Veritaffle

Distribute the money equally to all the WC corps and a proportionally lesser amount equally to all the OC corps and see what they do with it, parable of talents style. This can be a litmus test for which corps are and aren't financially responsible, and establish a framework for future disbursements, and hey, if we find that the G7 is actually better at managing their finances, then maybe everyone can shut up about how it's terrible for the activity.

I'm not really looking to plagiarize any summaries, no. The idea is to briefly write about the music and the visuals and the story of the show in some meaningful and integrated way. Essentially, I'm trying to avoid something like "in Phantom Regiment's 2008 production 'Spartacus,' Spartacus is a slave who gets angry at the Romans when they murder his wife, and starts a revolt, which leads to a sympathetic Roman killing Will Pitts and everyone yelling "I am Spartacus!" They also play Ein Heldenleben and Khachaturian and run around really fast on a football field."

Hey all, I was wondering if anyone had any experience writing program notes to accompany drum corps shows? In particular, what are important things to highlight? I have some experience writing them for orchestral pieces, but when there's also these strong and important elements of visual and storytelling, I get a bit lost. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This thread has made my day. Thank you so much, garfield, for making this information available. The biggest question I have would be how DCI and the corps income profiles compare to those of other similarly-sized non-profits. In particular, are there any sources of revenue on which corps either under- or over-rely?

On Facebook: Pledge Your Support in the Carolina Crown and Cadets and Challenge For the past several years the Carolina Crown and The Cadets have challenged each other on the field to the highest heights of artistry and performance. Now the competition moves off the field, as both corps announce the Carolina Crown-Cadets Donor Challenge to raise money for the coming 2013 season. From October 29-November 18, supporters of Carolina Crown and The Cadets will be called on to put their support behind the corps of their choice, and with every donation of $10, $25, $50 or more their "vote" will be counted to determine the Challenge Champion! Not only will the corps that attracts the most individual donors receive the bragging rights as the Champion, but corps director Jim Coates from Carolina Crown or George Hopkins from The Cadets will cook dinner for the Challenge-winning corps on the day of their home show. Drum corps fans this is your time to choose sides between these two great corps who have brought so many entertaining shows to the field, while at the same time support their efforts to get a head start on the 2013 season! The timing for the Challenge coincides with the lead-up to the first audition camps for both corps for the 2013 season which will take place November 16-18 in South Carolina and New Jersey respectively, so there will be a great deal of buzz happening around both corps leading up to the final day of the Challenge! "This is much more than just a fundraiser for The Cadets, it's a chance for our fans and alumni to make a statement about their love for the corps, while assisting us to raise much needed funds for the coming season. We are blessed to have so much support, but we think this is a fun new way for fans to get engaged," said George Hopkins, Director of The Cadets. Jim Coates, Director of Carolina Crown, "Our fans are ready for the challenge and we're eager to get started. Fundraising is so difficult these days, but so integral to our operations. With the Challenge we can have a little good-natured fun and competition in the off-season and raise money at the same time." Watch for details to be announced on both the Cadets website at www.cadets.org and Carolina Crown website atwww.carolinacrown.org. Stay tuned for daily updates and more on both corps' Facebook pages!

Hi laser.lemon, I thought perhaps our experiences are rather similar, so here are my thoughts. Although not in engineering, I am also in one of those cutthroat fields where there is a lot of pressure to do the internships; however, I am firmly of the opinion that no matter how competitive the jobs market, what matters most is what makes you happy and satisfied. You have the rest of your life to join the rat race, but you only have four years to march DCI. Only one of the two paths will make you lifelong friends upon whom you can call anytime, memories that will inspire you through the most difficult of times, and a determination and work ethic that will serve you no matter what you choose to do. Practically speaking, I interned over the past summers to gain some work experience, and there was no real difference in competitiveness in the abstract in applying for those internships sophomore year and junior year between me and my classmates - in fact, my drum corps experience over my freshman summer gave me something unique to discuss over my interviews, and your prospective employer will be impressed by the fact that you worked your butt off in 100-hour "workweeks" in DCI. Your prospective employer will be much more interested in things like how well you interview and your GPA, based on my experience, than whether every summer you did an internship. I also did an internship during the school year, which is something you may wish to look into. It will be my age-out year this summer, and after much thought, I am determined to march for the reasons I described above. I hope that a few years down the road, you will make the same decision. Really, having done both, there's nothing like a summer of drum corps in the world.

Because I'm trying very hard to procrastinate, I had the following query: Obviously, a lot of us have given a lot of thought into factors that contribute to competitive success in a corps, whether that is member age, staff quality, funding, et cetera. Has anyone ever actually done a statistical analysis of this? Or, for that matter, do accurate data even exist? Does the DCI headquarters keep any such data? Even from purely quantitative predictors, I suspect we may find very interesting information. Why does this matter? Obviously most of us agree that it is the experience, not the outcome, of drum corps that matters most to the marching members; however, I don't think it an unreasonable assumption to suppose that there is, in DCI as in many other activities, a high correlation between competitive success and long-term financial stability. Although much of the correlation could be due to the obvious causality of "more funding leads to better staff/equipment/etc leads to competitive success," a highly successful corps surely has an easier time obtaining corporate sponsorship, recruiting auditionees (which is a relevant source of income, given how top-tier corps charge three-figure audition fees), and consequently becoming more sustainably funded in the long run. If we want to secure the future of the activity, this relationship is not insignificant.

I don't really see the problem with technically impressive music in the drum corps idiom. There has always been a tremendous history of that in the western musical canon - think piano or violin concertos, or even solo music like Bach's Cello Suites or Violin Partitas. In fact, melodic writing and technical facility can and ought to be executed simultaneously, even if not necessarily by the same performer or section. There is no reason why the drum corps hornline texture has to be essentially homophonic - in fact, the polyphonic writing exemplified this past season by Carolina Crown and the Blue Devils really proved themselves to be far more intellectually interesting than the arrangements of some their competitors; while there is definitely a role for powerful emotional statements in drum corps, I believe there should also be one for powerful intellectual statements. If anything, even more technique, control, and balance would be highlighted by a hornline articulating both melodic content and technical facility simultaenously, and the talents of the best writers would be demonstrated by their ability to maintain clarity of voicing throughout. tl;dr: triple-tongue while playing compound melodies; have the high brass triple-tongue while the low brass is playing melodic content, or vice versa; polyphony is both impressive and desirable

Someday, one day, a drum corps will take a single piece of classical music of appropriate length, and play it beginning to end, because real music, real, substantial, meaningful musical ideas deserve more than one or two minutes on a field, sliced and chopped into a salad of snippets and themes. Carolina Crown came so close this year with that monumental masterwork of arranging, that cathedral of polyphony and substance and musical exposition. I hold nothing against the Blue Devils and their dozen selections this, or the insane combinations of the Cavaliers or Cadets arranging, but surely of all people, drum corps fans, musicians, must have attention spans long enough to appreciate one magnificent selection executed to perfection. Or maybe I just love the Bach method of composition too much. For example, what of Mahler V, i, or the Chaconne from Bach's Violin Partita No. 2, or the Overture to Der Freischutz, or Beethoven's Piano Concerto IV, i? Failing that, true Classical music deserves more attention and respect on the DCI field. While Phantom Regiment's dedication to Mahler and Shostakovich is impressive and laudable, and plenty of "pops" have been played by a variety of corps, where are the great, timeless, and revolutionary works of the Western canon? Where is the B Minor Mass, or the St. Matthew Passion? Where are the symphonies of Haydn and Mozart? Where is Don Giovanni's hellish demise, or the glorious triumph of Eroica?