Kevin Doherty

How about everyone's nine year old skipping elves - skympety doo dah skympety day. Let's save it for hunting season. Then we'll let Elmer Fudd loose to deal with the rest of the yimps. He will miss of cawse, but at least he twied. RIP Mel Blanc. He's been gone for a while, but not forgotten. Bad mix of Disney and Looney Toons. Signs of of Drum Corps old age delirium. Oh the horror. How did Joseph Conrad get in this mix?

Several Corps sell used equipment directly, e.g the Cadets, and I don't think they require you buy in sets and they sell battery, horns and pit equipment. However these sales usually start soon after the season is over, e.g. September, so looking for these sales in March is bad timing and this may make it tough to buy other than the whole set at a time as Fork apparently requires. Keep looking at the DCP site and you may find an opportunity. Good luck. Kevin

El, not to nit pick, (well maybe I am) but Evening at the Corps was not a competition and I think that is where this thread was trying to go, i.e. singing as part of field competiton. It was great, though that Kevin's integrated the chorus into the stage show. To me, a more appropriate use because you have more rehearsed singers and probably better voices. I know plenty of very fine instrumentalists who can't sing a lick and that is what you can face when you have a field corps singing. Once again, I get a real kick from the history our commenters raise. Please keep it up. BTW for folks who don't follow the seniors much, there has been a choral tradition in the seniors for a while, probably started by LT. Norman Prince. It became more prominent as I understand it when the GAS reunions started, and then other Corps, like the Cabs, maybe Reilly and others started choruses. DCW covered these events regularly and I hope there is a good archive out there for those who are interested. As I recall, the choruses consisted of singers whose marching days were behind them. Yes, you can age out of a Senior Corps. I think the qualification is to be on SSN. Andy, Ghost and others, do you want to wade in on this one too? Jeff, the Cadets 84 intro into America was more like dialogue than singing IMO. If you remember the movie - never saw the Broadway show - the Sharks girls were commenting on what Rita Morena was saying and singing about America, then they tongue trilled into the song body, both in the movie and the Cadets show. If you see it differently I know you won't hesitate to say so. Have at it. Kevin

BTW, I wanted to be Mary Lou Retton, but they told me I was too old and the pommel horse injury was a negative.

LoveKathy. There is no doubt in my mind that 1980 2-7 was doing as much or more than today's best auxs. In jest I guess you were a klutz, but I'm sure you weren't. No one in this thread is wrong. We do get used to scoring and judging, and we he have our favorites. Why not? However I also like analytical thinking and Brasso hit it right on the head. I'm still with him 100%, but I don't intend to change anyone's mind. Enjoy what you enjoy and don't let anyone take that from you. I did mean my earlier comment as a joke and I hope you take it that way. Kevin

N, Very much missed, as is Brubaker, et. al. We also lost Ralph Silverbrand this year. RIP. Kevin

I think the Cadets did a vocal Amen some time in the mid seventies that cost them some points. Historians wade in. IMO there is no good singing in DC, it is all god-awful and should be avoided. Kevin

Brasso. I was going to say the same thing, but it seemed that maybe the subject had been overdiscussed before I got back onboard recently, so I didn't say anything. The whole 27th aux presentation was magnificent. the use of the double flags, etc was a brilliant conception and execution. The only more recent comparable would be some of Brubaker's stuff in the 80s-early90s, but I don't think that would have happened without 27th. The 27th aux marched. Have you noticed that the current - last 20 years - auxs can't march: they don't know 1 from 2 or left from right. This doesn't go only for aux. Troopers had this big strapping DM back in the 90s who. when he was bringing his corps on and off the field had no clue how to march. The Corps would be doing a cadence at 128 and he would be at 108. I guess one could say philosophically that this is amusing -certainly doesn't reach the level of irony- I find it pathetic. Don't mind dance, you still have to be able to march. Kevin

Re: last couple of comments. I am appalled. Mike, that had to have been a terrible experience. Drum manTX: The Yin Yang is always at work. That doesn't mean we can't work to shift it. We don't have to tolerate the haters. Let's send them to their hater's place so they can hate each other. Having worked in Labor Relations for many years, one of my Union Official friends would tell me " I'm a Lover, Not a Fighter" We got along very well and accomplished a lot.

Sorry, Still feel ignorant when I wrote BD instead of Cavies. KD

Jam. I thought about the Reed book, but I didn't see that Cadets98 was ready to go into set coordination. I think he wants to develop basic snare chops and I don't see where you disagree with the approach that the responders are recommending. Haven't been to Stone Part 2. This has to be a killer. Tell me about it. Kevin

Zeke, I was one of those, among several, who pointed out the intonation problems, although from Mike's clip, it also shows that the Cadets played big in-tune chords. The intonation problems were there - listen to the CD or watch the DVD. What the judges heard and judged is not for me to say. They did their very difficult job. Mike mentioned, and many others have, that if only Corps X had another week of cleaning time, the results may have been different. Maybe so, but you don't get extra time and we all know that. There is a deadline All the Corps live with it. It levels the playing field from a time perspective. Sorry for stating the obvious, for which I will get leveled, but I could stand some smoothing. To stretch the analogy, if Schwartzkopf's Colonels had said, Geez General, can I have another week to clean up my unit's performance? Then we will be prepared for this day. Schwarzkopf: We have a strict timetable. We go today. Bust your fanny. I maintain my support of Star for 92 but retrospect is futile unless you don't learn to not repeat your mistakes. BTW, Cadets worked very hard on intonation in 93. I was at a number of rehearsals. It paid off. Sorry for rambling. Kevin

My mistake. I should have said Cavies rather than BD I did see the Cavies that year and the musical performance was excellent and the Brubaker drill superb, but I'm sticking with Star (as if I could change history. I shouldn't give myself a break on that issue-idiotic on my part) Kevin

As a life-long Holy Name/Cadets fan (since early 50's) I have to say that 92 was the most shocking outcome I ever witnessed. Tremendous show. I could watch it forever. I love the musical content and drill. But the horns were out of tune at crucial points and this seemed to be ignored. I think Star had everything needed to leap over BD and, no matter what the sheets say, I still cannot understand the results. I think as musicians we can maintain objectivity, and whatever my homey tendencies might be, the best performance deserves the best results. I refuse to bash judges. Their job is very difficult. Kevin

Elpha and Andy captured a lot of what I was thinking about, but I thought of a few more. Unfortunately Fleetwood did not list reportoires, so I don't know the name of some of these. Early 60's SAC - Lost Army (name?) - their off the line, Late 50s St, Vinnies - El Capitan 63 SAC - Mutiny on the Bounty (may not be a march, but was played as one) 63 Garfield - March of the Olympians (the music ABC uses is not official Olympic music. It comes from an early 60s album called Charge which was played by an ensemble of percussion and trumpets and bass trumpets). 63 or 64 St. Lucy's did a cool march off the line, but I have no idea about the name or origin. The 64 St. Kevin's OTL already mentioned was from Lawrence of Arabia. Cavies did a Hindemith March in 94, Two of three movements in Ralph Vaughn Williams Folk Song Suite are titled Marches - 79-80 27th and probably others. 76 PR 1st Movement, Mahler's 7th. Holst wrote Marches. I would think some have been performed by DC, it's just not popping into mind A lot more stuff out there and some of it is arguable - Glassmen's Kodaly, BK Trittico. Garfield Holsinger in places, but this has been thought provoking. Keith, you said you didn't like marches, but there are so many differerent styles like the Sousa/Karl King variety, the Movie music, Symphonic and Concert Band compositions, that I am betting there is plenty out there that you do like. One last thought for this thread, DC is least successful with the Sousa/King material because the basses are often anemic on the feature 16th note runs - even Madison. Tough with one valve, maybe better with three, but tonguing comes into play (does it not horn players?). Kevin

I'm LMAO. Immediately after I posted, an ad for Tide popped up. Maybe Gibbs or Hop can get them to use some of our folks. Kevin

Mike, I know this site is not for promoting home products, but Method was one of the first ones on the block to place low environmental impact, natural cleaning products on the market and consistently rated higher in quality in Consumer Reports than Seventh Generation. Their glass cleaner is more effective than Windex. However, Nature's Source is now getting better reviews. Method has some good non- FruFru scents, although they also have lavender, ugh, the Shalimar and Brute of cleaning product scents. I've been getting their products at Target for a number of years. But for DCP purposes, good work by Gibbs to get the gig for some of his BDE crew and good job by the agency's creative people. I have never seen the ad on my 900 Directv channels. Curious. Kevin

Not big into "cute", but this commercial was levels above a lot of the commercials out there. I didn't see it as an ad for Drum Corps, but they used their resources effectively. I use Method products. They are of good quality. Kevin

Not one bit of bad advice on this thread. Get all three books, but also there's a lot of instructional DVDs. many by Instructors like Hannum, Float, Hardimon. Try a Google Search and look at Corps Store and DCI Store sites. Having played all aspects of snare: Rudimental, Set, Orchestral - I see no reason to concentrate on one thing. You have to develop your chops which the method books will greatly help with, but don't limit your creativity. We didn't get from 26 Rudiments to 40 without players getting creative. Go for it. Kevin

Correction: is wonderful. K

Friends. I am LMAO. What amazing memories we have and the fact that our participants have archives like these are wonderful. Thank you all. Kevin