kaeide

This year was my senior year at American Fork High (Davis High school's competitors in Utah) and I've done two years of corps at the Academy. There is no comparison between high school marching band and drum corps. It's a completely different level of cleanliness and difficulty. In Utah, all of the major bands go to the same location for band camp, in the end of July, or beginning of August, so they learned the drill then. And I have many friends at Davis High School who say that after school rehearsals start in August, right after school starts. So... your high school had been rehearsing for more than two weeks. Even this link to the marching bands family night was before your acclaimed two weeks. The date posted is September 17, 2008. The video that you posted had been after at least a month of cleaning after school, probably more. The fact is, during the three weeks of corps, as stated before, a lot of the time is spent making changes. Those weeks are filled with learning new drill and learning music rewrites. If I had the same marimba book from January, that I did at the end of the season, drum corps wouldn't have been much fun. It's more about creating the best show musically and visually, not just having the cleanest show. And, just because this needs to be said: I have been to BoA Nationals twice, and we did go to BoA Nationals that year. We got 14th out of like 90 bands... Our program was not easy, and the judging was not biased, although I believe that you are the one being biased. It was one of the hardest shows that American Fork has ever had, if not the hardest. And we still talk about it frequently. The only show that might have been biased was 2009, because we had that bus crash, and one of our instructors died trying to save the students, and our show was a military show. But I still don't believe the judges "let us" win the regional that year because of that... I don't remember the crowd at the regional being upset at all.... They sure weren't on the Las Vegas BoA Regional DVD I just watched. You guys got 5th with a 79.10, according to the DVD I am holding. We got 1st with an 85.95... It's been a mostly different panel every year... and the reason we didn't win this year is because we've been through a lot of staff changes, and we had a massive drill writing issue during the ballad. But I'm extremely happy for the group that did win. :) They deserved it completely. I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm just telling the facts, and the other point of view. I've experience both marching band and drum corps, and to be honest, you really don't know what you are talking about until you march drum corps for yourself. It's a completely different game. I know the definition of "clean" changed completely after just my first year of corps. But anyways, best of luck to you, and it's unfortunate that you can't march because drum corps has been the most rewarding, and amazing experience of my life. :)