Bobby L. Collins

I see no improvement in drum corps today. Tougher drill designed by a computer algorithm, sure, but that was already happening before DCI went full techno. It doesn't matter how much better the instruction or playing is today when it's buried beneath electronics or trickery. It doesn't matter how impressive the choreography and drill is when they're all wearing ridiculous outfits that even the most socially awkward nerds on the planet would tease and bully them for wearing. And it doesn't matter how hard the kids work when all their hard work is being overshadowed by the hubris of the design team and the corps' bank account. What I see and hear today is a parody of drum corps, if not a parody of performance art at large.

By comparing the number of fans who pay money to go to contests and log into livestreams to those who simply can't be bothered anymore. Based upon the number of corps that have existed over the past 45 years, and the fact that humans are living longer than ever before, every single show throughout the season should be sold out day after day, year after year, but that's not the case. Instead, sunshine pumping proponents of summertime BOA boats ticket sales and headcounts at home-team venues were the vast majority of the ticket holders arrived and left on a school bus.

I say again, having myself played on a myriad of bugles over the years, that the only intonation problems with bugles is on the performer, and not the hardware. No matter the instrument, it's up to the musician to play in tune, whether it's a Xeno, or a Dynasty, or a Conn, or a Ludwig, or even a Gretsch. And you trying to wax poetic about watching kids marching with military bearing while wearing a spandex one-piece is beyond laughable. I mean, you've got to admit that, right?

Sure, and I get that. I mean, I don't know anyone personally who enjoys it, outside of a handful of colleagues who are currently teaching with a drum corps and are being paid to enjoy it.....and not even all of them actually do enjoy it. But that doesn't mean what's happening in modern drum corps is good, or right, or even beneficial to anyone but the handful of executives and corps directors who push it. What you're apparently asking me (and anyone else who loathes it) is to accept it is what it is, and to accept that it can't be toned down to reasonable, TOLERABLE levels. And I can't accept that. I won't. If you twist my arm, sure I'm going to say that I think it's an abomination, and it should be banned, but I know that's not going to happen. All I'm asking at this point is for corps to stop shoving high concept art down our throats, reel in the electronics and amplification, and stop putting the entire music department on the field. I get that you like it, and that you want the narrative to be that the majority of fans like it, which is demonstrably untrue. So perhaps instead of trying to open your eyes, I should simply ask you this. Did YOU ever stop to consider that maybe...just maybe...some people actually DON'T enjoy the things that you do?

You know, you make a good point. It's a shame though. I hate to see vets buy in to snake oil.

Now don't run off and take your ball home when you can't refute my points. I am just as passionate about drum corps as you appear to be, but if all you want to do is troll when you can't form a cogent rebuttal, then I'm going to treat you like a troll. And I don't think anyone would begrudge me for doing so.

But this isn't change. Throughout all the changes that affected drum corps over the years, at the end of the day, it was still drums, brass instruments, and color guard marching and playing. What is happening today isn't change. It's transformation into another medium altogether. The drums, brass and color guard are now superfluous, literally playing second fiddle to an electronic violin. The kids no longer even need to be there, it can all be done with synthesizers and dancers. That's not change. That's subversion.

Again, you can't cherry pick venues in order to promote false equivalency.

No. I never said that, and I never even hinted at that. Too many people assume that disenfranchised vets only care about the year or years in which they marched. Nothing could be further from the truth. I care about the entire history of drum corps. I adore drum corps all the way back from the 30s right up to the loss of bugles, and I can even respect and commend a handful of productions beyond that. But I draw the line at the what it has become in recent years. I don't enjoy it, I don't appreciate it, I don't recognize its educational or artistic value, and I don't endorse it. As far as I'm concerned, it's not drum corps, and it doesn't even pretend to be so anymore. What it is.....is all that we have. And it would sure be nice if we had a different option. An option beyond abandoning the activity entirely. Which is what is happening, even among the staunchest supporters.

The kids are enjoying the same things about drum corps they've enjoyed since DCI was formed. Getting away from their families for a few months, traveling around the country, spending so much time outdoors, keeping in shape, making new friends, meeting new people...and, dare I say it....the prospect of decadent promiscuity. Things that kids enjoy whether they're in a drum corps or not. But spending an entire summer honing a book of music to a high degree of proficiency and execution, then coming back, receiving their commemorative DVDs or MP4 downloads, and not being able to see or hear any of their hard work because it's being drowned out and masked by a cacophony of white noise and interpretive dance?..........not so much. And I know someone is going to accuse me of projecting, but I promise you, I've spoken to many recent participants from several different corps who aren't very happy with the modern experience, either. At some point, the bubble is going to burst.

I think what I'd rather do is publicly call you out for having already read the post in question and trying to pretend to be a lot smarter and insightful than you really are. Nope. That's not how I operate. I've dealt with people like you before. I'm not here to win anything......your approval or favor, least of all. You either read the post and go from there.....or you step out of the discourse. Those are your options. Otherwise, we're done. I truly hope we understand each other.

Yeah, you keep talking about those fans, but are they really fans? The vast majority of them are there because their band directors said "Ok, get on the bus". Some of them may become fans, but I promise you, most of them walk away from it saying "Wow, that was really stupid". Most of rest of them are there because their darling little snowflake is on the field, pulling faces in the front ensemble. Sure, there's a handful of die-hards who will be cupping their hands behind their ears, but by and large the demographic of attendees is a minuscule fragment of the cross section that drum corps once boasted. Now, that won't be true this week. Prelims/Semis/Finals ticketholders are die-hards, and sure, Indy will be a sellout. So don't try to use Indy as a gauge of how popular drum corps is today. It remains a niche activity, but one that has lost a lot of the support of the old vets, the same old vets who supported it throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. That is not anecdotal. It is demonstrable.

Yesterday, I gave my thoughts on the loss of bugles. Today, my thoughts on electronics and amplification. For me, 2005 was the turning point where I went from "Well it sucks they stopped using bugles, but it's still drum corps" to "What in the name of Odin's Beard are they even doing out there??". Without going back and watching 2005 finals (which I haven't done in a while), the things that really turned me off were not being able to hear brass ballads because of all the amplified marimbas and suspended cymbals, and being totally distracted and taken out of the moment when someone hopped on a microphone and either started trying to sing sprechstimme, or scatting drum features into microphones rather than actually performing them on their drums, which was the only reason in the world they auditioned to be in a drum corps in the first place. It was even worse the next year, and just kept getting progressively worse each and every year. The excessive narration has been a massive button of mine corps seem to enjoy pushing. I don't know which year "YOWZA YOWZA YOWZA" is from, nor do I care. As far as I'm concerned, that is one of the worst top 12 productions to ever be put on the field. Would have probably been fine if the guy hadn't been literally screaming into a microphone throughout the entire show, completely covering up anything that was happening musically (I really don't blame that guy, after all, he was just doing what they told him to do, but the sound of his voice still makes me want to blaspheme, even after all these years). And I know that show has its fans, who defend it by reminding me how wonderfully it fit in with the theme of the show. My response to them has always been "If I want to listen to a radio DJ narrate a dance competition, I'll turn on the bloody radio in 1953. I certainly won't pay 50 bucks to try to listen to a drum corps play over that crap". Then we got keyboard synthesizers, electric violins, drum machines, and prerecorded samples. Synthesized bass that makes tuba lines superfluous and redundant. Vocal choirs monopolizing an uncomfortable portion of the corps' allotted time on the field. Sampled brass patches filling in the thirds and fifths for corps that only know how to play unison roots in tune. Clip-on microphones. And professional audio engineers that very likely get paid twice as much as any corps' entire staff combined. And the same level of audio trickery that's employed today by audio engineers and mixers in pop music. I didn't ask for any of this. I don't know any who asked for any of this. As far as I know, the only person who asked for any of this was George Hopkins. But people in this activity like to put him on a pedestal and kow-tow to his every whim, so now there's a generation of drum corps instructors, members and age-outs who think it's all perfectly normal, and essential to win medals. Well let me tell you something; there's absolutely nothing...NOTHING normal about this. If it were just one thing every now and again, that would be a different matter. A miked marimba solo during a front ensemble feature.....ok. But a miked marimba playing four-mallet rolls on soft yarn drowning out the hit of a ballad with the hornline at full power? Come on. A few seconds of synthesized ambiance during a transition where the colorguard is in the front and the hornline is stretching out a curve in the back?........ok. But 8 to 10 minutes of synthesized ambiance drowning out an entire production? Come on. A sampled pitch bend near the final note of a production? Well, ok. I'd rather hear a full power chord, which the corps is more than capable of executing, but whatever. But sampled (and autotuned) brass that is genuinely replacing the horns on the field for significant portions of a show, or filling in the 3rds and fifths of park'n'bark chords in order to give smug trolls on YouTube the satisfaction of boasting about how much better in tune corps are today? Come on. Vocal choirs consisting of uniformed members of the corps congregating for a 20-second, unamplified feature? Sure, why not? That is not without precedent. But amplified groups of dedicated singers who don't march a single step during the entire production, both masking and drowning out the performers behind them as they stand front and center on costly and rickety props? Come on. A clip on microphone for a soloist? Well, high schools have been doing that for a long time, and that's very much a high school thing to do. But clip on microphones for all the ringers in the corps to give the illusion that the sound the audience is hearing is representative of what the corps actually sounds like? Come on. Having an auxiliary member of the corps operate the on-off switch for a modest amount of electronics used tastefully and with at least a shred of restraint during a show? Ok, still anathema to me, but at least it's a member of the corps doing it. But paying a professional audio engineer to manipulate the sound of a production via trickery and deceit, cheapening the efforts of the entire cadre of corps members? All in the name of "art" and "progress" and "G.E."?? COME ON! A modern drum corps show looks and sounds like someone turned on every single television in the electronics department at Wal-Mart, then put each television on a different channel, then did the same thing with all the stereos and put them all on different radio stations, and then, for good measure, fired up some video games on top of all that...then pulled the fire alarm. Whom does this serve?? Excess is the very word to describe it. It's too much. I feel like it caters to people with attention deficit disorder, or at the very least people who keep their nose buried in their smartphone all the time. I mean, I'm not even joking when I say that I fully expect to see giant fidget spinners on the field next year. It's an out-of-control circus of bedlam and sensory overload. All the dinosaurs (and a growing number of milennials) are asking for at this point is to either ban it, or else to reel it in, practice some moderation and restraint, stop relying on it as a pure crutch to be competitive, and stop shoving it down our throats. I have (well, had) a really good friend who is an alcoholic, who flat out refuses to seek help for his addiction, and who spends every waking hour validating his alcohol abuse. I tried so hard to help him, but he simply became intolerable to the point where I felt like it was better for me to get as far away from him as possible. That's very much what I feel like I'm dealing with when it comes to fans and proponents of electronics and amplification; people who are so addicted to that sensory overload that they refuse to even consider how damaging it is to the activity. They make me so angry. I know most of them don't even really like it, they just roll with whatever the "popular" opinion is, and among ticket holders the popular opinion is that esoteric avant-garde art performance is the future of DCI. They are to drum corps what the New Vienna School was to classical music. Damaging. Bottom line is that all the electronics and amplification are perverting DCI's mission statement, they're doing a gross disservice to the fans and to the young people participating in the activity, and they're cheapening the art form in the eyes and ears of many, many people. While I fundamentally believe that electronics and amplification should be banned entirely from the activity, I know that's never going to happen. The box is open. But as stated yesterday, the box is there for a reason. And at some point, someone is going to have to close that box. Because this can't continue. I think even George Hopkins understands that now. Now, back to the OP's question. Was all this a result of the drum and bugle corps running out of artistic creativity and innovation? No. It was born out of one man's vanity. Drum and bugle corps had plenty of room to grow without the perversion of amplification or ProTools. As stated before, Cavaliers 2002 was just a taste of what it could have become. But that train is sailed. It's no longer about innovation or artistic creativity. At this point, it's all about damage control, and catering to the whims of Winter Guard International and Bands of America. Tomorrow, I'll address the third nodal point; Gesticulation (I'll try to come up with a better word for it before then).

Well if you're too lazy to click back a page and read, then you're too lazy to have a valid opinion. Full stop. Honestly, I'm not here to argue with your opinions, but rather to simply express my own, which I am going to do whether you like it or not. And if all you can post is snarky, vapid replies devoid of merit or rationale in turn....well, if that gives you something to do, you go for it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that you and I aren't going to be friends. And that's fine. I'm not here to be your friend. And if you're not willing to click back one page and hit control + F and type "a question for purists", an action that would take less than 10 seconds to execute , then I'm not willing to consider anything you have to talk about to be worthy of merit or consideration.

That baseball analogy is a good one. If I were a 20 year old musician approached today and asked to participate in DCI, I would probably snicker and not-so-politely decline. I do a pretty good job looking like an absolute fool every single day of my life. I don't need to pay thousands of dollars and practice hundreds of hours, pushing my body and mind to their very limits in order to achieve the very same result in spandex tights on a football field. And had I been asked to do even 5% of the ridiculous stuff they do in DCI today when i marched, I would have just gone home. Of course, I didn't even like taking a knee during our ballad, or the handful of horn flashes we were instructed to perform. Maybe I was just a stick in the mud back then too.

Yeah, I really don't need your history lesson on bugles (you'll find in the days and weeks and months to come that I'm actually a pretty smart guy, and I've already done the research...probably just as much as you, in fact), nor do I need your pedantic insistence on playing devil's advocate for the sake of being contrary. They were marketed as bugles by the companies that produced them, they were called bugles by everyone who played them and listened to them, and even if they stopped being bugles by your narrow definition 25 years before I stepped foot on the field, they were still recognized and regarded as bugles by Drum Corps International right up until George Hopkins decided he didn't want to use them anymore. You will not use semantics or wordplay to question my knowledge of or devotion to drum and bugle corps. END OF DISCUSSION. What I would really like you to do is to read my post on G bugles on the "a question for the purists" thread, because I just don't have time to type all that again. In that post, I agree that not every corps sounded great on bugles, but I go on to maintain that was on the performers and instructors, not the equipment. I even delve into reasons why corps today wouldn't dream of playing on bugles. It's a long read, but you seem to enjoy reading.

If only corps had the money to pay a living wage to their staff. If only they didn't have to spend all that money on props, electronic equipment, and winter guard outfits for the entire corps. Not to mention new horns every year....

I'm with you on one regard, however. I too don't like seeing things dumbed down to the lowest denominator. That's what's happened to my college alma mater's band. I hate it, and it it makes me angry. But I think I can speak for just about all the dinosaurs when I say that no one is asking for that in drum corps. What we're asking for is to lay off the esoteric, high-concept preachiness. I mean, we get it. A very small number of individuals who call the shots want drum corps to evolve into a higher art form, which absolutely no one asked for. Sure, plenty of yes-men are rolling with it....that's what they do. But consider this. Isn't it possible that the only thing worse than catering to the lowest denominator is perhaps making the activity inaccessible to even the common denominator? Sometimes...... just sometimes.......it's okay for a production to not have a deep underlying message that results in a spiritual awakening in the spectator. Sometimes......it's okay for a corps to just play some banging tunes while they march some banging drill. That was the draw to drum corps prior to George Hopkins and Michael Cesario rewriting the book; music in motion, not avant-garde performance art. As far as I know, there is no rule in place (at least not yet) that stipulates a corps' production is REQUIRED to speak to the spectator's abstract feelings and cause him/her to experience a transcendental epiphany. That kind of stuff may speak to you, but it does not speak to me, nor to anyone I know personally. And I don't think it's fair to lump us into the "lowest denominator" because we don't support DCI's conscious choice to sabotage itself with its growing inaccessibility to the rest of the world. I used to work at Disney Concert Hall and The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Day after day, week after week, I listened to concert patrons and subscribers praise 21st century art music (Phillip Glass, Arvo Part, and basically any American Prize Winners) and gush about how great it is, yet day after day, week after week, those same patrons were no where to be seen when those composers' works were being performed to near-empty audiences. Meanwhile, just about every one of Dudamel's Mahler cycle concerts was a sellout, as were any other classic work prior to the New Vienna School (which I very much hold in parallel with modern drum corps). Those people were NOT the lowest denominator. Those people were the ones keeping the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in operation. And they didn't want to listen to cacaphonous 12-tone noise.....they wanted listen to good music. And that's all I want in my drum corps; good music, good marching, good spinning and tossing. Bottom line, if I want to be preached at, I'll go to church. But I'll be darned if I'm going to PAY to be preached at inside a football stadium, when all I really want is to be entertained. Drum corps throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s entertain me. A handful of shows from the 21st century entertain me. But this move towards autotuned spandex and avant-garde inaccessibility......in my eyes, that is the opposite of entertainment. That is punishment for a crime I did not commit.

There's a fine line between learning more about a design and having it shoved down your throat for 12 minutes....to the detriment of the activity.

Absolutely they could have done more. And to quote Saboo from The Mighty Boosh, "The box is there for a reason". One of the biggest criticisms I read about G bugles is how hard to play they were and how out of tune they were (criticisms almost universally voiced by individuals who have never even held a bugle, much less played one). Well let me tell you something. The only thing wrong with G bugles was the individuals playing them, and the instructors trying to teach said individuals how to play them. You can't listen to Phantom 94's ballad or Spirit 80's closer or Madison 75's concert piece and try to act like those kids didn't know how to play those bugles. In 1997, i spent the entire summer playing a 2 valve soprano, and it was no harder to play than my intermediate model Yamaha trumpet, or any Bach Stradivarius or Yamaha Xeno I had ever (or have still ever) played. That bugle made me a better player and a better musician, and any intonation issues it had were entirely on MY end. At the end of the day, it is the responsibility of the performer to play in tune, not the equipment. And in many cases throughout the years with many different corps, the instructors simply didn't emphasize intonation, and it wouldn't have made a difference if they were playing on concert equipment, or bugles, or even vuvuzelas. Since that time I've played piston rotors and 3 valve bugles, and again, the only intonation issues I ever had were the result of the player, not the horns. A lot of people like to act like playing bugles was like playing a Conn 16E mellophone, and the bottom line is that very few of those people ever even played a bugle (or a 16E, for that matter), and they don't know their brass from a hole in the ground. And they have certainly never stood in front of a bugle line live. They like to cite modern parking lot warmups of trumpets, mellophones, baritones and tubas playing unison lip slurs or alternating between fortissississimo pedal tones and open fifths, and gush about how great it sounds, and ask questions like "How can you even compare G bugles with this sound?" and my response to them is "Because I've heard both live. You're trying to compare digital audio recorded on a smartphone yesterday with low fidelity 20, 30 and 40 year-old analog clips you didn't hear live. How can YOU compare them?". I am a professional musician, composer and arranger. It is my business to hear things. And I can hear all the tricks they are pulling in the modern activity to prompt fanboys on the internet to gush about how in tune modern corps are. Tricks like playing unisons or open fifths while a synthesizer plays the third (and before someone says "can you provide an example?", yeah I can......ALL of them). Tricks like covering up intonation issues with ambient choir aahs or stacked whole-note clusters in the front ensemble. And, most notoriously, tricks like amplifying the better players while those who can't play in tune run up and down props. No, it's not the expensive concert instruments what has made corps sound more "in-tune", it's the level of trickery and deception of the audio engineers. All you have to do is listen to corps in victory formations. Sure, they sound terrific, but by God they're not in any better tune than bugle lines of yesteryear. Madison's closer in 2011 is a beautiful arrangement, but their pitch was all over the place (particularly the miked soloists). So I'm pretty fed up with people who don't know what they're talking about trying to rewrite history to suit their own agendas. Bugles were no harder to play than any other brass instrument. It all came down to the competence of the performers and the instructors. And I strongly feel there is STILL a world to be explored with bugles and their timbre (not to mention their volume, which a lot of these bugle naysayers never once experienced for themselves, and constantly speak out of complete and utter ignorance). Imagine (if you can) your favorite 21-st century production, without amplification, played on the same equipment that Madison Scouts' hornline used to bring down the house in 1995....equipment that relied upon talented performers being allowed to explore the full power of their instruments, rather than upon the full power of their sound system and speakers. What it comes down to is that there are hardly any active instructors or techs today who have themselves ever played a G bugle, and are inherently intimidated by them, or the prospect of trying to teach anyone how to play them. It's not rocket surgery. Have the trumpets, baritones, and tubas hold down their third valve. Guess what, now you're in the key of G, now let's pretend you're playing a two-valve bugle and go from there. A little more complex for mellophones, but any instructor worth his/her salt could figure it out with a simple Google search. Furthermore, none of the active instructors or techs savor having to teach the baritones and contras how to read treble clef. Again, not rocket surgery. They teach that in elementary school, for pete's sake. For a music educator, teaching brass students to play a G bugle is no different than teaching a brass student to transpose, and if a music educator can't teach someone to transpose, then perhaps they're in the wrong field of study. It's all a matter of convenience, and it's just more convenient for modern corps' massive team of brass instructors to roll with marching band equipment than it is to try to learn how to use the equipment that gave this entire activity its identity. The directors, meanwhile, cite money. "Bugles are just too expensive to maintain". They're no more expensive to maintain than the equipment they're using today. The ONLY difference is that they can't flip their entire hornline at the end of the tour so they can go out and buy a brand new one the next year. Whoopty-freakin-dooooo. That's some entitled snowflakiness, right there. There's nothing wrong with using your line of horns until they can no longer be repaired........that used to be the golden path. THAT used to be how you saved money. And it could very easily be that way again. I know for a fact there are instrument repairmen out there struggling for work at this very moment, repairmen who would love nothing more than to refurbish your entire line of bugles at a competitive discount, or perhaps even offer their services on tour with your corps. But that's not an option for corps today, they're so spoiled, and feel like they can't function or be competitive on used equipment.....horse hockey. Buying new horns every year is a ludicrous, excessive, and needless expense, demonstrative of how misaligned DCI's priorities have become. Now, all I've even covered is the G bugles, which was the first button of mine that DCI pushed. I haven't even begun to answer your question, and I have MUCH more to say on this matter......MUCH more.......but there are only 24 hours in a day, so I'll simply say, more to come.

My devotion to this activity sort of waned (well there's no "sort of" to it) with the loss of bugles, but I remember how hopeful I was after watching The Cavaliers' 2002 production. That show featured almost nonstop marching and playing, with some of the strongest drill that had been put on the field. I remember thinking at the time "Now, if THAT is the direction drum corps is evolving, then I'm totally on board". Unfortunately, all the other corps' directors and instructors focused instead on the 20 seconds of dancing in that show, and decided that was the direction they wanted to "evolve" the activity. Regardless, I strongly feel that the Cavies won in 2002 because their entire production was built around "music in motion". The book wasn't that innovative or challenging (mainly theme and variations with a bunch of well-polished e-flat chords), and they only laid their horns down on the field one time to dance, but the strength of that drill and the excitement generated by all those rapid fire transitions really sealed the deal.

I can't think of a single good use of amplification on the field. This is probably going to sound harsh to some of you, but I fundamentally believe that if a soloist cannot naturally project their sound above background accompaniment on the field, then either the accompaniment needs to play softer, or the soloist needs to learn how to project. You think Bonnie Ott needed a microphone to be heard? She managed to project above a full power Blue Devils standing in concert formation, and she did it on a piston-rotor mellophone bugle, which is (according to a lot of young and snarky self-appointed experts out there) impossible to play with a good sound or in tune....yet she managed to do so, and helped Blue Devils with a championship. Unlike so many participants today (or, more accurately, so many instructors), I think Bonnie fundamentally realized that she was already holding an amplifier in her hands, and it wasn't the responsibility of a sound system to convey her musical message or her artistic ability, but hers alone. I'm going to be perfectly honest here. The last production I have been able to watch and listen to a recording of and not feel at least some level of disgust and contempt for was Phantom Regiment 2008, and even in that production, I still sigh and shake my head when it gets to the electronic "snickt" near the end of the tune before the ballad. That was totally unnecessary, and it completely takes me out of the moment and, by extension, the entire production. I fundamentally believe that was added not because it was needed, but simply because it was allowed. And this is the very tamest example I can think of. But that's the real point here; To quote Jeff Goldblum (which I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time I've done so), Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. Replace "scientists" with "techs" and, well, the parallel is frightening similar. Don't get me wrong, there are still bits and pieces of modern productions that I can still appreciate and dig, but always......ALWAYS....with a big asterisk, as a result of underlying electronics. Bluecoats' opener in 2011 is phenomenal, but I always skip to the brass entrance, because I simply cannot tolerate all the ambient noise accompanying the corps esoteric arm-flapping, nor can I tolerate listening to a synthesizer playing what should have been a marimba feature. And even during the brass' buildup to the hit, I cannot abide the synthesizer playing choir aahs underneath it. From that same year, Phantom's show is tremendous, but it's just got too much synthesized ambiance for me to enjoy. And to this day, I STILL can't watch Carolina Crown's championship production....every time I try to do so, I find myself yelling "SHUT...UP!!!" at the kids talking over the first two minutes (which, I hate to admit, I would have probably also done had I gone to a show and watched them live). I'm sure that production is every bit as phenomenal as everyone keeps preaching to me it is, but it's not fair for someone to ask me to sit through a production which I simply cannot tolerate in order to appreciate an art form which has been perverted (and I don't think that's too strong a term) into something unrecognizable to the eyes and ears of those who helped sustain it all these years. Well, I'm sorry, but I do not appreciate electronics and amplification on the field, and I never will. If that makes me an out of touch dinosaur, then so be it. If it means staying true to my own personal convictions and ideals, then I'll wear that badge with honor, and I have no problem calling out modern directors, judges and instructors on how utterly ridiculous they are currently making drum corps look and sound to even the staunchest of fans and supporters...much less the outside world. Now, I'm getting worked up about this, and kind of going off-message. I could write a book about my thoughts on this stuff, and this probably isn't the thread for it. Bottom line, the electronics and amplification are killing the enjoyment of the activity for a lot of people, including vets, fans, and supporters. Even the ones that say "I don't mind electronics and amplification, but........" are becoming increasingly disillusioned with it. And the ones that can't shut up about how terrific it is are the same ones who listen to Shoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire in their car on their daily commute (seriously, if you're not familiar with that piece, look it up on youtube.....THAT is what those people want DCI to become). I personally maintain there's no place for electronics and amplfiication on the field, and it should be banned entirely, but I know that's not how DCI works. But I cannot in good conscience support the activity as it exists today. And electronics/amplification is at the top of my very long list list of reasons for why.

I've lurked here for a very long time, always refraining from posting my thoughts and feelings, but this topic is just too important. I am a dinosaur. I marched only one year in a div. III corps in 1997, but thanks to PBS I've been a fan of drum corps since the early 80s, I also taught brass and arranged music for a local div. III/DCA corps. The last two DCI events I attended were the 2005 prelims in a movie theater, and the 2006 show in Cookeville, Tennessee. This was at or near the dawn of the whole amplification movement, but at that point I believe it was limited to front ensemble, and members yelling into microphones. In 2005, I was struck by how unfortunate it was that the Cadets' hornline was playing such a beautiful ballad, but all anyone could hear was marimba. And at Cookeville in 2006, it was the same story with the handful of corps that actually performed (it was ultimately rained out). I decided then and there that attending shows was no longer a good value. Since then, the activity has changed so much that I have very little interest in it anymore. There are a lot of points that set me off (replacing bugles with marching band equipment, replacing marching and playing with interpretive dance, replacing spinning and tossing with crawling and emoting, and all the expensive, dangerous props), but the ever-expanding amplification is the biggest turnoff for me, for several reasons. The biggest is, of course, that it's disingenuous. I want to hear a drum corps' natural performance, as it has been for the past 70+ years. I don't want to hear the subtle textured nuances of a backfield soloist sidechained into a sampled babbling stream by a professional audio engineer. I don't want to hear a concert choir oohing and aahing over a ballad buildup, much less the hit. I want to hear how much sound a hornline can generate with the air in their lungs, rather than with the wattage in their speakers. I've actually said this before in another context (college marching band). Every single member of the hornine and drumline is already holding an amplifier in their hands (except, of course, when they put them on the ground so they can run around and frolic for G.E. points). Why in the name of sanity do they need additional amplification? I've heard lots of excuses for it. The biggest is "artistic creativity". I myself am a composer and arranger, and I like to think I know a thing or two about "artistic creativity". And I find nothing artistic or creative about amplification on the field. Instead, I find it incredibly distracting, a massive waste of resources, and extremely damaging to the future of the activity. I've also read more than once that brass instruments don't sound good when played loud, and that the amplification allows them to play well and still be heard. As a music educator and a musician, I know that is complete tosh. The only reason our ancestors had the bright idea of buzzing their lips into animal horns in the first place was that it was loud. Being loud is what brass instruments do. Arnold Jacobs, Philip Farkas, Bud Herseth, Vince Chichowicz and Frank Crisafulli didn't keep their chairs in the Chicago Symphony all those years by playing one dynamic level into microphones (and I used those examples because I don't think the folks who make such a ridiculous claim would even know who Arturo Sandoval, Maynard Ferguson, Wynton Marsalis, or Doc Severinsen are). Furthermore, if brass instruments didn't sound good at a loud dynamic, then this activity wouldn't even exist today, for no one would have given a toss about drum and bugle corps throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Those corps' hornlines may not have been up to the intonation standards of today's highbrow drum corps afficianado holding a tuner in his hand....but they had to have been doing something right all those years, no? As best as I can tell, the only logical reason for amplifying the brass in a drum corps is so that it can be heard over the amplified percussion, choir, synthesizers, and ambient samples. "Getting out of hand" is an understatement. It's not a question of artistic merit, or playing with a good sound. It's instead a question of being obfuscated by all the other gimmicks being employed by corps today in order to be competitive in the most ridiculous scoring system imaginable. It also sends the wrong message to the performers; they work hard almost every day for several months, and at the end of the day, most of their hard work is being covered up by a professional audio engineer. That's just not good music education, in my book. Nor does it do proper service to longtime fans and supporters. Amplification on the field has much farther-reaching implications. High school and college marching bands take their cues from drum corps, and more and more bands are "amping up" in order to emulate their drum corps heroes. The last high school marching competition I attended was intolerable, with all the wrong notes being played straight into microphones (mercifully, half their shows involved interpretive dance, which makes me wonder if that too isn't designed to cover up deficiencies rather than to be artistically creative). Even my college alma mater, which used to have one of the best bands in the NCAA, has become reliant upon amplification in order to be heard in its native stadium, which is absolutely ridiculous for a 300+ member band (and I've heard every excuse imaginable for that, none of which hold up to the scrutiny of common sense). I just don't know how much longer DCI and the corps are going to be able to rely upon friends and family of current members, recent age-outs who have only known amplification, and donors to fill up the seats in the venues, because amplification (along with all the other ridiculous changes injected into the activity in the past 15 years) is demonstrably killing off the activity in the eyes (and ears) of vets and long-time fans. I realize some fans love it, and gush over it, and simply cannot shut up about how terrific it is, but I'm not entirely positive they're the ones keeping DCI from going bankrupt. I just don't know how much longer the activity is going to survive when the vast majority of its fanbase can no longer stand to watch or listen to it. If DCI stops using electronics, then high school and college bands will stop using them. That's the only way forward. Otherwise, the entire marching activity is at risk of being replaced by cheerleaders and dance squads, pre-recorded hip hop, and Summer Guard International (which it already is, but amplification isn't helping). And I know there are some who would love that, and who are actively petitioning for that to happen. Whether it does or not is kind of up to you. I say "you" because I've already sabotaged my own career by trying to save a college marching band from itself. There's not much I can do to help save DCI but point out what's wrong with it, and how to fix it. It's up to others to actually do something about it. Anyway, I've stopped advocating drum corps to my students, because I simply cannot in good faith look them in the eyes and say "Remember, if you practice really hard, and stay extremely physically fit, and have rich parents with disposable income and/or really good credit, you too can be a part of an elite corps of musicians who spend an entire summer being drowned out by synthesizers, reverb, pre-recorded samples, stationary singers, and narration".