ReturnOfTheSonOfSUAPYG
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Posts posted by ReturnOfTheSonOfSUAPYG
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For your start-up groups (or even for your average group), I'd say it's not worth it at all. There might be some intonation gains from being able to play low E/F/etc with more clarity. But with your average performer, these gains are usually negated by how heavy the instrument gets (or how anti-ergonomic the weight gets). Tension ultimately kills tone.
I played on a King BBb with a separate valve on the left side in the mid-00s. The horn was awkward to maneuver and had really bad soldering. It sounded fine, but I would've rather had a horn that survived tour.
You can get the job done with three valves. Yamaha's BBb is great to move around and easy to re-sell. Crown/Bloo/SCV all use Yamaha and are able to achieve their respective sounds with three valves. Certain pitches might be harder to tune (low C), but I'd say it's a worthy trade-off.
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Practicing for next year.
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2 minutes ago, Poppycock said:
No special considerations will be given to age outs this season. Consequences of the decision to shut it down. Same for DCI age outs too.
This is based on by-laws, or something else?
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Regarding WGI, I wonder if the age-outs from independent groups get a bonus year now?
This is my first year teaching indoor, and I was looking forward to going to Dayton* this April. Oh well, it's probably for the best.
*I know ... what an odd thing to say.
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On 3/1/2020 at 12:15 PM, LabMaster said:
My wife is combating Coronavirus by cleaning everything in the house with bleach and we have hand sanitizer and a bajillion other cleaning products to the point where we will kill ALL bacteria ...thus creating another problem with no natural immunities in our bodies. The good bacteria will all be killed off. Hope I make it to the summer.
Reminds me of the George Carlin bit about swimming in the East River, and how it made his immune system stronger.
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"Clash of Corps" was a total embarrassment to the activity, and should serve as a warning to any corps admin who's hubris ever gets to the level of BD's/The Cadets' admins. Just awful, cheesy, unfocused crap at every stage. Just because Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's brother/cousin/whatever is involved, it doesn't mean it's worth getting into.
- It showed too little of the actual shows and pretty much zero instruction
- It showed too much of the wrong behind-the-scenes stuff (members having a rough experience, the infamous dorm-room scene, etc).
To me , a documentary that should serve as any blueprint to this sort of thing is "Madison On Tour." It was released in 2000 and got played on PBS before finals that year. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to find.
It showed off stuff from multiple seasons (93-94, mostly). It captured the RIGHT moments to show to a wider audience:
- Actual instruction i.e. Jeff Moore and the battery doing a HS clinic
- Actual show footage from the Scouts and other corps
- Scott Stewart explaining his philosophy on the activity
- And yes: some fun, random tour highlights (completely PG)
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19 hours ago, Rocketman said:
It would be nicer if anything that failed to pass could not be brought up again for 5 years!
I wonder if there's a way for them to vote on a proposal that tables/freezes all field instrumentation discussion for a certain period of time?
If so, someone should make it happen.
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Even as someone who likes some of the current "everything but the kitchen sink" trends of the activity, I'm glad it failed.
It would have been yet another arms race stacked on top of five other arms races. Like A&E, it would have been another 5-10 years of designers throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks.
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On 12/16/2019 at 5:36 PM, tedrick said:
Interesting story from Minnesota this past week -
2 smaller colleges in Minnie are pulling the plug on their men's football programs -
Makes you wonder if drum corps and marching bands should start laying out their performance fields without yard markers - the grid iron could become irrelevant!
Some more background:
* UMN-Crookston is one of the smallest schools in the UMN system. It's in a remote part of the state and never had much of a football program to begin with. This move makes perfect sense.
* St. Cloud State (part of the Minnesota State system) is in a different situation: it's one of several Div II schools in the state that have Div I NCAA hockey programs (the others are MSU-Mankato, Bemidji State, and UMN-Duluth ... the latter of which has won the NCAA Hockey championship the past two years). Juggling non-revenue division II sports with Title IX obligations AND trying to maintain a competitive Div I hockey program can be difficult ... especially if you're SCSU's admin/athletic deparment -- who seem to shoot themselves in the foot quite a bit. The fact that they're dissolving their football team after opening a stadium in 2004 speaks volumes.
Between this, the perception of SCSU as a "party school," and the city of St. Cloud making national news for the wrong reasons (overt hostility to immigrant communities), the school is trending down.
* Meanwhile, the football team of MSU-Mankato (another MN State system school, similar enrollment size to SCSU) is playing in the NCAA Div II title game this weekend. They've managed to do this while also fostering a growing Div I men's hockey program (currently ranked #2 nationally as of this week).
It's a school that -- at one point -- was in a very similar position as St. Cloud State. But over the past 15 years, the combination of effective admin leadership, deep pocketed donors, effective AD leadership, good coaches, reinvestment into campus facilities, and growing enrollment have led to a better athletic landscape. (I'm not saying things have been perfect and that MSU is going DI/FCS anytime soon ... i.e. some of the athletic costs have been passed on via student fees.)
GETTING TO THE POINT - Because of this upward trend -- and the fact that the MSU Athletic Department actually saw net value in having a student marching band -- the "Maverick Marching Machine" was brought back after a long hiatus. The nearest drum corps -- the Govenaires -- has benefited from this environment.
TL;DR - Based on my experience in this state, collegiate football (for all its BS) helps the activity more than it hurts it.
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On 12/16/2019 at 7:40 PM, Fran Haring said:
Wow... good for them. That's quite a jump!
U of St. Thomas was essentially "forced" out of the MN division III conference (MIAC). Too much of a competitive advantage (larger enrollment and athletic budget, as well as a football coach who didn't care about running up scores): https://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/miac-cant-beat-em-so-it-throws-st-thomas-out/
The move to Div. I will be neat -- only other Div 1 school in the state is University of Minnesota -- but it's going to take a long time to pan out. Their total athletics budget is $5 million. Marquette's basketball budget is $12 million.
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I'll always -- in my biased opinion -- vouch for Minneapolis over Indy in terms of fan experience. There's just more to do in the Twin Cities' neighborhoods/districts during August. Parking is so-so, but there are so many more ways to get around (I've never had issues on the light rail, and you can come from the airport, MOA, or St. Paul pretty easily without worrying about parking).
I'll give Indy some credit, their stadium has two key advantages: 1) proximity to convention center space and 2) the outdoor warmup site at military park. Getting bussed from warmups seems pretty lame, but it works, and the park is a nice, large, flat area.
These are two fairly big flaws with Downtown Minneapolis. The Minneapolis Convention Center is a 20 minute walk from the stadium. The Armory (old arena-turned-concert-venue across from the stadium) could hypothetically be utilized, but it's a privately owned space that books some pretty big shows on weekends ... so probably not happening.
As for outdoor warmup space: there isn't much at the moment ... especially under the state of perpetual construction in Downtown Mpls. A few groups could maybe utilize the commons space in front of the stadium (maybe battery or guard only), but it would likely be another bussing situation for the rest. Loring Park comes to mind ... other side of downtown and about a 30 minute walk from the stadium.
If there's serious talk about giving MN another chance at a large show/Regional, it's worth taking another look at US Bank Stadium. The DCI MN show at TCF had diminishing returns, but getting it indoors at a state-of-the-art facility would help. The Youth In Music band championships, coming up this Saturday, always seem to go well.
Or just have it at New Orleans. That would be a hoot.
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Never too late, I would say. Yamaha has the most ergonomic marching tubas, and a lot of corps use them. Try reaching out to a Yamaha corps and see if they have any old ones for sale.
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On 9/6/2019 at 8:32 PM, FlamMan said:
I didn't say that, you did. A Japan tryout session just seems like poor ROI. I mean how many kids are you really going to recruit from Japan to justify the cost of the trip? The new recruit hit rate would be much higher locally in the USA. I just think that drum corps have strayed too far from their local communities and would like to see more local effort and involvement.
Japanese members in DCI has been going on for almost 30 years. The ones I marched with were easily some of the best performers/people I've ever met.
ROI? In terms of attracting donors, it doesn't hurt to have "international cultural experience" included in the program.
I agree with staying local -- something a lot of corps struggle/refuse to do -- but if an international pipeline is there, you'd be stupid not to use it.
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Well this is something ...
http://www.madisonscouts.org/2019/09/madison-scouts-welcome-dr-ward-miller/
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Should have opened the original post with "Riddle me this ..."
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Bluecoats -- as a whole -- did a great job of characterization from beginning to end ... from early season to finals.
Unfortunately, they either peaked too early or just simply had a bad semis run and not-good-enough finals run.
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7 hours ago, corps8294 said:
Overly sensitive, too politically correct for their own good, offended by everything, always stirring the pot, operating with a "just because" mentality, social justice hipsters.
That's some yummy word salad you got there.
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1 hour ago, Algernon said:
yawn
I'm sure your career/life is an amazing thrill-ride that's worthy of public dissection.
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On 8/31/2019 at 10:35 PM, Poppycock said:
You have a strange obsession with a circuit you claim to not care about.
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The organization itself is still solid and puts out a competitive WGI guard and drumline. The summer group is just a giant question mark, however.
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2 hours ago, Poppycock said:
My point is that there’s no need for an all age circuit. Local brass bands are available for older people to play and both SoundSport and WGI allow for older participants, both provide competition.
To me it appears this DCA organization is trying to emulate that which already exist (DCI) just to accommodate a small percentage of people over the age of 22, and attempt to do so with little or no operating capital and very few staff.
SoundSport (in its current form) is an unfocused sideshow. WGI Winds is a much better plan B, but in its super-early stages (14-19 independent groups at prelims between 2016-2019).
I don't think having a summer circuit(s) that caters to affordable, community-based, all-age groups is an unachievable thing. Whether or not DCA is that circuit is definitely debatable, though.
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4 hours ago, Poppycock said:
Is DCI interested in managing these types of groups that have practically no national footprint or aligned with the DCI mission statement? It would surprise me if they were.
I understand if these types of groups need local DCI show performance opportunities, and it’s been stated that DCI allows this even though there is no official DCI Class for all age groups. IMO that in itself should help control cost.
As an alternative competitive all age circuit SoundSport and WGI Winds might be their better options, if their circuit is truly failing due to the dynamics previously stated by others. I don’t know for sure only speculating but unlike DCI the DCA corps don’t seem to have as much influence on the direction or operations of their circuit. However if that’s not true then they only have themselves to blame for its demise.
Have no more to share.
I agree with bunch of your observations on this thread, especially Labor Day being less of a viable day for Championships.
When it comes to SoundSport, it's a great idea that's been a little successful in its mission (giving a venue for start-up groups that can't quite be DCI Open Class yet), but it's current iteration doesn't really appeal to me. The scoring system is weird (you can get a "gold medal" ranking, but finish 5th?) and the "finals" venue is tiny. If they organized SoundSport to have distinct classes (i.e. a "Concert Class" akin to WGI's concert percussion class, a "Field Class" that can perform on DCA-style sheets and on a full field, a "Stage Class" that can perform in the current condensed setting, etc), I'd be more on board with it.
I haven't followed WGI Winds much. I saw Aimachi do a cool show, but otherwise I have yet to see a show that really wows me. I was a part of a couple start up attempts, but convincing horn-playing kids who are just finished with fall marching season to do this thing they've never heard of is a tough sell, especially if you're not in CA/TX/IN/OH.
1 hour ago, Jeff Ream said:The sheets used on the priority list of issues DCA needs to address is so far down the list, that people discussing it is staggering.
Agreed. DCI judges use them for DCA corps all the time (maybe not effectively in some cases, but otherwise they get it). The only fundamental difference is the communication sub caption for the GE judges. Besides that, it's fine.
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Pretty much any late 70s show for me (Bridgemen probably). As much as I'll defend this era of drum corps, the 70s crowds just seem to be more fun ...
... or BD 2007 at the Rose Bowl. The contact high in that stadium must have been something else.
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On 4/22/2017 at 6:12 PM, Foef_Yet_Flalf said:
Cavaliers 2011. The drill and the flippy floppy stuff would be so much more impressive in real life.
I saw it early and mid season. It was a total early season crowd-favorite and had a fun Cirque du Soleil vibe. Kind of a bummer that it couldn't get ahead of BD (no way it was getting ahead of Cadets that year).
Member corps vote to cancel 2020 DCI Tour
in DCI World Class Corps Discussions
Posted
DCI 2021 - Everybody has staff chops and is 20+ pounds heavier.