Phan_of_Drumming

I'm sure he'll look to that as an option, too. How do high-schoolers, whose school schedules (at least in my area) almost all go until June, work around these conflicts with the corps? I've heard tell that some corps will actually administer exams for younger students so that they can be with the corps, but I doubt any college would permit that. At the very least, he'll have concerts to play in and a recital to give toward the end of the spring trimester - unless he takes it off.

Hey all, My son and I have been going to drum corps shows since he was about eight years old. He is absolutely in love with the activity and intends to major in music performance, largely due to what he's seen on the field every summer. Up until this year, the finances have never been possible for our family to let him march for a summer. This year, however, things lined up nicely and he auditioned at his first choice corps in November. He was called back in December, but was then let go because his university's academic schedule conflicts with spring training. His school runs on a trimester system, and his final week of exams aren't until the second week of June. This would mean that he would miss as much as a month of spring training. Understandably, the front ensemble (his instrument, by the way) caption head informed him that this was waaaaaay too much time for someone without any drum corps experience to miss. It's hard for me to judge where he stood among the other players, not going to camp myself, but he told me that his feedback was quite good, and that his schedule was, in fact, the deal-breaker. My question is: What options does my son have to march over the summer? He has contacted two other corps and received a similar response - it's his schedule. He was told that if he could "get some experience" and come back, then missing much of spring training wouldn't be as big of an issue, and they would consider him for a front ensemble spot. But how is he supposed to get some experience if he cannot march anywhere because he has no experience? We are fully prepared to drive him (or give him a car to drive himself) to every weekend rehearsal in May/June, as well as whatever evening rehearsals he can make based on his academic schedule. He has suggested using Skype to view rehearsals from his dorm or from a practice room, and sending videos in every day to document his progress with the material. He has saved $2000 on his own for the past year and a half to make this work, and I while I would love to have my son around the house this summer, he would be crushed to miss one of his three remaining years of eligibility because of his school schedule. Furthermore, his school doesn't let out any earlier next year, so it's not as though his situation will change. He is now considering taking the spring trimester off, and he even talked about transferring schools to somewhere that had a more drum corps friendly schedule. Does he have any other options? I will support him no matter what he decides to do, because I know how much this means to him, but I wanted to get the opinion of people on here first. How can he break into the drum corps process with a schedule as difficult to work with as he has? Thanks.

I was just about to mention that - that's great.