hboyce

His subjective perception of a question that has a yes or no answer.

Read my post a few pages back about the types of things the organization does. The people that want to say BD is classless, etc., focus on some random occurrence and choose to ignore all the positive things they do. You can choose to not believe me, but speaking as a former member, your impression is completely wrong.

Far be it from me to tell you not to be ignorant. Not true. If anyone has any concerns like this through out the summer, go to a show and ask a member. I'm sure they will be glad to confirm/deny your impressions.

I wanted to reply to you again so you didn't think I was just writing you off with my previous response. "Over 450 young people currently participate in The Blue Devils programs, and over 8,000 young people, in 2,000 families, have been served by The Blue Devils organization since 1957." Taken from the Blue Devils website. The organization includes the A corps, B corps, C corps, Diablo Wind Symphony, and a Winter Guard. They offer children and young adults of all ages and skill levels a chance to perform. There is also BD Entertainment which not only gives those same students a chance to make money at what they love to do, but also expose our activity to more people. They have traveled the world and made great efforts in spreading music to those less fortunate. Many of the members and current staff teach what they learned there to schools all over the country. Personally, if another former member and myself hadn't stepped in to teach a failing program they would not have fielded a show that year. At least one of those students went on to march with the Blue Devils. They have the System Blue camps. In fact, as I'm typing this, there is an ad for it at the top of my screen. I'm sure you have all seen the videos of that young drummer drumming with the drum line. It is a successful organization. They like to win and aren't too fond of losing. In the context of this video, it set up the rest of the video, which showed a bunch of kids who are incredibly humbled by the entire experience of drum corps. And someone here wants to tell them they don't have any class? Blind ignorance.

The 'you' is general. I was not referring directly to you cowtown.

In that case just say you don't like it and move on. Bad mouthing the organization doesn't do anything positive.

For those of you spouting off about class and then posting videos and openly mocking their loss; I hope you realize you are a hypocrite. For those of you who don't seem to be able to grasp the concept; Class does not have to equal humble.

Haha. Drum Corps - Serious Business

Digging the drama with the scores. Anyone know the judges for finals night?

I was just trying to tell you the way I perceived the rings and how the majority of people around me did as well. But thank you for telling me, someone who was part of the organization, that I am wrong about it. Also, the retreat and the lemon drops has nothing to do with what I said and has nothing to do with showing off, and seems to be some issue you have with our lightheartedness in relation to other corps' mentalities. I'm sure you have the same issue with Cavies, because they are pretty fun to have a retreat with. Also, every corps has bad alumni.

Yelling the championship number and the rings on the gloves isn't about showing off. If no one was in the stadium, if no one was watching warm-up if no one was at rehearsal it would still happen. It wasn't ever "we need to beat the Cavaliers/Cadets". It was "we need to be better than every Blue Devil corps that has stepped foot on the field". I heard it constantly while marching. Those traditions are a reminder to us of our standard and what is expected of us and what we are ultimately striving to achieve. Not championships, but greatness. I understand people will see it differently. But, hopefully this helps you understand the mentality behind it from a Blue Devil point of view. EDIT Wanted to quote this because I feel it further cements the idea that is about the history of greatness of the organization and striving to live up to it.

I did that for brevity, as you don't need to know my entire drum corps history. It shows where I marched and the time frame I marched. And it shows the accomplishments that, frankly, I am proud to have earned. It's merely there to show people where I am coming from as I don't claim to be unbiased. It isn't all about winning. I knew I wanted to march devs after the first time I saw them live long before I knew their storied history. There are far more traditions that have nothing to do with winning. Every corps out there is trying to win. I don't believe it is fair to discredit the Blue Devils just because they are more outgoing about it.

Does that make my point any less valid and yours more?

Not to refute what you said, because frankly you can take it however you want to. But as you can see in my signature I won championships with two different organizations. My favorite years from either were years I did not win. That all being said, I don't think any corps that is consistently in the top 4 is gunning for third place.

Cross posted from another thread

It's been a tradition since at least the early 90s during the dry spell.

That is what I was trying to imply. Not butt hurt about anything, just presenting my observations.

Well it's all just anecdotal evidence from either side. But some people just don't like certain corps no matter what they do.

While this may hold true for some. Blue Devils always get far better crowd reactions on the west coast.

I get you are saying that speed is hard. But to apply your analogy to what we are discussing (difficulty from corps to corps) you would have to assume that everyone is doing the same show to say that speed is the only factor to difficulty. Which I assume most would say is not. Your analogy is bad.

Bad analogy. You are implying every corps is doing the same show just at different speeds.

Blue Devils get far more than golf claps on the west coast. If it was in correlation to how much they connected to the audience they would get the same reaction in other areas of the country. They don't.

This. Some of the most difficult parts of shows I marched were fairly easy on an individual physical level. These were typically things most people would not pick up on unless they were designers or actually performed it. Such a building a form blind. Having a horn line spread 90 yards and making it sound as if they are standing in a tight formation. Choreography that goes beyond putting one foot in front of the other. Dealing with props. If you think that what any corps out there is doing is easy you are ignorant.

You can dance around it all you like, but you aren't booing the judges. You are booing the success of an organization; the accomplishment of the group; the hard work of a bunch of kids. I honestly don't understand how one can separate "judges got it wrong" from "you don't deserve your accomplishment" in their mind. That being said, I assure you the corps is eating up all the boos and using that to push themselves harder to really #### you off in the final weeks of the season. *edit: anyone think the language filter is a little strict?

Cool, can you share with us the judges tapes you obviously must have from Atlanta then?