doylejd

I'll take it. Please email - Doyle.james.d at gmail dot com

Troopers have announced Ryan Burd as the percussion caption head: http://troopersdrumcorps.org/page/aboutus/educational-team/percussion-staff

I use six cymbals: a set of hats, two crashes, a ride, a bell and a china The trick is that I only use four stands, I mount the bell upside down over one of the crashes and have a boom arm off of my other crash for the china. This has been sufficient for just about every pop, rock, and jazz gig that I have played.

I thought Glen Crosby was the percussion caption head last year? Either way, Brian Stevens is an AMAZING educator who is far too often overlooked in this activity. I anxiously await what good things come from him and Ralph at BK. Their percussion section was stellar this year, and it will only get better with time!

John and Ian are not new to the summer. John has been working with Blue Devils B for a number of years and Ian has worked with both the Cadets and the Academy. They'll do just fine.

John and Ian are awesome guys with a great taste for design and innovative instructional techniques. They will do a great job at Blue Stars!

If you have Yamaha boards Randall May makes an attachment to do this, but it is very expensive. I've just always used the bungee cord method. Never had any issues. Link: http://www.audixusa.com/public_12/audix_uploads/Audix_AMPED_UP3.pdf

Robert W. Smith is the new brass arranger at Troopers. Press release: http://troopersdrumcorps.org/page/aboutus/educational-team/brass-arranger

I do not think it is inherently the staff turnovers that is as bad as it is the radical sweeping changes that come with them. This is particularly evident in percussion teams. When you look at Blue Stars since their re-emergence into Division I, they've had a clear vision for the percussion program, and Tom Aungst didn't destroy what Brent Montgomery had built, but rather refined it and built upon it. With most of these staff changes, we are seeing differences in how groups even hold a stick, and these aren't subtle changes that are being developed over time, they are just being sprung on members immediately when the new staff comes in. In the case of SCV for instance, when veterans of the organization are cut due to a new instructional team coming in, something is wrong. People need to put their egos aside for a little bit and for the sake of the kids learn to adapt to the teaching situation. Directors or Staff Coordinators need to find an identity that they want to create and pull-in educators to forge that identity. If I want my drumline to look like SCV 04, I'm going to call Murray Gusseck and Jim Casella or their buddies such as Matt Ramey, Brian Stevens, Glen Crosby, Ralph Hardimon, Brian Perez, and Walter Turner. If I want my group to drum like the Blue Devils, I'll round up Mike Stevens, Casey Brohard, Sean Vega, etc. These are off the top of my head, I'm sure with a little bit of research one could build up a program to sustain a "style" of doing things with minor refinements each season and continue to build the quality of the package.

I know that the outside looking in is never the same, but every year I take my HS drumline kids around to different drum corps rehearsals so they can view how different corps do things, but how everyone does it at a high level. Two years back, I was absolutely embarrassed when I took them to one of the Troopers rehearsals. A percussion staff member, I'm not sure if the caption head or just a tech, did a lot of yelling, but very little of it felt productive and WAY over-the-top. Immediately following we went and saw Glassmen and Blue Stars and both of them were class acts the whole way around. It's a shame, because I like the Troopers' style, but that rehearsal turned me off so much that I have always advised my students to go elsewhere. I understand that some groups thrive in that type of environment, but maybe that style of teaching just wasn't a good fit for Troop. It didn't appear to be on that particular day.

Obviously DCI's tour will grow as these newer groups would be formed, so the people in Texas, California, etc. will have to be the first ones to make the jump. Cali already has a few who are trying to do something like this in the form of Impulse or City Sound. As far as there not being a lot of students who will put in a lot of work just for a few regional shows, I disagree. I think that 36,000 students is a lot.

This is the one area where the WGI model breaks down. You can have a WGI Percussion Ensemble compete at a local guard show; my group has done it for two seasons where sometimes we'll be the only line there, but we're attached to an existing event. Either way, we only do 4-6 shows a season, counting our national appearances. Students will have to (and I'm sure that they will) accept only doing a limited number of shows to match the limited rehearsal time provided. Each group could just prepare for a swing of the local DCI shows. Groups in the Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas area would have it the best by being able to hit the shows in their state around the same time as the San Antonio regional and still have a fulfilling "tour" experience. After that, it would be the administration's decision whether or not to attend Finals in Indy.

Well in WGI this is addressed by making the classes about the skill set and not the tour. Personally, I think that would be a fine model to copy anyway. A Class has a tendency to grow faster than the other two classes, and whenever that occurs promotions are made of the other top tier groups to even the playing field. Also, by allowing A Class to not tour, after the initial few years, you're likely to see most new corps start with this model.

Let's be best friends. I was literally coming in to once again talk about a weekend-only, WGI Percussion-esque A Class. I really think that is the only way drum corps is going to survive.

I agree with this entirely. Anyone who says that old school uniforms cannot work in today's activity needs to look a few places above the Blue Stars and see the Madison Scouts. I think the old school Stars uniform would already work better than that just because of the two white stripes across the chest. As far as the helmet, was it just the right-side plume that made it off-balance? Phantom and Bluecoats seem to have little trouble with theirs...

I don't know where you could purchase those style carriers, but I would wager that Ron at 2CoolPercussion.com could fabricate something functional for you. I'd send an e-mail his way.

$16 at the Cinemark in Oklahoma City. The other two OKC theatres were showing it for $18. No free vouchers were given, but the manager allowed free refills on food and drink.

http://www.dci.org/news/view.cfm?news_id=18e8f28f-4987-4ed8-9d68-5f5fd1a7fc0b

People are never happy regardless of what you give them. We have people in other threads complaining about how this activity needs fresh blood in the design arena and here is an excellent example of a designer coming in from an outside* arena, doing awesome fresh things, and people still are not satisfied. I'm not going to write a long analysis of both Paul and Shane and where their strengths and weaknesses are, but I will point out a few things: - On Mr. Rennick's writing being stagnant I can totally see where you are coming from, and I somewhat agree. I've not gone to watch Vanguard once in the parking lot over the past two seasons, which is new for me considering they were always at the top of my list during most of the previous years (under Casella, Gusseck, Jackson, Gusseck and Ramey respectively). However, his books still do two things VERY well that other people can learn a lot from. The first is that his battery to pit integration is simply immaculate. He composes for the percussion section as a whole unit, and it shows. Secondly, he is very effective at supporting and delivering impact to the brass a majority of the time and then pulling out the chopsy, sick licks whenever the battery is exposed. So yes, watching the battery on their own is a little boring at times, but when you view the whole package it is a spectacular sight to behold. - Shane Gwaltney's/Matt Jordan's writing being poor I simply disagree. In fact, last week several of us (myself and other percussion instructors) were talking about how much more we enjoyed the new style that Shane has brought to PR. There's a lot more to Shane's writing than you see on the surface, and he is excellent at creating music that not only works in the larger scheme of things, but it is also fun and has an excellent flow. Some of his music that I have played through is extremely difficult upon first glance, but once you feel it under your hands, it just makes sense. I really liked Matt's pit book last year, and think that while this year's is not as memorable, it is a far cry from being bad. Again, I think people are just expecting a higher level of integration which will come with time. - On replacing the percussion staff at PR DUMB. Unless you've got the BD Percussion team willing to jump over to PR, firing this staff is an awful decision. Shane did an excellent job taking over and it looks like he is going to have a higher placement this year than last. Why would you remove someone who is bringing forward momentum to your organization? I think that people should be reminded that even Paul Rennick had three 5th place finishes in his tenure at Phantom, some of those after winning a Sanford the year before. - *On Shane being an outsider This is silly to me. The man has been involved in teaching the activity for over 15 years and had a caption head position at another excellent organization prior to the job at Phantom. He's not an outsider.

I was at the rehearsal tonight. This is a stellar show. It's great to see a Vanguard show that feels like a Vanguard show. P.S. New ending is rad.

I don't know about indoor, but Blue Stars did a Final Fantasy show in 2005. It's up in its entirety on YouTube.

I think the larger issue isn't straying from tradition, it's just that the design isn't as good as 2009. I have a massive amount of respect for David Reeves, but it's just not feasible for one man to construct a complete musical design as well as a team of people. Especially when that team included Dean Westman and Ralph Hardimon.

WGI Percussion groups have been experimenting with this for the past few seasons, and I was wondering when we would see it crossover. At any rate, this looks like a really fun way to get the crowd excited about drum corps. Kudos to Surf for thinking outside the box!

1) Everyone is talking about it. 2) I'm now aware of a weekly web series following the Blue Devils that I had no knowledge of prior. Looks like the video did what it was supposed to do. Why is everyone angry?

I'm a percussionist, but I feel that I can add to this with relevant content. The way you feel about Jupiter, I also felt about Dynasty drums for a long time. I didn't understand why anyone would play on an instrument that sounded inevitably worse than the other brands on the market. I started teaching at a school that used Dynasty, and my hatred for them continued to grow. I hated the stupid tilters (which at the time only went forward), I hated the way the snare resonant head was mounted (causing me to tune it more frequently), I hated the stupid bass drum rims that were ridiculously fragile, I hated how the bolts in the tenor rails would just drop out randomly, I hated the dumb carrier design and above all else, I hated the stupid countertop finishes they put on their drums. After a lot of rage had built up inside of me, I did the unthinkable: I called Dynasty to let them know what I think. The people on the other end of the line were awesome. They were super friendly and very open to hearing what I had to say. The let me know that they were R&Ding several solutions to many of the problems that I had and one of them they had already fixed!! A few years down the road, we had an accident and insurance replaced some of our Dynasty gear with newer models - - they are WORLDS better. The T-max carrier is super comfy, the tilters and j-bars are gone, replaced with a sturdy "clip" mount, and the bolts in the tenor rails were much more secure. In addition, the shell quality has also improved with the new models being much more resonant (still less so than Pearl, but much better). To cap it all off, they now offer some neat lacquer finishes! Rumor has it that the new snare drum SCV has this summer will address the reso head issue. Would Dynasty be my first pick if I was ordering new instruments for my school? No, but I wouldn't be very disappointed if that is what we got. p.s. If anyone from Dynasty is reading this, you still need to fix your bass rims. :)