quietcity

Maybe Phantom will learn the meaning of metaphor this year. I love their style, but they are always a tad heavy-handed and literal in their artistic interpretations. I mean, beheadings and impalings are not the kind of things I look forward to in a drum corps show. Is Michael Bay their artistic director?

Why do you think they call them "slide trombones"?

Madison is rumored to be using trombones this year (there is a recent DCP thread here to this effect). Seems fitting, as they were daring enough to (briefly) use those wacky tromboniums way back in '78 (or was it '80?).

Actually, I think the appropriate current term is "percussive soliloquy."

How many of you are familiar with that ancient religious debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Because that is what you are recreating here.

I partially agree with you. Like I said before, if it sounds good, it is good. But consider the aspect of showmanship. Part of great showmanship is creating an illusion that plays with your sense of reality. Consider why live acts like Penn and Teller, Cirque du Soleil and Blue Man Group are so popular, despite the fact that all their tricks could be easily imitated on a screen using computer graphics. Does it even make sense to watch a computer avatar "perform" magic tricks or acrobatics? As an audience member, hearing SCV's drum-line recreate, quite convincingly, the sound of passing helicopters is a much more gratifying bit of showmanship than if they just had just one person pushing a key to play a synth patch. And it must be much more gratifying for the show designers and performers as well, because it places such creative and performance demands on them.

I am not sure what point you think is being made. The fact that the Cavaliers' "synthesized" sound was actually analog is pretty cool, and could be seen as support for the idea that synthesized sounds are not necessary. The same point has been made about SCV's helicopter and machine gun sounds made by the percussion in their "Miss Saigon" show.

I perhaps did not state my point clearly enough. I have no issue with mic'd performers. It makes a lot of sense, for all the reasons you state. A soloist can now play with delicacy and nuance, and still be heard. A naturally quiet instrument can be fully utilized. Rather, my issue is with inept use of narration and synthesized sounds. Call me old, but I think these artificial ingredients have in some cases detracted from, rather than enhanced, the wonderful music the musicians are making. Used with a heavy hand, these techniques steal the spotlight from the kids on the field. I am astonished and delighted by the incredible level of complexity and musicality in drum corps these days, compared to when I marched in the late 70s and early 80s. As such, I just hate seeing anything artificial getting in the way. If you will forgive the analogy, it reminds me of when a naturally beautiful woman decides to "enhance" herself with silicon, collagen and botox.

Thanks for the feedback. I don't have any contact with marching members these days, so I am always curious as to how the current crop of young folk view drum corps. And the Cavies made those weird noises with percussion? I am astonished. Do you know how they did it?

Speaking of SCV, 1984 Musika Bohema was, to my knowledge, the first quiet drum solo, and a beautiful piece of music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AevfI-uBkE0 Too bad the camera work is so bad....

I have a visceral reaction against narration in drum corps, just as I do to the use of synthesized sounds. It is not because such things cannot work from a musical or performance point of view. I think the Cavaliers used synthesized sounds very effectively in their Machine show. Like Duke Ellington said, if it sounds good, it is good. My real objection is that such "performance enhancers" detract from the actual music that the kids in the corps are making. When I was marching, one of my biggest thrills was that I was making real music with my peers, and for a live audience. I think I would feel slighted to have my musical efforts become just a back-drop for a narrated show, especially a recorded one. Now, I am long out to pasture and no longer hip. But I wonder what the kids marching today think about this. Do they feel like they are being supplanted by all the electronic gew-gaws and ghostly voices? Do their efforts to make real, analog music feel undermined by this digital artifice?

I would like to say there will never be full nudity on the field, but some of the guards have come pretty close already.

The more I watch drum corps mutate, the more I can't help but to think that the battery will fade away. Marching drums are awkward drill-wise, of course. But more importantly, there are not many pieces of music that truly need a sonic wall of snares, tenors and bass-drums throughout. The pit provides much more subtlety, flexibility and color, if not the thunder. But hey, amps. Yes, I know, the battery is part of the traditional "drum corps sound", but the drum corps sound is a'changin', getting progressively more musical and nuanced. Don't get me wrong, I would miss the battery, and don't want to see it go. But my reading of the tea leaves suggest that the battery's days may be numbered.

Agree, lock it.

Well, you are right about that. There are not that many modern brass instruments that have a suitable sound and mobility for outdoor performances. Even still, drum corps used to make much more use of marching french horns, alto horns and flugel horns, now all replaced by mellos. I miss the french horn sound especially (that was my instrument), which added a dark, burnished sound to the brass line. The brass family does not really offer much variety when it comes to color and timbre. So, as long as drum corps insists on sticking with four or five brass instruments, it will always be locked into a certain sound. And as such, that adds a limit to the ways that corps can competitively distinguish themselves from each other. I can see why this leaves some corps arrangers and directors itching for more variety, e.g., woodwinds, synths, etc.

OK, I am done feeding this particular troll.

First, some science; apple seeds contain tiny traces of cyanide, not arsenic. The amount of cyanide in the seeds is so small that it would be almost impossible to suffer injury from ingesting apple seeds. Hence, your metaphor is both erroneous in construct and pointless as illustration. Besides, who eats apple cores other than horses? But I get your basic point, that is, your fear of a slippery slope. You fear that if we tolerate Lady Gaga's emetic boogaloo, we encourage more of the same, and eventually all of society is corrupted by these "degenerate" ideas. So, a couple simple questions: which historical antecedents (other than Biblical) do you have in mind? How do you see this process tainting drum corps? Are you actually worried that the Blue Devils will some day puke on themselves? and WIN?? Dam you HOPKINS!

Stu, I am sure you are aware that much art that we consider standard today started off as controversial. The Rite of Spring caused a riot, Elvis' gyrating hips were censored from TV, the Tango was seen as licentious, and ironically, decades later, Astor Piazzola fled Argentina after being condemned for messing with traditional tango. Given that time changes perceptions so dramatically, I wonder how you can be so certain that this or that piece of current art is debauched, or dare I say, degenerate? It seems that you are attempting to make an argument for what constitutes good or bad art based purely on moral or perhaps religious grounds. This position strikes me as untenable.

It is kind of absurd that the front ensemble or battery can use any percussion instrument on earth (djembes, brake-drums, scrap metal, garden weasels, etc). But the the horn players can only use a few types of brass instruments. I mean, from a logical point of view, why is this?

Stu, you sound as if you expect "art" to progress only in one specific direction, in a way marked by moderation and self-restraint. I hope you can see the inherent contradiction in this idea. The moment you put limits on art, it stops being art. If we want new and edifying art is to emerge, we have to tolerate all the silliness, fluff, excess and offensiveness that comes along with it. Art is not an efficient process. But that which is truly of value will endure, and that which is empty will fade. When I first learned of Andy Warhol a long time ago, I thought he was a semi-charlatan. Now I consider him a genius, albeit of the sui generis type. There are plenty of other artists or musicians that in my youth, I thought were amazing, but now I barely remember. So just be patient, for goodness sake. It is not for you to determine what is or is not art. That is posterity's job.

I'm not sure what exactly counts as a ballad here. If you mean a soft, slow and dreamy piece of music, I nominate SCV's 1999 rendition of Samuel Barber's Symphony #1, third movement. I find it stunning every time I hear or watch it.

While there is a tendency to think of drum corps as a tradition-bound activity, it never has been. Even before DCI formed in 1972, drum corps were itching to introduce both more creativity and more meaning (Cavie's circus show, Garfield's peace sign, etc). The fact that the Bridgemen morphed so quickly after DCI was formed indicates how much pent-up creative energy was out there. I doubt the founders of DCI envisioned the radical innovations that are now standard, though they must have known they were unleashing something powerful. So, who knows what another 10 years will bring. It may be things go in cycles, and the corps (and audiences) a decade hence will have become bored with all the wild and woolly cutting edge stuff, and actually become more conservative (no more synths!). But even if drum corps eventually tosses aside the fluff, murder and mayhem, I do believe that the it will continue to progress in one major area: musicality. This means uses of more colors and tonalities, more instruments, ever-changing ensembles. Ten years from now, we will not be talking just about how one horn line is better than another, but about how different sounding one is from another. And here is some wild conjecture: the battery will eventually disappear or become vestigial.

Wasn't Lady Gaga in Jersy Surf, like, BITD? Things are coming full circle.

Not sure if serious.

The first 30 seconds of North Star's 1979 show has always been drum corps nirvana to me.