree that crying out on social media won't do much. Then again, I've yet to see a sincerely negative post about the change in Facebook among "the young." Some inquisitive ones, some curious, but not any negatives.

Most of your responses might make sense if drum corps was a black and white, zero-sum game that existed in a vacuum. As for high horsing - you're absolutely right. There are plenty of youth arts groups that you can support in one way or another. However, I doubt very much that the people saying they will no longer support the activity will simply fade into the shadows, instead waving flags about how the activity has changed for the worse for many months (or years) to come.