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The fact of the matter is that no matter what you do, there will be some kind of leakage, but if you know what you're doing, it's minimal. While you could try to gate the audio to reduce brass leakage during quiet pit parts, you'd do more harm than good, because having a sound guy have to tweak with one of those to try to reject the field brass but keep the subtlety in the pit sound. That paired with the fact that percussion resonates with the brass sound, and that not all the brass sound comes out of the bell, you're never going to get all of the brass out of the mics, but you can do a pretty good job.

Please, let's try to keep this forum safe for work, gentlemen.

Doubt it, everyone's face is different. What for some people would be the best glasses for the job would fog up something awful for somebody else, and most corps are trying to cut costs these days.

Same thing with Euphonium majors that can't read bass clef. It's not that hard, you trumpeters, I learned yours, now meet me halfway.

EDIT: Actually, we'll see, I'll get a hold of you!

:( I wish I could be there! :( Why do I even go to college?

Just when you think it took too long to tune up a regular double horn.

Huh, it's still the off season, I see...

That's actually a bit of a different kettle of fish. Placement horizontally on the lips is generally regarded as something that happens, and ever since Arban, common knowledge has been to leave left-right placement be. Corners are a completely different thing.

FYI, clarinets are traditionally pitched in Bb.

Good Luck Cru! I wish I could be there instead of writing two papers and practicing for juries all weekend!

I found the best thing that helps in reducing the "break" between upper and lower range (which seems to be what your problem is from what you say), is through some very slow mouthpiece buzzing. Start VERY slowly (you should be able to at least pick out when you pass each quarter tone) gliss half steps on the mouthpiece. Start on a comfortable mid-range note (maybe G or C on the staff), and gliss the half step down and back up. Do the same thing a half step down until you get to the bottom of your range. (Exercise shamelessly stolen from Elliot Chazanov's brilliant trombone warmups) Through this exercise, focus on all of the things that should be automatic while you play, your corners and sound production especially. Try never to allow your tone to "break", and instead aim for a continuous, singing tone on the mouthpiece while you work all the way down to the basement register. Keep at it every day, and hopefully you'll feel the open partials becoming more connected. It's HARD to do, and it's not something that'll come quickly or easily, but hopefully it'll help.

Whenever I hear stories like this, I feel truly blessed by my public school education. I came from one of those rare districts that had great opportunities for AP credits (I transferred enough to come into college as a sophomore), music (My public school education was good enough to get me into music school without a single private lesson before college), and athletics (not my bag, but hey, we had some pretty good teams). I came to college, and being that it is primarily a music ed school, I was dismayed and surprised to find that many districts even around my state (New York) did not even have string programs, much less music theory or music technology electives. And this is not entirely a structural thing, while most music teachers fight for their life to keep their programs alive, somehow mine managed to fight and put in enough ridiculous effort to not only keep their programs alive, but to actually expand them. While New York does have a set of state-required tests that must be taken in order to graduate, they were generally easy enough that teachers (in particular history and sciences) could teach all they had to and then put in a couple extra units or extemporize on the areas that they and their students found particularly interesting. While it may be disappointing to see that the arts (with the exception of writing/literature) are not represented in these tests, I find that the arts can and still do have a good place in public education. The easiest way to ensure that the arts stay alive in your district is to make them an integral part of your community. Our marching band would do local parades in addition to hosting a show and traveling, our theater and musical productions would play to full houses for the entire run of the shows, and our orchestra would put on concerts that they played with a local rock group. Not only did this keep the music alive, it also made it more or less self sufficient organizations that would probably have difficulty being cut if they tried (god willing). I'm not sure if that helps, it's less fun to hear about things that are done well.

You see, the reason that the "big, fat, symphonic sound" can work with a trombone section is largely because the "big, fat, symphonic" trombone is much larger than your average trombonium. The trombonium as an instrument is generally more akin to a pea shooter than a symphony bore trombone in my experience (though I cannot speak for all models of the instrument), making the tone generally brighter, and more "marching bandy".

I know I'm getting pumped for the show. Can't wait to see you all again!

To cherry pick a point and then retreat away, for what show isn't this true? I would say that if your hornline is jazz running during the hardest horn part, then it is about the time that the design staff should be ashamed. The fact of the matter is that the parts where they were not playing, the marching is fairly beastly and when they were standing still, the hornline was fairly beastly.

Don't be giving away our secrets! Also, any instructional staff sees right through that, they can because they have done it in a past life at some time.

Generally, if people say "that sucked" and ask you to do it again, it is because they saw too many ticks that ###### them off, or they noticed a general sloppiness in anything. As anyone in corps can tell you, after you are told that you sucked, everyone dresses a little cleaner, plays a little more in context, and puts a little more into the next rep. "That sucked" is to be used when the problem is not a conceptual or understanding thing, but when it just "sucked".

Guys, do you think it's right to pay for corps using this new-fangled "flying money" to pay for corps dues? I don't think I would march a corps that didn't accept currency not in silver bullion.

It's still there, which means it's been pretty successful compared to a lot of the other organizations out there.

From playing on a small bore Dynasty horn in drum corps to my large bore concert euph, I can say that there is not much of a problem switching back, as drum corps always helps focus on breath (at least with every marching ensemble I have been in), meaning that there's even less of a difference when get back, as you're focusing on breath instead of the chops. (mind you, I am a 'weekend warrior' with not as much experience as others). I find that if you do have a problem going back after drum corps, it is usually more of a stylistic thing than a physical thing. I walked into corps, where they trained out my vibrato (to make the unified, dark brass sound), and while this is just ducky for ensemble playing, it makes solo playing a little limp.

Alright, my bad, I'm apparently spending too much time on my concert horn. Well, played gentlemen, statement retracted. However, I do stand by that there are several questionable design choices on the instruments, the most notable on first sight being the lack on a stirrup for first valve tuning.

Forgive me, I was more referring to the design on their Euphoniums and other low brass, where the leadpipe goes straight into the third valve with a mysteriously twisted leadpipe.

I don't think I would ever buy an instrument that makes something that looks like Also, I do not know what kind of inferior half-brain I must have, but I do not possibly see the benefit of a horn that enters in the third valve for apparently no reason. Not to mention the absence of a kick-back stirrup for any sense of tuning combinations with the first valve. At look alone, I would say that at best it plays like nothing you have ever played before. At worst, I would say I would rather be playing a Blessing again.

Guys, I think you are all forgetting the most important reason that DCA should stay in Rochester.