SCTuba

I was also about to make this point. I don't think it's time just yet to write Bloo off. They've got a solid product that I could definitely see the crowd getting behind. If they just continue to plug away, clean and add and do their thing they could find themselves within a point or so of 1st by the time the last week of the season rolls around with some huge forward momentum going their way. So long as they pace it so they don't plateau this thing could go all the way I think. The progression of this season should be interesting and fun to watch at the very least.

Kennesaw Mountain High School had LED lights on their uniforms and props last year. WCU used them on their drumline last year too, although that's been referenced many times on this forum.

Yeah, look at the guard uniforms. That's a shot from Phantom 2012, a Crown picture will probably be put in as the final cover.

I've only heard vague things about Diamond before now, so at your mentioning this I looked the piece up. WOW. There's fantastic material throughout the entire work that could provide enough to make an absolute home run of a drum corps show. It's like Copland meets Bruckner meets a movie score feeling meets the awesome flair of the 20th and 21st centuries with a whole bunch of other things thrown in. This stuff needs to get put on the field.

From my own observations seeing everyone live, I'd have to give it to The Cadets. Their hornline as a whole was extremely solid, but their low brass was fantastic. A dark, rich sound while still maintaining plenty of clarity, which adds a huge amount of depth to the overall sound of the hornline IMO.

It's short for "Too Long; Didn't Read".

I'd say it's pretty likely there's a large number of music majors in corps nowadays. Drum corps experience is a HUGE plus for anyone looking to apply to teach band at the high school level, especially at schools with bands that perform on competitive circuits. It gives candidates a different experience than what they get at college (which is where most drum corps participants get their formal symphonic training, at least in undergrad) and lets them bring a much more diverse skill set to the table vs. other candidates. I also wouldn't be surprised if the percentage from BITD was a bit higher than you think as I've heard of many musicians and music educators nowadays who marched corps in the early 90s and farther back. As the activity has progressed it has become more viable and practical for the college music major to participate in for various reasons, and thus the percentage has increased over the years to the point where it is now (and I would assume it will at least stay around the same level if not continue to increase).

They're marching 12 this year, there were just 2 holes tonight it seems.

http://www.madisonscouts.org/blog/?p=1003 Official announcement. Pretty classy move by Phantom.

From what I've seen in my experiences and knowing people from multiple institutions, you don't have to be a music major to get a music-based scholarship. Most of the time they will require some level of participation within the music program (which could vary anywhere from simply taking lessons to having some ensemble involvement depending on what instrument the audition was on), and most of the larger scholarships will more than likely be reserved for the music majors enrolling in the school, but I've still known non-majors to get rather sizable awards for music simply by being able to walk into their auditions and blow the faculty away, which I'd imagine your son will be able to do easily if he's already able to play Rach on piano. So the short answer is yes, and he can actually earn a TON of scholarship money from having the boost from a music scholarship and being an engineering major, which can earn lots of money and incentives depending on what the institution has to offer.

This image shows the details of the right arm a bit better than other pictures.

That sound + Saucedo arrangements = This is gonna be good. I'm extremely excited to see the product the Blue Stars will put out this year.

2013 drum finish (via PR's Facebook):

The headgear here reminds me of what Ronald Reagan HS from San Antonio wears. This is the best picture I could find. You can kind of see how it looks in the background, and Jolesch has some pictures as well that it can probably be seen better in. That was the first thing that entered my mind when I saw the sketch, not sure how indicative it is of Crown's choices for this year.

Total rumor. I've known 3 guys that got spots in the Bluecoats' hornline as rookies with only high school marching experience. Coming prepared for your audition and showing a good attitude and work ethic can compensate for a lack of experience a lot of the time from what I've observed/heard about.

But seriously, I'm really excited for this show. Hopefully we'll get some concrete musical selections within the next few days.

He was truly an inspiration, every recording of the CSO from his era absolutely blows me away. We've lost a fantastic player, pedagogue and person today. I wish I could've had the opportunity to meet him and have a lesson with him, it would have been an incredible experience. RIP Bud, you will be missed by the entire music community.

Crown 2009 and 2012 definitely deserve a mention. I don't think the spreads justify the difference between the shows (especially this past year), though I don't necessarily disagree with the placements. One that I personally really enjoy as well is Phantom 2006, and any other year that show would have won, but Cavies that year were just crazy amazing. It was still remarkably close though and really could've gone either way depending on how you look at it.

This article needs to get some serious views nationwide. Brilliantly written with some very excellent points. Great find Mr. Boo.

This is textbook BD. I think this could help them win back the parts of the drum corps community who feel alienated by the direction they've taken the past few years. And with such appropriate timing. Well done BD, well done. I look forward to seeing this live.

This is going to be a monster show. We could see a huge placement jump from these guys if all the pieces fall into place as they should. If nothing else it's going to be an amazingly cool show, but hopefully competitively successful as well.

I wasn't necessarily questioning the value of having a solid understanding of marching band for music education majors, I was more questioning of the value that participation in college marching band would bring, especially being required to do multiple years. High school marching band and college marching band have become rather different beasts for the most part and are taught in rather different manners. Whereas a college band will learn a new show pretty much every week for the weekend's game, a high school marching band (at least in a corps-style program) will have a single, much more involved show that is cleaned over the entire season. Participation in college marching band does hold some value in teaching how to instruct and clean very quickly in a short period of time, but it doesn't impress upon future band directors the skills needed to clean shows that can have up to 10 times more sets of drill and more musical challenges that accompany the concept of first pacing out the learning of the program itself, and then to not only keep cleaning the show but to also keep tweaking based on observation in rehearsal/competition and also adjusting elements of the show based on comments from adjudicators. There's only so much that college marching band can teach that applies to the real world. Serving one year makes the most sense to me, but beyond that seems like it gets redundant and can only have so much real-world value beyond that first year (the law of diminishing returns in action). Then again, most of what needs to be known to be a successful band director is learned outside of the college classroom anyway, so maybe I'm making a moot point anyway.

Here's my take, as I've been part of two parts of his point and have first hand experience with it (though these are just my opinions). I'll start with the point about him talking about high schoolers being forced to do marching band to be in the concert band program as well. My high school went by this system, and it has its merits and pitfalls. The main benefit it provided is that all the top players were on the field, so naturally there was some assured strength and musical leadership on the field. The main flaw in this idea is a lot of kids only wanted to be in concert band, and resented having to do marching band. Quite a few wouldn't have been there if they didn't have to. It's a touchy subject once you start asking if marching band should be required or not for high schoolers enrolled in a band program. For one, marching band can be an EXTREMELY positive experience for students, in musical, physical, mental, and emotional aspects, and can provide for many students a certain intangible value that can be crucial to a student's musical education. Most people I've run into that did it in high school at least enjoyed it, if not loved it, even if they didn't decide to pursue it later whether through college marching band or corps. There is that smaller population to be accounted for though, and that's where problems are run into, but an all-volunteer system isn't *always* the solution. There are many highly successful programs around the county (Broken Arrow Senior High from Oklahoma is one that comes straight to mind) that are entirely based on volunteer participation, but the main issue with this approach is that some students may never give it a chance, so they may never discover that they enjoy it and may miss out on some significant personal and educational experiences. So there's where the two approaches reach an impasse. But as far as the article's point of high school marching band being used as a secondary form of entertainment at football games is a crazy overstatement. For the most part (the "show band" tradition is a prime exception to this), high school marching band shows are not something that would be considered "entertaining" by the average spectator at a football game, at least in the sense of what they imagine a football halftime show to be. Most high school bands are more focused on using those performances as opportunities to perform in public and are more concerned with success on their respective competitive circuit(s). So as far as that point goes, I think it falls kind of moot at a certain point. As for there being an overemphasis on college bands being a secondary entertainment, I have pretty mixed feelings on this. First of all, it is a tradition that many college football fans are astoundingly passionate about, so it definitely serves a purpose that is seen as significant by the viewing population, so I feel while it is "secondary", it is also strongly valued, along with the presence in the stands during gameplay. The place where I start to agree with the article is where it says students are awarded music scholarships for marching band to reward their performance more than enhance their music education. To start off, most members of college marching band aren't there to further their music education. They're there because they enjoyed marching band in high school and wanted to continue in college, or because their family members did it/friends are doing it currently, or even just to get a scholarship and free football. Then there's a fixture within college bands that runs into some opposition a lot of the time, and that's the requirement of music education majors to do marching band for a certain number of years to earn credit towards their degree, which can range anywhere from 2-4 seasons from what I've observed/heard. I fall into this category, and I can say from my experience and from talking to my fellow music ed majors that it really does nothing to enhance our musical education. It provides no experience that teaches us anything we wouldn't have learned in high school or would learn in our "Marching Band Techniques Class" we're required to take. All it really does is take time out of our already packed schedules which makes fulfilling our practicing and studying commitments all the more difficult. Out of everyone I've seen drop music ed and either switch to another music degree or to another field of study all together, the requirement to do marching band was a pretty significant reason why (though there were others of course). So I guess on one hand I agree with the author, but at the same time I feel like some of his opinions are a little harsh and critical of the role of marching band on both levels. Ok. Rant over.

I believe that was intended to be the joke.