Will Valenti

I love the fact that the Troopers are on the field at Finals for the first time in my lifetime (I was born September 1986).

Does anyone use MBP? Are any of the Admins on their forums the same as the Admins here? The reason I ask is that I've been trying to start posting on MBP for the last few weeks to no avail. I get a message telling me that I "do not have permission" to post, edit my profile, or message an admin on their forums. Can anyone help? As far as I know, I did everything right when signing up, and I expected approval to take 24 to 48 hours. I registered on May 9th. I want to get acclimated to those forums soon so I can possibly finding a few bands to work with during the fall. I know that DCP and MBP are owned and operated by the same LLC, but I don't know if anyone here can help. Thanks, Will

This show is going to be the bomb. I have seen most of the brass music and heard some Kontakt Player versions and I can't wait to hear it played by a live corps.

This is something that goes through fads and trends just like anything else. However, if you look at a professional brass section, the trumpets and tubas are far more likely to be silver instruments, while trombones and horns are more likely to be yellow- or rose-brass. Last night when the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra played Le Sacre du printemps, for example, there were 9 horns (two doubling on Wagner tubas), three trombones, two tubas (each playing two different horns) four trumpets and bass trumpet on stage. All four of the trumpets (including the picc) were silver plated. 3/4 tubas were, and I believe 4/9 horns were. All the trombones, the bass trumpet, the small F tuba, the Wagner tubas, and 5/9 horns were lacquer or raw. That means, by my count 12/23 instruments on stage were silver or silver plated. A small majority, but a majority none the less. For a while it was a huge trend for trumpet players to strip their horns down to raw brass. A lot of it is just preference. I have silver-plated horns just because the finish lasts longer that way, and it's easier to clean them, and easier to polish them up nice, and I'm guessing that's why corps use them.

I was going to post a video, but I'm pretty sure it would get removed because there's pr0n in the corner on the page. Meanwhile, it was of a really awesome German fellow going blazingly fast on a series of water glasses that were amplified electronically. I was going to suggest it for a 2009 front ensemble instrument.

Just out of curiosity, why don't you feel the need to use any capital letters? It makes long posts very difficult to read.

That's probably the most likely way someone will get booed off the field. I think people will try to be innovative with synths, but I don't think anyone is going to be outright stupid with them. Then again, I've been proven wrong time and again when it comes to how stupid some people will be...

The thing about Schoenberg is that he invented new methods for generating and utilizing pitches, but kept writing in an otherwise musically accepted manner throughout his life. Even his own students were unable to do this, and the rest of the world music composition academy ruined his achievements by writing wholly unmusical and impractical atonal compositions. I can somewhat foresee a similar situation happening in DCI. George Hopkins is a very creative individual with probably more of a clear vision for the future of The Cadets than he lets on. However, in the wrong hands, the allowed use of technology could get ridiculous, preposterous, and away from the traditions of drum corps. I think that technological and artistic developments are great for the activity, and fantastic ideas and entertainment alike can come from their addition. However, I can also see someone going way too far and instead of using the new tools as tastefully integrated parts of a drum corps show, making them the show and having the brass, percussion, and guard secondary. We saw this the past few years in BOA in a couple of bands that placed quite high. The thing about Schoenberg is that the public never accepted 12-tone music after him, but the academics live for it. This could be reflected in the fans versus the judges. Schoenberg never meant to make 12-tone music about the pitches. The matrices and everything were just a method for the rapid generation of a lot of pitch material, so that he could explore musical ideas without the element of pitch getting in his way. When Alan Forte says we should analyze Schoenberg in terms of pitch, that's just wrong. Unfortunately, other composers having read Forte start to think that way, and we get about 60 years of crap music writing. The point is not to make it about the electronics or the water or the oversized props or whatever, but to use those elements tastefully to complement an otherwise successful and entertaining drum corps. And that's all I have to say about that.

What does that even mean?

Actually, I think Covi was the one who provoked discussion about Texas. You know, we never have weird dreams in Connecticut...

BTW, this #### is hilarious.

Actually, the answer is "bananana."

And when DCI decides to do something else, do they all of a sudden stop being DCI?

Personally, I'd like to see PR do variations on 4'33" by John Cage, but if we're talking about a drum corps conquering contemporary masterworks, it would be nice for someone to do Husa. Can you picture Apotheosis of this Earth on the marching field? Or at least Music for Prague? Maybe those have been done somewhere, but I don't believe so...

I was thinking it too...