SpiritVet

Crown's housing site was ours last year when we went to the Akron show. Nice little place. The middle school is/was brand new.

As far as I know, no dice for Spirit. BUT, there will be props, and having helped out with a prototype, they are awesome. Go see the show!

Correct on both counts. Not more than 20 alumni joining the current hornline, but we sure did have fun! And that *is* a double G, produced by a 2012 member!

What exactly is the significance of Phantom's chest logo this year? Something related to Turandot/the show this year, no doubt, but what exactly is it?

Thanks so much for the great review! I was there as well, and it was a real blast not only getting to hear the corps play, but to join them as an alumnus for some tunes very near and dear to my heart. A few extra tidbits to complement your already excellent review: 14 different soloists featured throughout the show, including a few very hard-working rookies to both Spirit and to drum corps period. The whole bass line from 2011 returns this year. Talking with a staff member while watching guard rehearsal, I'm told they weren't as clean as they are now until July last year. However, they're still working to improve! Had a chance to see some visual/drill rehearsal later that night. The demand has certainly increased this year (I joked to a parent that I probably wouldn't be able to make the corps again this year if I were younger), but all members are responding very well to the adversity. Some really cool drill moves which look great from up high, including this one move with two straight lines coming together with a pinwheel effect that looks like cards shuffling.

Pretty close to the situation myself, and I can reiterate what several people have said. When a corps who has had great winter camps and several auditionees that they've cut or relegated to alternate status advertises 3 openings, it doesn't necessarily mean that they haven't already contacted the people they've cut or moved people in from alternate status. By advertising broadly, this allows a better chance of finding the best possible people quickly, and get them up to speed BEFORE spring training starts. I can virtually guarantee that several of these very fine players who got cut have already been contacted. I auditioned in 2010 and ended up cutting myself due to personal reasons, and later on when holes came up, I was contacted. Of course, by this point, I was committed to DCA, so I was no help to them that season, but they were able to fill the line just fine. Point being, a mass advertisement is simply a way to reach several people and allow the corps a better chance of finding the best quality quickly.

It's pretty difficult to just walk into a music store that's not within 10 miles of Elkhart, Indiana and find the full range of things like mellophones. If you can make it to a major DCI regional show (Minnesota, San Antonio, Atlanta, Allentown) and/or finals, you'll should find booths with marching brass available to try out, assuming you have your own mouthpiece. For the regionals, the attendance may vary, and you may only see one or two of the manufacturers (saw King and SB at both San Antonio and Allentown, Yamaha at San Antonio as well). In the past, finals has had King & SB, Yamaha, Jupiter Quantum, and Dynasty all there.

High five on the stripes.

Having done essentially both (marched one corps with a VCH and staff that marched Cavaliers, however our backwards technique was straight leg; marched another corps with straight leg), here's my take on it: Obviously, on adverse surface issue, Cavalier technique allows you to literally step over your obstacles, whereas with straight leg, you push through them. Feet in the sound as I conceptualize it really has nothing to do with the part of the technique where Cavalier and straight leg differ. In EVERY technique, your leading leg is straight on downbeats (or so one of my CH's has told us), and the rolldown from the downbeat is where your feet would get into the sound, and therefore's simply up to you keeping good control of your body. As for easier/efficient, one usually thinks Cavalier is easier since when you're marching straight leg for so long and you start to tick, it's because your legs are starting to bend, so if you're bending anyway, it's easier, right? Well, when you're ticking in straight leg, you're losing control of the lower quad raising the kneecap which keeps your leg straight. After a long time of Cavalier, you can tick from fatigue as well. In this case, you're losing control of your upper quad and hamstring raising the whole leg through your technique. So, my opinion is having done Cavalier one summer and trying to learn straight leg...straight leg is harder. But after a summer of straight leg and filling a hole afterwards doing Cavalier...Cavalier was harder. Either way, if it doesn't hurt after a good season, you're doing it wrong!

Probably a good plan to look into corps sales of their used instruments. This basically restricts you to Yamaha or Jupiter Quantum, both which are good choices, but between those two, I'd go Yamaha. I agree with the above post, minus the inclusion of Deg and Dynasty. Based on trying the four major brands still in DCI these days pretty quickly after each other, Dynasty was my least favorite.

I don't have very many '70's recordings, but I really like the push in Madison '75 in The Way We Were. '78, '79, '80 Spirit are also obvious choices. '86 BD during Chuck Corea accenting the screamers. Something about that "stock" full ensemble hits along with rolls on pretty much every percussion instrument in the stadium. '95 Madison in Malaga, post screamer trio, prior to rotating line '07 Cadets, in the Blue Shades no voice section '11 BD, Crown, Phantom - all were at a show in Texas, and I got to hear all of them on the 50 just at the top of the first tier of seating. God it was so loud.

Butthurt Homer alert incoming: I've made it a point to meet this hornline, especially the mellophone section. Compared to last year (four ageouts, including me), they are younger (two ageouts), but half the section is vets and several, regardless of drum corps experience, are very talented horn/mello players at the university level. Additionally, this year is the first time in a long time that SoA has had a mellophone instructor that actually has experience playing mellophone (nothing against our excellent trumpet playing techs of the years past). Sectional time has provided me several opportunities to hear individual players as part of instruction, and I can vouch that all have done immense amounts of work across camps to become very strong players. This book has some very exposed mellophone parts (opener alone has a section high C and B natural tritone sustains), and this section is not only confident enough to go for them, but think about little things like intonation and simultaneous releases. As for woodwind players with no brass experience in the hornline, so what? In my opinion, these are the hardest workers, and from this pool of people, you'll find several unexpected pleasant surprises. Future drum majors, section leaders, or in the post ageout arena, instructors for other drum corps, accomplished performers, or people who just plain love their corps and give back so much. Technically I was one of these, so I'll go ahead and take personal offense. :P Speaking of Bob Smith, he was in for two separate weeks last year. He certainly was interesting, and I love how well he did attempting to learn some of our names. (- What's your name? - Swindle! - Swinger? - Sure. - Okay, Spinner, on this set...) Anyway, I'm probably way too excited about this corps and show, but I can still probably say for all you drum corps fans out there that Spirit of Atlanta will find some way to engage you. 2012's gonna be a great year for drum corps.

Having volunteered at pretty much every winter camp so far, I'm pretty hyped for this program as both an alum of the corps and fan of the activity. Most of the corps body has known about the Lady Gaga chart since early March, but the administration has done a good job to follow the proper procedures as far as copyrights go, and also put out a product that keeps up with great performance standards. Got permission to arrange early in the year, the hornline read an initial version in early March, some minor tweaks were made, and a recording was made at the end of March to be sent to the artist for review. I can assume that things have gone well from there!

If Spirit is still a dream/goal for you, here's my recommendations: For DCI, Teal Sound has a lot of new brass and visual staff, a lot of these being some really cool guys who aged out with me at Spirit last year. Not to mention they're a great corps and you'd have a blast. For DCA, we'd love to have you at Atlanta CV! Two people on our brass staff are also current Spirit staff (PH and Clark), and we're looking at establishing some similar pedagogy things to help people eventually go to Spirit, and then come back when you get old (like me). Our next camp is in a week, December 11-12 in Douglasville, GA. Check us out at atlantacv.org But overall...march somewhere. Get that experience. And have a freakin' blast, because drum corps is fun!

We had a girl come to a December audition camp last year with a week on mellophone (originally a flute player) end up marching with us all the way to finals. I myself am a double reed player originally, but I had time (years) to develop brass chops before going to drum corps. In any case, you definitely sound like you have the drive to make it happen, so make it happen!

Let's see: Quincy, MA was a very close to crowd type of show. Even moreso for Bristol, RI, probably the smallest stadium I've ever performed in. I think I saw CH Collins in Denton, TX mentioned. I agree; the crowd was very close, and it was also my first chance to see corps that ended up placing in the top 5 last year. Hornell, NY - Great atmosphere for a DCA show, and getting to crash Empire's encore in 2010 was fun! Hattiesburg, MS - This was probably my favorite outdoor and college stadium. Very loud and close. Always helps if you're "home" in the South. Georgia Dome - Atlanta, GA - Most of my first live drum corps memories were made here, as well as some great memories as performer.

I volunteered at this camp, and my ears are still ringing from it! I was a 2011 rook-out of this corps and I'm so proud to see such an amazing start to the season. Me and several of my ageout friends were there, yelling, screaming, crying...it was awesome! And just for clarification/confirmation, our ageout class wasn't as big as you might think. ~15-20 in the hornline, and ~30 total. That being said, not everyone is going to be able to make it back for various reasons, so we're looking at maybe half the hornline open (I've heard we're making it bigger than the 72 we fielded last year). As for the show concept, I'll wait for the organization to post more details, but I will say that it makes sense as the next step in entertainment and Spirit sultry after film noir. 2011 was a magical year for us, but the design team is not losing any steam for 2012.