beavs

kids playing music in step on a football field its just marching band

....and thats why drum corps is more or less the same now as it was when the dinosaurs roamed.

Maybe less is more... For corps that need no introduction this may be very effective. Almost as if the announcer doesn't want to ruin the production with their inferior intro.

I guess you could say whats she is doing in the world of announcing is what The Cadets may be doing in the world of drum corps. Just sirring things up a bit. Adding a little variety... I've seen mixed reviews of her style. Seems people either hate it, or they love it. ...like The Cadets. What interested me the most was the likeness in color and shape that announcer has to The Mars Volta vocalist Cedric Bixler Zavala. (minus the rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) Back on topic though, I would like to see these new themed enterances and exits that corps seem to be using more often become a standard drum corps practice. I find that I pay much more attention to the whole show when I am instantly captured in the theme of it before the judged starting point. Keep in mind, I am talking generally here. Plenty of drum corps have very effective show beginnings when they don't let the audience know whats happening 'til the first judged downbeat. I do remember having some crazy announcers go totally off script and get the audience really pumped. I think it may have been back in DCM days though... I don't think I'll ever forget the "....Stiiiill Uuundefeateeed...." at one or two shows. I didn't even think about it until the announcer said it that night. I think it was the first time in a while I got real nervous before performing the show. Thats the kinda stuff I wanna hear though! It brings out the competitive aspect, AND the showy (is that a word?) aspect of the event. Think about corps members on the jumbotron getting interviewed right after their performance, maybe doing a bit of trash talking too. Ok, maybe thats a little to far. ...so I'm guessing no one is down with lights displays and recorded or performed music as the corps enters the field? Sounds like most responding don't even like the pre-show shows...

I personally am tired of the standard script before shows. Even still, i'd be ok with it if each corps had a representative from their corps do the introduction. Another thing I couldn't stand (with my relatively limited experience of actually watching live shows) while sitting in the audience was the awkward silence while the corps enter/exit the field...and when they are set in their opening drill form...standing there....and the crowd is quiet...for like 5 minutes....then finally the announcer comes in with the standard script. BORING! I remember people in the crowd even shushing others that were talking. The corps hadn't even been introduced yet! WTHell are you watching....the trumpets marking off their first set? Listening to the guard puting down their equipment? The audience is never ready for the performance with an intro like that, unless thats how the show is written (to just start out of nowhere), which is one reason I like how the corps out there are performing before they are judged. Its awesome! They get the crowd ready for whats about to happen. Its like walking in to the Cirque's "Love" show in Vegas....as soon as you walk in to the lobby there is Beatles music playing, and the staff is dressed in costume, with the whole place wrapped up in the theme. I wanted to go in so bad! ...but I couldn't.... (no tix that night) We need something to get the audience AND performers pumped up! Yes, its a judged competition...but its also a SHOW!

Last night I was up 'til a bit past 4am watching some TV 'til I fall asleep on my couch - My normal week-night routine. One of the best channels to do that with is HDNet. Limited commercial breaks, great HD shows, and NO "paid programing" after 2am like the other channels! (I'm tired of flipping channels finding endless infomercials talking up 'male enhancement' products) On HDNet almost every night, around 3am or so, a program called HDNet Fights comes on, showing random MMA events around country, and the world, in HD. Last night was a great event, showing some great fights in Japan on new years eve. What kept me wanting to stay awake during this fighting event, you ask?? The announcer!! HOLY CRAP!! I got goosebumps from listeneng to the intros of each fighter. Heres a little clip from one fight: Fedor Emelianenko - Entrance Of course, I had to do research of the voice work in that intro...and now I want to hear every entrance she's done! While Lenne Hardt may not be the best announcer for a drum corps show, it got me thinking. I hear about all these Japanese marching orginizations having lights and music shows for their entrances to get the crowd AND the performer pumped up....and I kind of like that idea... Topic: What could DCI, or its corps, do differently to make corps entrances, introductions, and exits more exciting? (by the way, this year has some of the coolest corps entrances)

'06 finals retreat, Phantom Regiment's mini concert. Don't know if it was just for them or for The Cavaliers....I'd like to think it was for The Cavaliers, since thats what made it so awesome. Being on the field recieving that concert was pretty cool moment. If it wasn't for The Cavaliers...then it was still cool to chill and listen to some tunes for a while.

I actually do agree. The whole show, minus the ending, is very musical. From percussion to horns, they sound and perform great. I'd say the coolest moment is the pitch bend section. Coolest effect. I love all the subtle musical lines the baritones have throughout the show. Phantom has some great music moments (its great music...) Crown, dunno when in the show, they are in a block near the front of the field side two, and just brass are playing, really loud. Cadets mellos, cool stuff.

I don't really see anyone out there that hates BD's show. Everyone I've talked to about the show, wether they like it or not, agrees it was very well performed and is one of the most GE packed shows from them....ever. Cadets, Cavaliers, and Phantom get a lot more #### on this forum than BD. When you're good people find tons of reasons to not like you. BD isn't special. They don't get any better or worse treatment. People still clapped when they played loud. I heard plenty of ooohs and ahhhs when they shook their shakos around. Everyone 'got it' when they stumbled and jogged around the field. I personally don't like their shows. They just feel long, and I find myself wondering when the end is coming and thats the worst thing about their shows. Plus, there is plenty more season to go... things change.

I'm pretty sure it was the "turf turds." I've marched the southwest regional 6 years out of the seven I marched drum corps (they didn't let revolution march on the field their home show their first year) and every year I marched the turf was more or less the same - Some thick rough areas of tall sticky green turf, and some slippery areas with a lot of those little black rubbery things.

Four Cadets fell, in groups of two it seemed. Two Cavaliers fell. I was waiting for one Glassmen baritone to fall the whole show. Feet so out of time the whole show, moving at about a third of the real tempo...I assumed the member was going to pass out. I did notice, I think in Vanguard's performance?? I can't remember..., a soft bass drum mallet had fell on the field. The judge picked it up and handed it back to the bass drumer, and not even half a second after the bass drummer dropped it again. Poor guy. ; Crossmen had a fall I think. The member even lost their hat in the fall. Had to pick it up while they scrambled back into the drill. Every fall had a great recovery though. Props to all that fell in San Antonio. ...just don't let it happen again. ;)

Y..you're crazy man. You're crazy. I like you....but you're crazy. The BK/BAC thing might be a personal opinion. I do believe BAC lacked the same control and confidence in performance that BK had, and the overall design of BAC's show seemed to lack any forward progression. BK, while having a pretty unique, and very non-traditional drum corps show in terms of entertainment value, had a great performance and much more solid show design. Crown was louder than Phantom, so by Phantom's standards of drum corps success Crown SHOULD have beat them. Other than that, I just expected politics to come in to play tonight, and figured Crown would be ahead. In my opinion it was a tossup tonight. I do think Phantom will pass crown later in the season.

While watching from the upper level of the dome, it seemed The Cavaliers had one thing missing from there show. Well...make that two things. Their ending of the show, and their VOLUME. Of course, this show doesn't demand volume like other corps shows do, but seriously....every corps out there could reach the top rows of the dome with mass amounts of enless volume... except The Cavaliers. Their horn sound is by far the best (their low brass is crazy good), but its not reaching like it could... and with all these corps this year that seem to be going back to the louder is better approach (though this year seems like a great year for hornlines), The Cavaliers just seem (mf) compared to all the rest from the upper level of the dome. Now as far as vis effect goes....who knows. I guess they'd look better if they played louder. There are a few moments in the show though, where I don't exacly know what I should be looking at... and feel like I'm missing something. That might be working against them. I'm sure they haven't cleaned all 260+ of their sets on the field, so they aren't quite as clean as BD right now. 4th might be a bit of a stretch though.... And count me in the 20% of people who honestly didn't get excited by BD's show.

I once marched with someone that swore by "doppler guiding." He told us he would listen to the sounds around him, and use different volumes to give him a reference of where to stand relative to the sounds around him. I don't know if he was serious... but he definitely wasn't on par, or on the same page as the rest of the corps most the time.

Its very common. Rarely ever successful... Marching drill shouldn't be improvisational. Consistancy is what creates the most success. You shouldn't be held responsible for someone else's mistake, and dot marching helps members devote their visual focus to their own performance of the show, and especially the practice and learning of their own show, without wondering if the person next to them is going to overstep or understep their place on the field. What about all the steps inbetween each dot? Those are just as important as the dot, if not more. If you are trying to stay between two people from one dot to the next you'd be taking a different stepsize, and a different path, almost every time you perform or practice the show. They are trying to stay between two people too...and you're one of them!! ...and you wonder why the corps lacks visual confidence, and your visual program lacks drill moves that "click." From one dot to the next, you probly see a lot of small-big-small stepsize progressions. Small after the step off, big in the middle of the move, then small as they approach the next dot. Its obvious I am very pro-dot marching... but I do believe you can march curved paths and still use visual references on the field, creating checkpoints and subsets on your way to the next dot on the field. There is no doubt that if you guide drill and march a clean show you must be a very tallented group. I've marched every type of style, from "The drill you learn at drill camps will be different at the end of the summer. The judges don't know what the pages look like, so get between two people!" to "Look at the people around you.... they are all idiots. Don't follow them." Obviously there is no right or wrong. I prefer dot. Don't get me wrong, I believe every member should be aware of where the other members are on the field at all times. Sometimes durring practice and rehearsal the only way you know if you're changing your stepsize, or taking a weird path in the middle of the move, is seeing yourself completely out of at line or form. Also, if you ever want to teach visual at a corps as a tech in the future (or if you aren't getting any tech attention because you're just that good) its smart to watch the members around you and take note of their tendencies, find solutions to common mistakes, and see what they do to fix it themself. Heck, you might be making the same mistakes! Be aware of your surroundings, but don't use the people around you as a steadfast reference of where you should be on the field. I cringe when I see people at the point of an angle or diag turn around, hold their horn in the air, and move people into a line.