ContraFart

Sometimes you need to tell the vocal minority to shut up. Their #####ing brings nothing to the table. The activity was going to evolve with or without them. In the past 12 hours I think I have seen at least 4 dozen comments on social media on how props and electronics are the reason why corps fold and that is just brain dead wrong. If you want to have a serious conversation about the activity, at least understand the issue.

Now it's just going to be brain dead takes on why electronics and props are the ruin of drum corps.

Didnt Boerma arrange 2023?

I think the redemption ending started in Atlanta or Allentown

Wouldn't that be a backwards trilogy, with a garden of Eden in the middle?

I don't think it's inevitable. I think it would be such a deathknell to the activity that it probably won't happen. People are dumb, but not that dumb

I think adding woodwinds would be the last straw, even for more progressive people in the activity. I can see maybe allowing solo instruments, but you can do that with an EWI and change the sound.

I think I agree and disagree with you at the same time. There is a breaking point with evolution, which is why I believe 99% of us would oppose adding woodwinds as marching sections. I am not opposed to the sound mixing (although I do not want brass reinforcement). I think the Bluecoats do it best with their speaker placement and it sounds like a complete product while other corps have everything up front and it can make them sound artificial. There is still a lot of experimentation with amplification that needs to happen to get it right so I think there will be things that are great and things that are far from great before we get to what we can call a standard. My breaking point with evolution is with visual. I do not mind choreo, but I think I have finally figured out what has bugged me about BD and that is their approach to the visual program and their near abandonment of form to form drill. Is it completely gone? no, but it feels more like a stage show than a marching show to me.

I think the mic limit was discussed at Januals and defeated. I would not mind mics for solos an small ensembles, but I am with the dinosaurs when it comes to entire section reinforcement.

1. Mandarins 2. Bluecoats 3. Crown 4. Blue Stars 5. BAC/Troopers

It seemed all 4 top units had age out numbers that high.

nobody is hiring me either, but if your show is alcohol themed, I am your man for production design.

My question is what technique are they using? Since so little of their visual program is form to form marching, are they being rewarded for dance positions and body carriage? They use a fundamentally different visual vocabulary and skillset than the rest of DCI, which you really cannot do with other captions, so to me it becomes comparing apples and oranges. To use your example, wouldn't calling staging, marching come off as pretentious as calling a burlap sack "haute couture?"

I dont want to hear about anyone going out west until somebody comes back to Florida. I feel like I am on an island down here.

Its based on a recording by JacobTV and Masanori Oishi. The same voice is used in the recording and its even modulated the same way the Bluecoats did it

But I would say that the developments over that time had very little to do with visual innovation. Sure there was expansion of the musical book, but that had more to do with the evolution from single rotor bugles to 2 vertical valve bugles. I guess we should ask the question was there more progression in the activity from 1940 to 1971 or from 1972 to 1980 because getting away from the design restraints of the VFW probably did a lot to move the activity forward. As far as general excellence, by 1980, we had many more marching members who were actual high school and college musicians then in 1940. Today, you need to be a top tier player to be in a top tier corps.

I am with you on 1993. That is where I was introduced to drum corps as well. It was a magical year with tons of innovation. Phantoms pit placement, SCV using hand bells in the pit and a soft ending going off the field. Cavies and Cadets bringing the cutting edge of the band repertoire. BD and Scouts both playing the same piece, but in completely different and entertaining ways, the Phantom crab walk, and then there was Star, redefining what music can be heard on a football field. 30 years later I can still hum entire shows from this year in my head.

I dont hate people, and I am not going to yuck your yum. My point is that BD uses a completely different skill set and vocabulary when creating a visual program that is such a departure from the paradigm of what we think of drum corps. When it comes to brass or drums or even spinning guard equipment, you cannot rewrite the foundation, because the skill sets and vocabulary are going to stay the same. It seems corps like Bloo are being punished by the judging community for not keeping up, even though their visual program was absolutely gorgeous and near perfectly performed. I want Bloo to win. they have finished second to BD 4 times in the past 10 years. If Bloo is going to win consistently, I think we need to figure out why the judging community values the completely different visual approach of BD so much and how to be "strategic" about movement, without giving up identity. Beat them at their own game in a way.

Bump, as far as ensemble timing and spatial responsibilities is the hardest thing I have ever seen put on a football field. It was awesome.

And you are always right there too to give me snark.

Honestly the only timing I have heard of was based on last year's shows. Bluecoats moved and played much more than the rest of the top 5, but BD was second .

If I lied or provided a false narrative, call me out. I'm a big enough person to admit when I am wrong.

I am not saying there isn't an outline, but they don't use dot books or drill books. If you teach choreography for a stage musical, there is usually an outline and written counts, but it's not put on paper like a marching drill.

Anytime BD is given good faith criticism, BD fans think it's pettiness and bitterness.

Funliner Productions YouTube channel, who is a 2019 vet, says there is no drill books and no dot books. Everything is taught on the field