skywhopper

I included full staff (admin and instructional), as well as caption heads. I'm not ignoring it. The numbers of women in drum corps has probably not always been 33%, but just looking at video from the mid-70s, it is far greater than 10%. Probably 20-25% has been the lowest participation rate. But you're right that I don't have a hard number there. If you look at current corps directors, I would bet that most of them marched DCI in the 70s and 80s, but not all. Boston's director marched in 1999, so he can't be more than 33. In any case, more than zero percent of marchers in the 70s and 80s were women. Well, do you have an explanation for why there are no women directors in World Class? Membership is not the question here, never has been. I'm "speculating" based on actual numbers. More women participate in drum corps as members than as leaders. I ask, is it possible there are things we do that cause this, and that we can change? What is your explanation? What I hear is "drum corps is open to everyone so it's impossible that there's a problem". So why are the numbers so stark?

I swear I really didn't want to post again, but... I've posted some statistics on diversity of gender in WC staffs. Did you miss those? Other folks have dug up details about diversity among directors in DCI WC and OC. I'll summarize it, though: Minority directors of 23 WC corps: one (maybe two?) Women directors of 23 WC corps: zero Minority directors of 23 OC corps: three Women directors of 23 OC corps: three Percentage of marching members who are women: 33% (dci.org) Percentage of WC staff who are women: 17% (per my scanning of the WC corps websites) Percentage of WC boards who are women: 16% (ditto) Percentage of WC and OC directors who are women: 6.5% (dci.org) I've been looking into this more, and I thought caption heads might be a relevant statistic, as well. I couldn't find current or complete staff listings for Troopers, Spirit, Pioneer, Jersey Surf, Glassmen, Crossmen, Crown, or Blue Knights. But of the other 15 corps, there were 63 people listed as "caption head" or "caption supervisor" or "co-caption head". Of those, five are women. That's 8%. So among WC corps: membership: 33% women staff: 17% women caption heads: 8% women directors: 0% women Are those numbers worth talking about? Or is it "PC" to wonder why they look that way? I'm not saying that this is iron clad evidence that there are unseen barriers to women progressing in DCI, but I think it's fair to ask why the numbers look like this.

Maybe if DCI wants to be like Major League Baseball, they should follow through and each club should sponsor several minor league farm teams. The existence of BDB and BDC certainly contributes to the Blue Devils' success in the same way that minor league teams help major league baseball teams: you get the inexperienced kids into your system and keep them, instead of rejecting them outright and having them go somewhere else. It seems like a no brainer considering the conventional wisdom around here is that kids who don't make the WC corps of their choosing often just skip out on marching altogether, and admittedly given the commitment to tryout camps in November and December, if they don't end up making their top choice, it would be really hard to pick up late with someone else. Surely it would be more appealing to the kids who are getting cut to stick with the organization, maybe demote to a B camp in the spring and march with the B corps in Open Class, instead of just spinning in the wind. Why don't more top corps have cadet corps?

Re complete songs, I think corps have been far better lately about playing straight songs than they were earlier in the decade. Compare Madison 2010 to Phantom 2005 to see the right and wrong ways (respectively) to handle arranging Rhapsody in Blue. Crown this year was three pieces pretty straight up. Re big band, yes please, bring it on. I've been advocating for BD 2011 to do an Ellington show. And since I know David Gibbs hangs on my every word here...

Oh yeah, two samples from the past two years that I thought worked really well were the apple bite in Boston 09, which several other folks have mentioned, and the sproinggg sound at the beginning of Puck in Crown 09. I think the apple bite sounded better live than it does on the CD, but the sproinggg fits in great, IMO.

I agree that these were very well blended sound-wise, unlike Cavies' guitar sample, or the Bluecoats' voice samples. I think they could have been just as effective on standard pit keyboards, but maybe not. Another in this category is Blue Stars' piano throughout the Philip Glass pieces. When the amps were balanced (which they often weren't alas), it fit right in. I think there was some fat analog-synth sound in there, too, I don't recall if it was in one of the Glass pieces (Naqoyqatsi maybe?) or Nixon in China (the original recording of which, btw, is a good example of synths blending well with an orchestra), maybe both.

Copying the instrumentation from BOA is not going to make DCI more unique. In any case, I don't really care if DCI shows contain "new ideas". I just want to see good drum corps. Part of that is the sound of all brass and percussion. We're already moving away from that sound with amps and synths, but so long as there are still 70+ horns down there, you're going to get great moments. I'd rather not add a bunch of saxes and piccolos to the mix, as well to dilute the experience. Yeah, it can sound nice, but it's not the sound of drum corps. Sorta like if there was a brass quintet competition circuit and you wanted to change the rules to allow pianos and clarinets. Sure there are all sorts of new sounds you could make, but it kinda defeats the point.

First, I just want to thank everyone who has taken all my thoughts and questions seriously, especially tomgolf8 who clearly disagrees with me, but has been willing to discuss my crazy ideas anyway. Yeah, this is the hard part. I think the best answer is just making a point of being aware of the whole idea, and if there's evidence that something might be out of kilter, be willing to try to figure out what that might be. I think you can start with the boards. We know that corps boards of directors are overwhelmingly male. On the boards that have some or all appointed board members, often serving three year terms, maybe they should make a point of seeking out interested women and minorities to serve. I'm sure there are any number of band directors, arts organization leaders, business leaders, parents of former members who are women and/or minorities who would be happy to serve and well-qualified. I suppose some people would say that's "affirmative action" to let yourself consider their sex or race, but I disagree. In any case, this is a great place to start because those folks are going to be more likely, once the become familiar with the organization, to see these "unintentional" barriers, because they've been through them themselves. Beyond that, it has everything to do with the inner workings of hiring processes, recruitment for lower-level staff, etc, which I don't know anything about how those things actually work. I'm starting with the assumption that if leadership diversity doesn't match membership diversity, that something *must* be wrong, unless it's somehow the case that white males are just better suited to running drum corps, or that women and non-whites just aren't as interested on the whole. I really doubt those are true, but maybe I'm wrong! I think you've mentioned that we have no evidence that there are women and minorities applying for positions and getting rejected. That's true, and if it's true that women and minorities are less likely to apply to be on drum corps staff than they are to participate in it as marchers, well, to me that says we need to figure out why they aren't applying. I guess you can't call that a "barrier" per se, but if the profile of applicants for jobs is out of whack with corps membership, then corps should be asking themselves how they can encourage more women and minorities to apply, especially for entry-level positions. It's not about using race or sex as a factor in the final decision as it is just about making sure you have a wide variety of applicants so you can be sure you're finding the best people. Plus, yes I think diversity in and of itself is an undervalued asset. I think in general that organizations that have a wide diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints and experiences will make better decisions and do better things. We talk a lot about hiring "the best person", but when you look at your overall staff, if they are all the best players or teachers you could find, but they all have basically the same background, you're still missing something. No, I don't think the government can or should address anything other than explicit discrimination. If a corps was excluding African Americans or Jews solely because of those traits--I am not a lawyer--but I believe current law would allow those folks who were discriminated against to sue the offending corps unless there was a defensible reason for the discrimination (which would be hard to come up with in those cases). And as we've already covered, drum corps does not have this kind of problem. Maybe DCI has some role to play, but not a big one. I think really the only useful way to approach this is to convince the corps leadership itself. And you know, maybe you're right and there's not really any problem. My purpose in continuing to jabber in this thread is to try to convince other people on DCP that there *might* be something better we could do. Maybe that idea will spread. Or maybe I'm just a nut and it will go away once I give up on posting to this thread every day.

Back on an earlier page I posted a summary of percentage of women on staff and on boards, and someone else dug up the details on how many corps directors were minorities and women. It's probably impossible to gather useful numbers on minorities, so I'll stick to women/men. DCI says 33% of marchers are women. My count of posted staff members of world class corps and posted board of directors of world class corps showed that about 16-17% of both of those groups were women. Of world class directors, zero are women. If you count open class, 3 out of 46 are women, that's 7%. Caption heads might also be a number to count, but I have not done so. I would guess that participation by women has gone up since DCI began, but not by a lot, given that most guards used to be all women. Is it fair to assume that 20% of marchers were women in the 70s and 25% in the 80s? I'm can't say for sure what the backgrounds of the current directors are, but I don't have time to do the research at the moment. My guess is that most of them are corps alums and the majority of them probably marched in the 70s or 80s. Assuming a system that was 100% fair to everyone in which men and women are equally talented, and the most talented are promoted, and everyone who's talented is equally likely to aspire to ultimately be a corps director, then you'd expect 20% to 25% of the directors to be women. Well, I put a lot of assumptions into my model, so feel free to shoot it full of holes. But once you have, my question then is, what explains the disparity between the ideal case and reality?

I don't want to keep belaboring the point, but I just wanted to be clear about my arguments. I think there are ways in which the existing structure of an activity or organization can create unintentional barriers based on race and sex. I don't think drum corps has a bias problem. I think drum corps, at least for members, is a great example of being exceptionally open to anyone who's interested. But in lots of areas in life, cultural differences, the type of friendships people form, personality differences, differences in manners, etc which are for whatever reason correlated to sex and race, all have an impact on levels of promotion and success that tend to preserve existing patterns. I don't think drum corps is immune to those effects, and I don't think it can be fully fair if we're satisfied with being free of intentional bias.

Yeah, myself I never could pick out the Cavies 2010 mic'd soloists myself, though I noticed them down there. That moment was worth a standing O with or without their contribution, though.

How about just getting rid of the instruments and singing the entire program. Mic each individual singer and volume wouldn't be an issue. The drill could be way crazier without those instruments getting in the way, plus, it would save money.

Seems like that was a mistake in arrangement. Plenty of single sop soloists stood out over the rest of the brass in the goode olde dayes.

How about giving the posters you disagree with a little more benefit of the doubt? Just because you disagree with some of the ideas being discussed doesn't mean you need to dismiss them by implying they are naive and simple-minded. Too-high dues may exclude lots of people of all sexes and colors. I don't think anyone is suggesting to put unqualified people in charge of corps. Are you suggesting that there are no people capable of running corps who are not currently directors? In any case, the problem (if you agree there is one) is more complicated than just the director level. My opinion is that if demographics of the leadership and senior staff doesn't match that of the corps, or isn't trending that way, then something is wrong. A fair system would not, balanced over time, produce senior staff that is whiter and maler than the membership. I feel like multiple people on here are saying "just try harder, if you want it so bad". We're not talking about individuals here. Any particular individual who sets his or her sights on being a corps director is likely to fail. But if you look at the demographics across the entire activity, the trend ought to be towards matching the diversity of the membership. If that isn't happening, we need to try to figure out why it isn't, and not just throw our hands up and blame the people who aren't in charge for not trying hard enough.

I've found this thread to be pretty productive, and when people can hold themselves back from being snarky, I think we are making progress. I really don't think we help anything by shutting down threads like this. It's important to talk about it, and not to be afraid of discussing the reality of the situation. If particular posters are pushing the limits of propriety, I think that's best taken up with those individuals.

In another thread, Boo suggested: Sounds great to me! So I'm a big detractor of synths and electronics in general. I prefer my drum corps 100% acoustic. However, it ain't all bad. What electronics/synth/voice/amp/samples have you liked, despite yourself? Or, if you've been in favor of A&E all along, that's cool, too. What have been your favorite uses of the new toys? * Boston 2009: the atmospheric sitar (I think?) and falling bass hits in the pre-show * Bluecoats 2010: I ended up liking the distorted brass solos way more than I wanted to * Crown 2007: one of the most fun and charming uses of amplified voice I've seen, perfectly compliments and supplements the action * Cavaliers 2009: "HELLO! ... hello! hello! hello!" "Is anybody in there?! ... no!" * Cadets 2005: the drumline dut-diddle-ddddrut-dut-voicing their parts into the mic So what did you like, without wanting to?

What, oh, this is about the 00s? Clearly Cavies defined the decade visually, and well-deservedly. Several of their programs would make my list of must-watch shows of the decade. That said, I'm glad the other top corps kept pushing the limits of their own personalities in the face of Cavies dominance. I mean, can you get more eclectic than BD over the past decade? Both visually and musically. As for specific non-Cavies shows I loved, I rarely hear raves about SCV 2000, which is just totally luscious. Cadets 04 is my favorite Cadets show of the decade, maybe because it was the most out-of-character. Phantom this year I think is underrated as a coherent vision. The top overall package, though, for me, goes to Crown 09. Best brass line in years, the music selection and arrangements were outstanding, the visuals, the guard work, the drill, yes, the body movement, managing to use Promise of Living both as an opener and a closer in a really unique way. One of the greatest ballads ever. The six or seven brass hits that no other corps could match. I could go on...

Don't forget SCV 81-89: 1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1. SCV, BD, and Cavies are the only corps with 9+ year runs of 3rd and higher.

I agree that the poor (particularly rural) white kid probably has it harder getting into Harvard than the rich black kid, but I think you're wrong to assume that rich blacks have the same "experiences" and "background" as rich whites. Of course, these are not really meaningful distinctions at an individual level, and I think that's where the challenge comes in. We can imagine a privileged minority student who thinks and acts and grew up just like the privileged white kid, and I'm sure they exist. But on the whole, the color of your skin does make a difference in how you're treated by everyone, black and white alike. That's just as valuable a kind of diversity as any other.

I don't think the OP or anyone else is suggesting there's active discrimination going on. Still, I think it's clear that most corps directors are going to come from inside drum corps, eg from corps staff. Corps staff comes from corps membership. That's a gradual filtering process that takes place over decades. I think one of the best places to start looking for potential unintentional bias is at the very lowest level of staff recruitment and hiring. How does that happen? Once people are on board as technicians and instructors, how do they become caption heads and designers? Is there anything about any of those steps that tends to favor men or whites? One of the problems living in a society that has for so long been explicitly unfair to women and minorities is that those of us lucky to be the historically privileged often have trouble seeing what might be standing in the way of these underrepresented groups in working their way into leadership positions. I agree with Colin Powell that ambitious African Americans and Hispanics and women and any traditional outsider has a responsibility to take responsibility themselves and accept that they may have to work harder for the same results. Likewise, those in the position of power and authority owe it to themselves and their organizations to ensure they aren't unintentionally excluding anyone without realizing it.

And yet the point is, the leadership *doesn't* reflect the current or past diversity of drum corps. If you include open class, women make up 6.5% of corps directors, and yet I'm going to bet that the percentage of women participating in drum corps has been a lot higher than that for decades, certainly during the DCI era.

Well, how about sticking with the tried and true unless there's a really good reason to change the rules. That's generally a good strategy.

I don't think it should be required by any means, but I do think that slightly more open searches for top staff would probably benefit the corps, in much the same way that open membership auditions are good for the corps. Rather than sticking to what and who you know, be open to new people and new ideas. Staff consistency year to year is usually good, but when there is an opening, be open to someone new or different. It's common in these discussions to talk about just hiring "the best candidate". But in reality, it's rarely that clear cut. Often two or three people might all bring different strengths and ideas to the table, and each have their own weaknesses, as well, and it's not easy to decide who would be the best fit.

When you create this graph, please include or delineate sampled guitar and voice.