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fsubone

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Posts posted by fsubone

  1. fsu...as someone who has always found your posts both enlightening and germaine, I still have to ask...

    Is it now the primary role of the Marching Band to "pump up the crowd", just because "football just doesn't happen to be big at the given school?" If the school's football team isn't of quality, should the Marching Band equally share the blame for an inadequacy in the school's football program? VERY respectful question extended...

    My last sentence was more connected to programs that take college marching band very seriously, like Western Carolina. It seems as if most colleges consider their marching band as an extension of the spirit programs, who exists to support the athletics (read: football) teams, and pump up the crowd. This is usually what we see from most bands (i.e. Ohio State, Texas, Bama, Michigan). Shows full of modern tunes, very stereotypical drill, and crowd-friendly programming.

    There are programs though (mostly in the South) where the band is the draw, because the sports programs are not good. Bands like Grambling, Southern, Florida A&M, schools such as that. Their football programs are not known for being good at all, so the band show is what people come to watch. These are the big show bands. And the band should not bear any of the blame for the athletic program's inadequacies. They're not hiring the coaching staffs or recruiting players. They're showing up to play and entertain.

    There are also programs at all levels that run corps-style marching bands, and do take it seriously. It would appear most are at the lower levels of college sports, I can't think of any full corps-style bands at the FBS level.

    • Like 1
  2. Corps style college bands are such a drag. My college's marching band does the collegiate type shows that basically consist of minimal amount of drill formations and a focus on pop music. That gets the crowd going a lot more than any corps style show which is exactly the goal of a college marching band. Keep corps style for competitive marching band.

    Cool, that works for you. But that doesn't work for everyone. Some members want their college band to be really good, and perform a flashy show with actual drill. Others want the "normal college band" thing where it's just pop music and park-n-blow. Not sure you can really sum up the goal of college marching bands. Especially if it's a school where football isn't that big.

    • Like 1
  3. So then the question of how many college level corps style bands exist - maybe nobody knows?

    Probably not. There are a bunch in the East, WCU is a big one on the circuit. There is the college marching band contest in Allentown every year, if Fan Network could do some sort of On-Demand video thing for that, could be interesting

  4. Oregon is great so far, but USC... Stanford.... Colorado.... Cal.... Washington State....

    Arizona State could be great too, but UCLA has to step it up a little more.

    Eh, USC losing to Boston College and beating Stanford didn't help their image. We'll see.

    ...and of course since I live in Pac-12 land I hear about it all the time...

    I could see Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, and ASU ending the season around the ten win neighborhood. Cal and Wazzu are just bad though, same with Colorado.

    The ACC does have Pitt, Syracuse, and Wake. The SEC has Tennessee, Kentucky, Vandy, Miss State, and Arkansas. Every conference has their share of dead weight teams.

  5. Well, see what Tim K said, but also: all drum corps are marching bands but not all marching bands are drum corps. So Mr. Gratwood, at least as you have paraphrased him here, is correct.

    Except for a lot of Open Class corps that allow students of all skill levels in, and offer enough financial help that pretty much anyone of age can join, sure. He's "right"

  6. Cascades 2005- "Aerial Symphony" has a section about the Red Baron and other aerial combat.

    Cadets 1995 also has a lot of World War II imagery involved.

    I wish someone would do a WWI show, would have been better this last season with the centenary happening August 1. Maybe a show memorializing the ANZAC troops at Gallipoli? Did occur between April 1915-January 1916. So works with the 2015 season.

    • Like 1
  7. Bloo has probably been the closest recently. They've tackled Imogen Heap, Radiohead, and Vienna Teng in recent years. You could classify the two women as closer to indie pop, but alt rock is such a wide genre to begin with, you could make a case for it. Same with Blue Knights/Blue Stars and "To Build a Home".

    Vanguard Cadets did OneRepublic this year and "I'll Stand By You", Genesis did "Mad World", Watchmen did Red Hot Chili Peppers, Leonard Cohen, and Michael Jackson.

    That's quite a bit from this year. Pio did Dropkick Murphys last year. Boston did "Lean on Me" and "Falling Slowly". All of Crossmen's show could be counted in 2013.

    Just a selection. Alt rock would have to be defined a bit more if you want a full list.

  8. Go and listen to Peter Schilling's version of "Major Tom," then listen to Crown 2014. (Go ahead. I'll wait.) It is even close to being a similar listening experience?

    I'm starting to think that Crown may have referenced the Shiny Toy Guns version of Major Tom instead of the original Peter Schilling edition. It sounds a lot closer.

  9. He apologized to the band at large and the member he moved out of the way. It was a bad situation for all involved. The band was overtime, the kicker shouldn't have pushed someone, mistakes were made all around. In the kicker's defense, he is an athlete being paid millions of dollars a year to do one thing very well. Any situation that messes with that could jeopardize a game, or even a season. Apologies were made, now hopefully everyone can move on from this.

    • Like 3
  10. I'm not really sure where you get this. The only dance they did in this show was during the ballad and, I suppose, the girls sitting around the table during the snare feature. The rest of the time, they were using equipment...flags, rifles, sabres, streamers, tambourines, etc. Much like the rest of their visual style, they don't pound you over the head with any one of these. They show an extensive variety of styles and equipment. It is one of the main reasons they have won the guard caption for the last 150 years (or something close to that).

    I get this from watching them perform. They move so well when they do dance work, I think they could pull off a show with no equipment work and not get hammered for it.

  11. Interesting point. As nice as it is to have a professional football stadium with the finest playing surfaces on which to perform, sometimes all the markings (yard marks along the hashes and sidelines, large numbers on the yard lines, and especially the large logos on the 50) sometimes get in the way of visual clarity. Give me a clear field with nothing but clearly marked yardlines and hash marks, and I'm good.

    The numbers and yard marks create some clutter, but they help with corps that march full dot system. Most staffs of those groups will paint down the pro hashes/numbers for the members, so they can get a feel for the changed math.

    I also remember DCI covering the logo one year. Was that 2010 or 2011 that it was a different shade of green than the rest of the field?

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