skywhopper

I was really disappointed to find out that that solo was synthed. I suppose it speaks to the quality of the patch that it fooled me all season. That was one of the best parts (among many!) of that show, but it loses a little of effectiveness in my mind knowing that they could have just as easily played it on a real glockenspiel. My perception of the sound waves is not the only thing I enjoy about music. I also enjoy, nearly as much, the awareness that someone more talented than myself is producing those sounds in the real world on a real instrument. No offense to Crown's synth player (a poster here), who is clearly a talented guy. But I'd rather have heard him playing the real thing. That out of the way, I liked a lot of what the Bluecoats did with electronics this year. I didn't care for the sampled chorus they added to the opener nor the solo voice later in the show (was that also a sample?). But then I pretty much universally dislike voice in drum corps shows (Crown 07 I'm okay with but only because they were so utterly charming about it), and sampled voice is even more of a turnoff for me. However, I don't think any of it was essential to the show, and I feel they could have had just as effective a program without synths or miked/distorted brass, had they still been against the rules. Overall though, despite my personal nits of taste, theirs was one of my favorite shows. I think Bluecoats more than earned their placement this year, and I hope to see them even stronger and more entertaining next year.

Thanks for this Marimbasaurus! Spelling out *why* diversity is something to strive for was something I found I wasn't really able to put into words, but I think you managed to do so really well. I too was a little surprised to see so many people dismiss the question outright, and I was worried the thread would get closed quickly, but I'm glad to see a few more people voicing support for increasing diversity, and I'm glad to see the discussion has settled down a little bit into a more meaningful one. Jeff Ream is right, of course, and I've tried to acknowledge this repeatedly in this thread: certain sections have become significantly more diverse, at least genderwise, over just the past 20 years, and so it may still be too early to expect staff diversity to match membership diversity. Based on the numbers posted here, a third of corps members are women, and about a sixth of staff and boards are women. So this is definitely something to keep an eye on. If the wait-and-see folks are right, then those ratios should get closer over the next five to ten years. I hope so!

After seeing so many people rave about it in other threads, I went back to check out SCV 2004 which I didnt' remember as anything special, and I was underwhelmed. Compared to late 90s SCV , 2004 just doesn't do it for me.

I agree! I was surprised to find myself enjoying the guitar in Teal's opener. I liked it less so later in the show, but that may just have been balance issues, since it was one of Teal's very first shows, and the opener was clearly the cleanest. But definitely the brass was very impressive, and I hope to see continuing improvement over the next few years.

In case anyone's curious, I checked all the world class corps' websites to try to find staff and board information. Obviously you can't judge race from lists of names, or even from pictures, so I just decided to count by gender. I could find staff info for 17 of the 23 WC corps. Some of the numbers were clearly 2010 staff. Some were just the announced staff for 2011. Some were a mix of both. One or two were just executive staff. But I figure the overall numbers are basically going to be representative. Out of 658 staff members listed, 103 were women, or had names that I judged to be women's names. If there was no context to the name (like a picture or a bio), I marked it as a woman if it was a name that could go either way, except for the name "Chris" which I always scored male. That's 15.7% female staff. If you exclude Madison and Cavies since they are all-male corps (though it's worth mentioning that they each do have a few female staffers), then you get 17.1% female staff. The highest ratios I noticed were Crossmen with 7 women out of 17 listed staff, and SCV with 15 women out of 46 listed staffers. And for the 16 corps that I could find board member listings for, 30 of 187 board members were female, which at 16% matches the ratio of female staffers pretty closely. Three corps did not appear to have any female board members. Worth mentioning, the highest percentages were Pioneer with women making up half of its board, and Blue Devils with 6 out of 14 board members as women. Also notable, Boston was the only corps I found that listed membership leaders (I wasn't actually searching for this information so there may be other corps who do so), and of the eight positions they listed (presumably 2010), half were women, including the two guard captains, the trumpet section leader, and the horn sergeant. So about a sixth of both board members and staff members are women. That's higher than I expected, so that's a great thing. It's about three times higher than the ratio of women to men in terms of DCI directors both WC and OC, where there are three women directors in 46 corps. But that may well be evidence that the difference there is mostly due to time lag, and in 20-30 years things will look a lot more balanced at the top. So my next question is, what's the ratio of women to men in terms of marching members? Does such data exist?

It seems to me that in a perfect system, corps director (and staff) diversity *would* reflect membership diversity, given that staff and directors pretty much all come from membership. Sure, given that demographics of members have probably changed over time, you'd expect there to be a lag there. And given that our society is not "perfect", you'd expect some misbalance from that. And of course there'd be some statistical noise, as well. So I think it's a positive effort to look at current leadership and try to determine if we see what you would expect. If not, then that's a good opportunity to look at how hiring and recruiting works to see if there's something going on there that might be contributing to a lack of diversity, without malice or intent. As lots of folks have said, drum corps is generally a very welcoming place for just about anybody. And while yes, the majority of members are white males, there are quite a few women, and a not insignificant minority presence as well. That's great! But if the staff and leadership are different, well, something is off. If there's a problem, well it's not going to be fixed overnight, and diversity can't be mandated. It has to happen naturally. We just need to make sure we aren't preventing it without meaning to.

I did find it curious that apparently corps staff meets with some or all of the judges before a show to help lay out what their show is about. Am I wrong about that, because that seems... odd.

Tom, I hope you realize this is not what anyone wants. Obviously that's not the answer. Do you really think this is the only alternative?

I agree 100%. However, I don't think that's what we see even today. Drum corps directors and senior staff today are probably mostly alums from the 70s and 80s. Were drum corps memberships back then 100% male and 95% white? What about the mid-level staff? Do they reflect the demographics of corps of the 90s and early 00s? When I look at staff pages that include photos, I don't get the same sense of diversity I do from watching corps videos. I'm not advocating "affirmative action" or quotas. I'm just saying that corps leadership ought to pay attention. Maybe they're excluding women and minorities without meaning to based on how they recruit their staff. To use fsubone's point, if the demographics of the younger staff doesn't look like the demographics of the membership from a few years ago, something is wrong.

Yeah, Teal isn't too far. Spirit is probably even closer.

IIRC either Colts or Glassmen were soliciting horn players at the June 25 show in Normal. "We have immediate openings for three baritone players, please come down to the front if you're interested." Seriously.

What I don't see anywhere is a good justification for why adding woodwinds would help in any way. Would it help recruiting members? Maybe, but how many WC corps are really hurting in that area? Would it bring in bigger audiences? I can't really see how. Will it allow more faithful arrangements of certain pieces? Maybe, but part of the fun of drum corps is arranging music for a *different* ensemble. If drum corps is just a marching wind ensemble or orchestra, well, that makes it a lot less interesting. The downsides seem more likely. Will it turn a lot of long-time fans off? I think that's pretty clear. Yes there's a vast middle ground of people that will either just bear it or won't even care, but there are lots of folks that would give up on DCI with woodwinds. Is it going to make things sound better? Unlikely. To make the woodwinds heard most of the time, they'd need to be amped, and given the continuing complaints about balance with pit and synths, it seems unlikely the woodwinds are going to get mixed in really well. On net, I just don't see how it's worthwhile even taking the risk. You gain very little if anything in return for less balance and fewer hardcore fans.

No, that's not the point at all. It's not a numbers game or a quotas game. However, zero is a pretty stark number. Completely not the point. Do you really need to be hateful about it? I'm not suggesting anyone should be hired who could not do the job well. I doubt this is the appropriate mechanism. My point is just that if leadership doesn't reflect the membership or the society, well maybe something about the way things are done today is problematic. Focusing on the director position is probably not helpful, because the director is most likely going to come from upper level staff, and be voted on by the board. I am going to bet that upper level staff and drum corps boards are overwhelmingly white and male, as well. Board membership in particular is an area where diversity should be a goal. That's one of the points of having a board of directors, is to get a diversity of viewpoints. And a diverse board would be more likely to push for a diverse staff, which would lead to more qualified candidates for a diverse leadership. It's not something that will change overnight, and no one is arguing for forcing it on anyone. No one is being blamed! If diversity is not a priority, then it's going to be unlikely to happen. That's human nature. If you think diversity *shouldn't* be a priority, well, I think you're wrong. Diversity would mean a better and more broadly appealing activity.

Thank you, MetalTones for doing the research to dig up a complete list. It's better than I thought after glancing through the World Class leadership. I can name several potential issues, some of which aren't directly addressable and some of which are: * Demographic Inertia - Drum corps alums with sufficient experience to successfully lead a world class corps are going to reflect the demographics of drum corps in the 70s and 80s; membership diversity has increased since then, and so it's likely that simply waiting another 20 or 30 years will show an increase in the diversity of the leadership demographics as well. * Board Diversity - Check out the diversity of the drum corps boards. Of the three or four I looked at, there was usually one or two women out of eight to ten members. No way to tell about the minorities, but less diversity on the board means less likelihood of diversity in the leadership. * Staff Diversity - What's the makeup of the youngest corps staff? Does it more closely reflect the diversity of the leadership or that of the current marching members? Ideally it should be closer to the latter. If it's closer to the former, then it's worth asking yourself why that is. Current staff will become future leaders, so if diversity is narrowing as members become staffers, then something is going wrong. * Membership Diversity - What's the makeup of the corps itself? Does it reflect the diversity of the area from which it draws members? Do recruiting methods potentially target certain groups over others? If your corps is less diverse than the population from which it draws, why is that? If there's a socioeconomic factor, what can you do to overcome that? * Apathy - Folks on staff or observing who look at the current demographics of all-male leadership of world class corps and just shrug their shoulders are part of the cause. When you see dozens of organizations nearly all of them with white male leaders, that's a sign of something going wrong somewhere. Not something sinister or intentional, but a misbalance. It's a clue to look within and figure out why that might be the case. Rather that just insisting that drum corps is a pure meritocracy and the lack of women and minorities at the top just means they don't try hard enough or care enough about the activity or aren't good enough, we should look and see if there's something we could do better. Once again, I'm not claiming that anyone in drum corps leadership is racist or sexist or that the lack of leadership diversity we see is anything intentional or malicious. But when you look at 23 world class corps and not one of them is run by a woman and only one is run by someone who isn't white, well, I think that alone is sufficient reason to just stop and take a look and ask, could we do something better? Maybe the answer is no, we're already an ideal activity where no one is judged by their race or gender, and everyone has the same opportunity as everyone else and the demographics we see at the top are just a statistical fluke. I think that's obviously not 100% true. There surely are things that could be improved. I think it should be discussed, though.

Did you read the rules proposal? He explicitly said, our future audience is young people. Young people love electronics. Electronics will appeal to young people, who are the only place to grow our audience. There isn't a sentence that says "electronics = more BITS" but he came as close as is possible to doing so.

I remember this being the case back in the early 90s. The best marching bands I saw back then looked a lot like drum corps. Broken Arrow, OK; Greenville, MS. My impression has always been that marching bands looked to drum corps for aspiration. In my high school, we were doing body movement and pods and streamers and lots of what was then new innovations in drum corps. We weren't doing them all that well, but we were trying. We also marched tubas instead of sousaphones. This was 20 years ago.

So you think it's more likely that there are no women or minorities who want to be corps directors than that there may be something systemic in the way DCI and its member corps do business that may tend to alienate or exclude them? I don't actually know what the demographics are, but it's a question worth asking. Are all of the current World Class corps directors white men? How many non-white-men have been directors in DCI's 38 years?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that Crown's 2009 brass line has no equal, and was endowed by its Caption Head with certain unalienable Qualities, that among these are Tone, Balance and the pursuit of Grassiness.

Um, not really, because your questions don't make any sense, and don't come across as honest questions. It sounded more like you were trying to score points against those nasty communist universities who try to be "fair" by making a point of not discriminating. To actually answer your questions: People don't sue for being excluded from selective musical performance groups in universities. There are no quotas, and political correctness doesn't enter into it. Any rules about non-discrimination apply equally to drum corps as they do to universities. If a drum corps or a university is excluding someone based on their race, they may well get sued because of it, and rightly so. That's not about quotas or being politically correct.

Throw in Cadets 08 as worse than Crown 04 or Cadets 06, but yes and yes. Cadets 07 has been the absolute low point for voice thus far.

84skyrydr's point aside, I think it should be obvious that new, small corps are the only way to see the activity grow. New 120+ member corps with quality programs aren't going to appear out of nothing. I'd love to see DCI setting aside some money each year for starting new corps in underserved areas. Maybe a matching-grant system for founding new OC corps: If there's no corps within 50 or 100 miles and you can raise $10,000 to start one and sign up 30 members and X number of support staff, DCI would pitch in $20,000. Organizational support is key, too. Have a starter kit with a suggested organizational structure, legal and accounting requirements, communication plans, fundraising advice, tips on scheduling rehearsal space, finding equipment, getting gigs, licensing music. Provide two or three years worth of quarterly visits by DCI and successful OC staff to give advice and help out with problems. Start two or three new corps this way each year for the next 10 years, and you'll grow. Several will fall apart after a year or two, some will manage to stick around for a while, and some will take off in the way that Teal Sound has or Carolina Crown did. Does DCI do anything like that now to encourage new corps? Does DCA?

SCV was one of the more polarizing shows this year, repeating some rep from one of the most discussed shows of all time, Star 1993, and also from Phantom 2001, a show it seems you rarely hear about. It was definitely a bold move. So was SCV able to improve on the original drum corps takes on these two works by Bartok? I definitely prefer SCV's truer take on Concerto for Orchestra, although as drum corps material, it does push the limits of what's possible to make interesting. Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta I feel less strongly about because I have less of a personal connection to the original work, I suppose. But I think I'm going to have to give Star the nod on that one. Curious to see some more insightful opinions beyond what I'm able to provide. I loved the response to the Promise of Living poll.

I still find the 84 show thrilling, partially because I get caught up in the crowd reaction, which yeah, is incredible, and understandably so. With the Cadets lately I'm so distracted by other parts of their show that if they're doing anything great drillwise, I miss it. 2009 maybe was the exception to that, but they always manage to throw in something to turn me off to their programs so that I can't enjoy them overall. 83-94 Cadets, excluding 91, are about the only ones I can just sit back and enjoy 100%.

The other thread asks for what shows you found boring, which isn't exactly the same. 05 Cadets is a perfect example. Not boring in the least, but the various voice features ruin those parts of the show for me. Had they done the same show with only the intro narration, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more. But overall, it is not entertaining to me. I also agree with hostrauser on 05 Regiment, the arrangements of those two incredible pieces just destroyed their musical interest to me. Although I did like the guard and the Fred Astaire guy. Cadets 2000 is probably the most controversial. The drill was spectacular, but it was clearly the lead-in to a decade of less-subtle-than-ever Cadets Cheese (save 04 and 09). Plus, having the marchers standing around out of "character" watching each section show off--which is not unique to 2000, but was definitely played up that year--isn't something I particularly enjoy. Blue Devils 2004. Yes, you guys are awesome, but a show theme built around how awesome you are is not quite as much fun as deciding that for myself.

Got my shirt the other day. Very nice quality. Thanks again, Eric, et al.