Chris Tschirhart

First let me say that I was heavily involved in the Kitchener Waterloo Ontario Canada Drum Corps scene in the 70s and into the 80s. I marched in the flying Dutchmen and Northstars. I taught the Kiwanis Kavaliers, and the Dutch Boy Cadets. There was also the Ventures all girls corps. and in Cambridge the next town over St. Andrews, plus the Guelph OptiKnigts and Sr. Royalares. The Toronto area had at the start of the 70's 6 corps. Almost every town of 80,000 (some even smaller) had a Jr Drum Corps. As has been mentioned in other posts. Much of our high school music programs have been slowly eaten away but to me this is not as big a factor as others have mentioned. I marched and taught for 14 years and over 50% of the kids I marched with and taught were "off the street" with no prior musical education. (Myself included). Monetary considerations grew over the years. De La Salle Oaklands (Etobicoke Crusader's) Toronto (Seneca) Optimists were the two juggernauts in Canada. While many individuals wanted to improve themselves to go to these corps, the two aforementioned corps actively poached the cream of members from small town corps up to 120 miles away with often detrimental results to these smaller corps who came out greatly diminished the next season. Later the Northstar and Dutch Boy organization was guilty of the same thing, (and I was part of it). Ontario as a whole got into chasseing ng a spot in DCI. This caused corps to merger and in the end one less corps was around each merger. The greatest far fetched merger was between the Kiwanis Kavaliers and a corps from Florida in the 90's As any well touring corps knows a corps marches on its stomach and before that its self generated source of money. With the Canadian Dollar dropping in since the 80s. The support of 3 highway cursers and an Equipment Truck for a summer has always been big dollars. Also our large corps had committed great corps directors who by virtue of their own personality carried these drum corps on their backs. We have not seen the like of these men since they finally got too old to do it. Also in the 70s-80s there was a true attempt to have competitions between the Ontario and Quebec corps. L'offensive Lions even were Canadian National Champions! As a society we do not look for the local organizations to take pride in. In the 50s and 60s the entire town would put their had in their pocket for a buck to support the local corps. Now we look more after ourselves. Sports are bigger than they were then. However as a society we are too busy looking at our screens than participating in a real world activity. This is not a Canadian example but a few years ago the Chief Ranger of the US Parks service said attendance was 10% down because there are too many people looking at their screens. With this comes some social problems that seem to be consuming our youth these days. There are only two active corps in Ontario Scout House (which is teetering), and the Kawartha Kavaliers a parade corps of about 55 seniors. When I entered Drum Corps in 1972 there were over 50 corps in the province of Ontario and I believe as many in Quebec. As the lamps went out too few of us lifted a finger to pass on the joy of Drum Corps to the next generation.