OdeToArsenal47

Music city hosting a drum corps world championship? Yes please!

I'm learning the Baritone and I've been a bad boy by learning everything on treble clef. Just, out of curiosity, if I were to audition for a drum corps tomorrow, would they be able to accommodate me not being able to read bass clef? I'm trying to learn bass clef but it takes a while to take everything you've ever known and throw it out the window. I'm going to learn bass clef (more material out there for it, no more using my old Tenor books), but I'm just curious if I could survive without it.

I go to high school in a pretty well off area and everything costs money. I'm pretty sure that the cheapest extra-curricular is around $100-$150. Band itself is somewhere in the $400-$500 range per year, not including a spring trip and an out-of-state marching competition. I think it's worth it. You get what you pay for. We have awesome equipment in every area. A several thousand dollar portable PA system, nice uniforms, plenty of horns that are all in great condition, plenty of techs, great show design, free private lessons, and I can go on and on. It sometimes seems like the band works on a blank check. We're really spoiled.

Gosh I wish VK was in World Class. I'd march for them tomorrow if they weren't on the other side of the country.

Awesome job by Music City! They've jumped like 10 points since Murfreesboro. Either the judge difference was the factor, or there was some mega-cleaning done. Or maybe both. But awesome job by BDB too. As much as I'd like to see Citations sneak up, BDB is doing great this year.

The Cold War Productions convoy will be making it's way to Blue Raider land! The Cosmonauts get to perform in their home town!

Ooh ooh, high school marching band story time. The bibbers I got for that year were really tight so my movement was limited. First competition, I split them while stretching. On top of all of that, I forgot my shorts so I was marching in my boxers. And on top of that, my boxers were bright green. Very interesting to say the least.

I said the exact same thing last night. That closer was just AWESOME.

All three of the Cold War corps are looking for that magic rewrite to jump into the top 12 comfortably. Peaking early sucks.

Just curious, this is my second time at this competition and last time I somehow missed all of the merch stands and warm ups by corps. Anyone have any info on where they will happen to be at?

I just changed captions for the first time since the first week of the season, so here's to getting back into the top 12!

A purging/cleansing/purifying of the emotions? That's how it feels to me. Like I said, all of your excitement/disappointment/anger/happiness/wonder just takes an exit, and you're left smiling.

For me, I think of listening to America the Beautiful after Finals. To me, it's just pure catharsis. All of your emotions just tend to fall away for that moment, to hear several hundred horns play together in beauty.

Suh-weet.

Ahh, uniforms. One of my favorite parts of doing fantasy drum corps: An excuse to make uniforms for my corps. You have several options. 1.) DIY This is more fun IMO. It lets you be creative in only the way you can. Phoenixfire made an awesome template that I've used in the past, and I modified the template to make a shako-less template, in case you want the corps to wear an aussie or helmet or something. You can find both of these here: http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/forums/inde...amp;hl=Template And here are my uniforms that I've done: http://s700.photobucket.com/albums/ww8/Bow...signs/Uniforms/ These uniforms can be done with any of the image editing programs. Paint, paint.net, photoshop, etc. Personally, I use The GIMP. It's more or less a free and more complicated version of photoshop, but with some practice you can get what you want out of it. GIMP is here: http://www.gimp.org/ Paint.net is here: http://paint.net/ Photoshop is here: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/ 2.) Getting someone to do them for you. There are avenues for you here and elsewhere to request a uniform design. I'd be happy to do a uniform for you. I'm not as good as some of the other guys, but I'd like to think that I'm not bad. 8two5 productions seems to be the guys to get uniforms from though. I've had a uniform done from them. They really know what they're doing and they really know how to get it out and looking pretty. Here's their site: http://8two5.com/ And here's how you request a uniform by them: http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/forums/inde...c=112334&hl And I'm sure there are others that would be delighted to help you. Any other questions, feel free to ask.

And usually my rule of thumb for open class is cash in on GE, find the best value for music and visual. It's worked reasonably well so far.

I second this.

Human Wave Regiment, on the other hand, can't afford buses and marches to every competition!

Play something that would otherwise be really boring, but REALLY LOUD.

I was thinking about this. What if all of the countries that do drum corps put together their pools of talent to create national corps, that would compete in an international competition? I don't think it would be that feasible, but who knows? The logistics wouldn't be as bad in Europe as in the US. Most of the international corps could do a weekend thing, well except for the US. The US corps would have to be more of a touring corps if it wanted to grab talent from around the country. Maybe this hypothetical US National corps could form and compete in DCI World Class (the members would be under 22) before competing in the international championships? Just curious about what you guys think about this. I don't think anything like this would happen due to money, but it would be extremely interesting if it did. It would be really interesting to see how people would react to marching for their country instead of marching for their corps. It would also be really interesting to see how countries would go against each other and how results would turn out. If the US did do a DCI tour beforehand, it would be a pretty sure thing that they would win (at least IMO, who knows?), but all of the European countries and Japan, that would make for a heck of a competition.

Bleh on the batons. You're on a 100 yard field. You're projecting the pattern to 150 people marching all over the field. That's no time to be using a baton. Batons are for more wrist oriented, precision conducting. You need to be doing more of the opposite. Maybe it's just me, but drum majors nowadays are too focused on their own conducting cosmetics and the unneeded stuff, rather than thinking about what the marchers need. They need the beats, they need the dynamics, the articulation and the feeling of the music, and they need it clear. The baton is a GREAT tool...indoors. Outdoors, not so much. Does it look really cool when Phantom's DM pulls the baton out of the holster? You bet. Is it beneficial to the marchers? I don't think so. Just my $.02. P.S. - I wish maces had a return. Maces are straight up boss. And they can work great in a corps setting. Look at the Reading Buccaneers back in the day. I saw some of George Parks' mace work at DMA when he showed old Bucs videos and I loved it to death. More corps need to take another look at the maces. Even if they just use it for everything other than the actual show, it would still be a nice addition. Maybe instead of constantly moving forward and progressing into unknown territory, maybe a corps could progress by going backwards?

Sweet, The Patriots are leading Open Class. I love live seasons.

In honor of the death of the King of Pop, Cold War Productions will mourn the death of Michael Jackson on the field, as all of the member corps take the field for competition in London, Ontario, Canada. The Cosmonauts, The Patriots and Human Wave Regiment will all be in London and will perform a standstill performance of Michael Jackson's hit "Gone Too Soon" after the last performance of the three corps. There will also be an accompanying moment of silence. Rest In Peace.

They'll pass them in 2011 or so. Maybe.

Holy crap!!!!! The Cosmonauts won World Class at Erie, PA by 3 points. I don't think I've won anything with them ever. 6 point jump. O_O The Patriots took Open Class by 1 and a half points too! And I'm pretty sure 77.2 is the highest score so far. I'm in shock.