Dylan Ford

When I aged out last year, they displayed all of these photos on the big screen at the age out ceremony. It was pretty cool. I think you can submit any photo of an age out in a drum corps setting (rehearsal, performance, free day, etc.)

I should have clarified- I meant more as a whole. There are wonderful moments in Crown's show. There are also moments that don't match the success and skill of the other moments in their show.

The Blue Devils are not the only corps that has a formula. As entertained as some people are by Phantom Regiment, I'm real fricking bored because I feel like I've seen the show for the last five years. I'd rather watch BD do what they do successfully than watch Crown try to perform a show that they can't clean or perform. Demand is only a PART of the whole picture, and at this point Crown isn't playing their show well enough to get on top of BD. Corps should NOT be rewarded for their potential, and I think that is what would be happening if Crown was over BD. Butttttt of course this is all just my opinion.

You sure do have a lot of energy, it seems.

Not directed toward you (since it was from a tweeter), but just in general: Really wish people would stop making those jokes/comments- it is definitely old at this point.

Here we go, Vanguard! Ready to see my corps.

I am so shaken up this morning. I live in Lakewood CO, outside of Denver. Born and raised in Colorado and so this event is very chilling to me. I hate to make connections to Columbine, but it is hard not to in these circumstances. I remember being in third grade and being under our desks on lockdown while Columbine was going on, since we were about 6 miles from the school. It's just crazy. I was in Denver last night for dinner after I got off of work, and I was going to meet a group of my friends in Aurora to see this movie at midnight, and we were debating between this theater and another theater in Southern Aurora. I decided not to go since I work a twelve hour day today at my two jobs, and they decided to go to the other theater in Southern Aurora. I woke up in the middle of the night just not feeling too good mentally, and I get on Facebook and my phone explodes with status updates from people posting about this tragedy and posting articles and whatnot. Just a crazy experience. I'm glad everyone I know is OK, and my thoughts are going out to everyone affected by this tragedy. On a day like today, talking about scores and debating about visual demands and amplification and Bb versus G... it all seems so silly. I suppose we just need to remember what is important in life. This doesn't mean we can't be passionate about drum corps and have opinions and share those opinions, because we need to be passionate about this activity in order for it to survive. However, I think we need to remember that when we get flustered, frustrated, or overly-passionate about something so small, there are other things in life that are more upsetting or more worth our energy and emotion. Be passionate and have an opinion... but just remember how that all fits into the bigger picture of our lives. The thing I learned as a marching member is to live in the moment and take nothing for granted. Yes, we need to think ahead and plan for the future, but if all you do is plan and think ahead then you are never truly living! We need to be able to enjoy life as it happens, in addition to thinking ahead. Enough of a ramble. All in all, be safe and enjoy your life. Live in the moment when you can and live with perspective. GO VANGUARD! Dylan Ford SCV 2011

Don't worry, I fully understand that. Just sharing my opinion as much as he is, as well as everyone else. Just trying to shed some light from a different perspective than, from what I've viewed, the perspective of most of the posters in this thread.

Here's the thing... Everything you are complaining about is an opinion. But I suppose that is true for the majority of things in terms of drum corps. YOU think their show is boring and confusing. *I* don't. I like their show. I'm entertained by it. I understand it. YOU think those other well known shows have meat to them, and that's fine that YOU think that, but I don't always agree. YOU don't think this show is crowd pleasing, but when my friends and I were watching the Fan Network on Saturday, we all were really pleased by the show- we enjoyed it, a lot! And while I understand that yes, this is a competitive activity and each corps has the goal of doing as best as possible (and in the case of the Blue Devils who are consistently in the top echelon of corps, their natural goal is to win) each year, has it ever occurred to anyone that the Blue Devils organization enjoys the shows they are putting out, beyond the potential competitive rewards? Has anyone ever thought that maybe the Blue Devils get enjoyment out of performing their show and not just winning? It's a difficult thing to do something every day for three months when the only thing you like about it is it's competitive potential. I can't imagine that those performers and staff members aren't putting just as much emotion, passion, and work into their show than they would if they were performing "Turandot" or "For the Common Good" or "Reframed". You may not understand the results of their work, or maybe you do understand it but you just don't jive with it. Whatever the case may be, it isn't fair to say they aren't earning what they are getting when you simply have an opinion about the show. Maybe we should stop discrediting something simply because we don't like it.

Yes, the new sheets may address the entertainment/audience factor, but you need to realize that just because something wasn't entertaining to YOU doesn't mean it wasn't entertaining to other people. I happen to be very entertained by BD's show this year. Am I wrong? No. Are you wrong? No. NEITHER of us can get mad when things don't end up the way we think they should in terms of being entertained by a corps because it is solely our own opinion. In my eyes, the "entertainment" variable is one that is EXTREMELY ambiguous and not a variable that one can rightfully use to argue scores. Again, that's my opinion. Take it as you will. Also... it's not as if entertainment/audience engagement is a huge part of the score. I'm not too familiar with the new sheets yet, but I can't imagine the "entertainment" caption would be a super game-changing caption. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, though. I just don't see it having enough weight of the total score to be able to drastically influence results.

Hmm, news to me? I marched SCV and haven't really heard of a specific Madison/SCV connection.

Just curious - does anyone know why the Madison Scouts went to attention when SCV was announced? I don't think they did it for any of the other corps.

I have no problem with marching members deciding to get together on their own during free time to dedicate time to whatever they think is necessary- isn't that what free time is about?

Trust me, I know! Born and raised in CO.

Sports Authority Field at Mile High (Formerly Invesco Field) 1701 Bryant Street (I-25 and 19th Street) Denver, CO 80204 Performing Corps Line-up is in reverse order of appearance. Blue Knights - Denver, CO Blue Devils - Concord, CA Phantom Regiment - Rockford, IL Santa Clara Vanguard - Santa Clara, CA Boston Crusaders - Boston, MA The Academy - Tempe, AZ Troopers - Casper, WY Cascades - Seattle, WA --------------------------------- This should be a great show! The weather in Colorado has been extremely hot lately, so I'm hoping it can cool down. It is forecasted to rain a bit this weekend and while Colorado needs the rain, I hope it can stay dry in the evening for a few hours. Who is going to the show, or watching online? I will be there and am so excited to see SCV my first year as an alumnus!

As difficult as it is, try not to be limited by distance in order to march where you really feel you belong, or even at all. I flew from Colorado to California once a month for camps in order to march with Santa Clara Vanguard, and it was totally worth it in the end. I'll warn you, though, it is HARD to have a busy week of college, take an entire weekend to go and do drum corps, fly home, and be ready to start your week again. In the end, though, it is really worth it and you WILL make it happen if you want it badly enough.

The Cavaliers.

Why not? I mean, I totally understand that the "traditional" top 3 have consistent staff and are always forces with which to be reckoned, but why can't Carolina Crown simply be better than ALL of those corps next year- why is that so unlikely?

Yes.

So, other than the perhaps minute and a half total of body movement that they were doing, what did you think of the other 9 and a half minutes of drill?

I feel as if the judging this year really mirrored the thought of "what you did the night before doesn''t matter"; we could even make that "what you did LAST YEAR doesn't matter". Personally, I am OK with this. I have always thought that judging should be based upon EACH given night, not the trends of scores from the season, or what a corps did last year, or what a corps does historically- why reward the current corps based on what a previous corps did? Furthermore, why reward tonight's corps based on what they did (or didn't do) last night? I really enjoyed this season because I feel as if the season brought back the concept of each performance mattering, rather than a trend or history.

I really believe that musical repertoire is only a small percentage of a corps' "identity". The Cadets played Appalachian Spring in 1987 and made history with that show. I don't see anyone complaining when the Santa Clara Vanguard did that same piece of music this year. Both the Phantom Regiment and the Blue Stars played The Firebird suite in 2007, yet the Cavaliers played that in 1997. Was 1997 a particularly "ground-breaking" show? Not really, but why does a show need to be ground-breaking in order to "belong" to a corps? That's why I think no matter how famous or historical a show is, the music will NEVER belong to a corps. Any musician has heard this before: "Play more than just the notes on the page, play the MUSIC with emotion!" Well, that STILL applies in Drum Corps. Sure, Carolina Crown technically played the same notes in songs as various other corps over the past two years, but HOW they played those notes and presented the songs varied ENTIRELY.

I think this was just a very competitive year and really did show that a corps HAS to "bring it" every single night. Perhaps the Blue Knights didn't have as great of a run last night, and everyone around them did.

I saw that in Quarterfinals. A few people sitting around me thought it was really un-classy to wear rings while performing, especially visibly. Do other corps do this?

That would be awesome. I could see it happening.