mchromik

Wow. The field has thinned considerably in the past few weeks. #### economy. Isn't that going to cut into beer sales? Guess we cannot rely on having the crowd slightly polluted before we go on. Should still be fun though.

Thanks for the mental picture. I am pretty sure that my mind's eye is now blind.

Oh, puullleeez! This reminds me of something that was said about my corps in the day. They have already given us enough great shows that we should be talking about them for a long, long time. I guess they will not get any respect from you until they have a couple of rings? I doubt they will bothered by that prospect. BTW Everyone at every level usually has that special group that in a given year they christen with the FT(insert initial). Even in the very first year of Star we instantly had a rivalry with the Troop. We used to sings songs about them in their honor. True rivalry takes many years to develop though.

And does that really factor in with the majority of the wet-behind-the-ears kids auditioning? Who probably don't remember or ever knew what each group even did three years ago? Please. History is important, but for the most part kids really mostly learn of it when they become members. They have not been watching for a decade or two. To the average kid auditioning,a group is only as good as the few years they happened to have seen or know anything about. Overall this is a bogus thread in my mind. Both groups are world class corps who draw a great deal of the membership from all over the place. They both have tons of kids to choose from. Now that being said Crown is and has been the talk of many a band kid since about 07'. Momentum and hype should draw an huge amount of prospects to them. On the other hand I have seen the Cadets work wonders with what they get by pure work ethic. These two groups should be competitive with each other for a long time to come, not to mention those guys in green and the folks in blue.

You assume too much.

Yup, that sounds like the way to go. A quick two or three minute standstill and a cadence. Like taking a bow. The corps all have extra material nowadays since they all get a shot at encores at some point. If time is a factor then start earlier. I am not trying to be old school, but if you are going to do a retreat then at least make it worth the time the audience and performers spend on it. I cannot say I am a fan of the Massed brass thing. It was interesting maybe for the first two years, but after last year's fiasco it was pretty much dead to me. Each corps playing one last time and saluting the champion sounds like what I want to see in a retreat. In full disclosure I always hated retreat as a performer, but really miss it as a fan. Probably the right decision for the local weeknight shows, but should be a part of the big regionals. The kids need to do one or two a year before being expected to do it with any semblance of order on the big night. Oh, and thank the maker that the Mass Brass lives to fight another day. See you in September at DCA!

I do not think you can really pin any sort of overarching theory based on the region a corps happens to be based in. First and foremost, all of today's world class corps' membership is from all over the map. It would be curious to know the percentage of each corps membership is from less then 100 miles away? As compared to the percentage from 1000+ miles? I would bet the overall percentages are pretty similar for most of say the top 8 groups. A more telling stat would be the number of returning vets or the size of the audition pool. What region you are in shouldn't really be much of a factor for those. Really this is a glass half empty or half full kind of thing. Cavies seem to be a bit more cohesive this year. They were arguably better in music then last year. Pretty solid. A much improved Cadets corps may have knocked them down a spot, but it was a very solid performance. Phantom's final placement relative to everyone else may come as a shock, but it was clear from day 1 of the season that they had some serious design issues to overcome. They were solid and did an admirable job musically, but with so much improving around them they were bound for a big drop placement-wise. Blue Stars took the next step. Improved in many ways from last year. It is going to be tough road from here out. The further up the ladder you go the tougher each spot becomes, but they look to moving up. Bluecoats were technically solid. Maybe not as fan friendly, but they were trying some new things and more then holding there own. Colts were very solid. IMHO much improved over last year. Arguably should have made the cut. That Troop group was on a mission though... Madison.........okay I got nuthin'........ Maybe drug tests for the design staff next year. Got to give you props for daring to be different though. The midwest based world class corps are fine. You can drive yourself crazy over with over-analysis. I am far more concerned about the state of the midwest open class and open class in general. Though I do miss the days of DCM when the midwest corps would beat up on each other early and DeKalb was a measuring stick for the rest of the year. That is when 'Midwest' really mattered.

Yes. Contact me. I see you are going to talk to Matt. That is great, he can advise you on your audition and such. You might want to wait until after BOA is over. I am guessing Matt will be busy full time with is Avon responsibilities. I have more of a financing/admin kind of guy there in mind who can advise on dollars and cents issues.

Oh so they have 25 or 30 HS-aged rookies? Then I blame them for selecting them when they had 400+ (i guess relatively un-talented) kids to pick from. Yeah, thats the problem.....[/sarcasm] Do we really need and excuse? There just a little off in a great and tight year. I have been a Phan for a long long time, but I can be honest. They are consistently entertaining and always Phantom, but not consistently competitive. Some years they have, some they don't. Sure, everyone has that problem, but it is particularly acute with PR. Not a problem. They are still awesome and I will be humming their music for months. I hope they come up with some great ideas for next year.

I would guess that was aimed at a certain minicorps. Many of who's membership was once (long ago) in a DCI group.

[quote name='84BDsop' date='Aug 4 2009, 09:37 PM' post='2620407' How old WERE they when they were bought? As best I can remember, the original buses were either 80' or 81' model MCIs from Badger Tour Lines in WI. Not terribly old, but not new either. They were sold on to the Bluecoats after the 89' season I believe. The last I heard I believe the Cascades had the original equipment trailer, now affectionately known as the "brASS thEATER". Named by the way the open door covered the br and th in the name during the Brass Theater years. Not sure of the wearabouts of the kitchen trailer. It was still sporting Star paint in the late nineties when I saw it in use by the Cavies after theirs had a fire. Busy month for the SU crew, with Finals in our backyard and a Star Alumni Corps camp in B-town the weekend after. Then it is minicorps time. Dress rehearsal the Saturday afternoon before DCA week at Carmel HS, Carmel IN for those in the area.

Wow, I just imagined and even gnarlier version of the waxing scene in the 40 Year Old Virgin.

Pretty sure that is it besides the Cali groups. Dutch Boy Cadets are now Dutch Boy I think, if they are still out that is. Far cry from the early 80s when we had a Cadet Corps sanctioning body for awhile here in the Midwest. Even in the mid to late 80s Phantom Cadets was still fairly large and Madison Junior Scouts were still around. If I remember correctly Phantom had a Pre-Cadets group similar to the Blue Devils C corps. More memories from when us dinosaurs roamed the fields. When men were men and sheep were nervous.

Money should not stand in the way of dreams and you cannot put a price on the experience you will have. Like trying to find the money for college, there is probably a way to make it work. Have you talked to anyone at Crown about helping plan the financial side? There are some great folks down there who can help and advise you.

Absolutely not. Just do it. I am 42 and dusted off my chops about five years ago after some fifteen years of non-use. A bit frustrating at times to be sure, but worth it.

I am far from an expert in the field of dance or choreography, but I think it is fair to say that there are indeed a number of approaches to using body movement in modern drum corps shows. Indeed the differences to the average fan are subtle at best, but lumping them as the same approach is akin to someone feigning interest in a drum corps show because they went to their son's band competition last fall and they have 'seen that'. Drum Corps is unique (and cursed) in that it is both artistic and competitive. The artistic side is on one hand reaching for the new. The designers trying to find ever more creative and original ways to express an idea or tell a story. But the competitive demands restrain artistic approaches with rules and the fact that if you stray to far from what has been successful in the past, you stand the chance of getting hammered by the judging community. More likely you have to spend the summer 'educating' the judging community about what you are doing, but the competitive pressure to change to something more mainstream must be there and frustrating from a design standpoint. And to be honest I am sure some of the similarities come from just following the trends. "The Eye-Openers are using flaming hoops and winning? Then us Horsemen need to use those next year!" Lazy, but effective. I do not have any answers here, just observations. As for changing rules and instruments, that is new? What like forming a combine and starting your own circuit to avoid frivolous things like inspection and color pres? Putting upright valves (two of them by gosh) to bring your instruments more in line with normal concert pitch horns that most learned on in school? Flipping the judging system entirely around to allow for more 'artistic' approaches to be judged? All of these events happened before what many consider to be the 'golden age'. I only point this out to show that change is relative to each person. Like when you are driving. Anyone going faster then you is a maniac, and one going slower is and @##hole. Bearing all of the above in mind, us dinosaurs have to be careful in our criticisms of today's approach. Sure, we have insight into what was effective and entertaining in the past, and what has failed miserably. But we also often do not have a feel for today's audience and their tastes. What entertained us, doesn't necessarily work for those who aged out a decade or two after we did. What seems like a scattered piece together arrangement with a lack of coherent melody to us, seems normal to those who grew up with 500 channels of cable, cell phones, and video games. Would it be cool if both older and newer approaches could co-exist and thrive? Absolutely. But I do not think that the competition demands will allow such a thing. Maybe with some major judging changes like some kind of hybrid tic/build up system. I don't know. Even if you went to simple crowd response meters or something shows would more or less end up with an approach like 95' Madison. I don't know where I am going here anymore except to theorize that the very competition we all know and love is what railroads the design aspects of the shows onto more or less the same tracks. Keep up or lose. And conversely does not allow the status-quo in design to exist for long. Evolve or lose. Is the answer more rules or less? That is the question.

"a Mr. Nacho Libre is on line 1"

From what I can remember they were 68 that year. Not what I would call small. Great year, great book, strong line............but one of the best ever? debatable.

The low brass in use in todays drum corps is keyed in Bb. The mello is the oddman out in the key of F. But as a mello player and enthusiast I can tell you this is for the better. The mello is now a true middle voice in the ensemble. The mello in G is really more of a big-belled, more intonationally challenged soprano bugle playing more of less in the same voicing as the 2nd 3rd sopranos. It was fun to play, lighter and livelier then the mello in F, but could easily become a 'laser-phone' when pushed to hard. We were constantly battling to keep it dark and more 'french horn-like'. The mello in F sits nicely in the middle and can even somewhat cover that darker french horn like timbre as well as cut through and sing when needed. The soprano vs. trumpet is the most obvious difference in the sound of todays lines. The soprano bugles I have measured are not dramatically more conical then the average trumpet. The bell tapers and flares are the main difference aside from the obvious overall length difference. In theory one could build a more 'soprano-like' trumpet. Kanstul makes a large-bore 'Colosseum' trumpet in their marching line but as far as I can tell it is more or less a large bore trumpet with an extra large bell, still more trumpet than soprano. I am thinking something along the lines of a long or American style cornet with a big bore and different bell flare. I wonder if something along those lines might produce a little soprano-like sound? I wonder if the business case for a 'Bb Field Soprano' could be made? The cornet (ie. the 'C' word in trumpet-speak) is rather unloved in this country, but can produce a wonderful dark and lyrical sound.

Yikes! Mello murder. Oh the horror......... Actually, Sean Conley, director of Star United, made a similar K-50/1120 hybrid. We call it Frankenmello!.

Those IYM mello mouthpieces are tanks. I've only spent a few minutes on the piece so I will leave the heavy analysis to Scooter's expert hands, but the Larry K is an interesting approach to the un-ending quest for a 'universal' mello mouthpiece. The cup was very similar to the deep 6V. The rim was narrow but rounded in such a way as to be fairly comfortable. The tone produced was slightly more 'french horn' in timbre compared to say a mello 6. Quite nice, but maybe a tad dull compared to some mello mouthpieces in common use. I've heard many opinions and pseudo-science on adding mass to mouthpieces and horns. The extra mass here is very noticeable in the way the horn balances in the hand. On the Yama 204 it actually felt great in the hand and balanced out the normally bell-heavy horn. Personally I felt the mass helped stabilize and 'focus' the tone. It felt as though you could push it a bit and still keep control. But again, maybe a tad dulled in comparison to more normal mouthpieces. I think this would be a great mouthpiece for younger (HS-age) mello players. The extra mass might help keep it on their faces with today's crazy drills and the dampened focus tone would help take out some of that lazer edge that younger players often produce with mellos. The 6V-like cup is probably as close to universal as we are going to get. Personally I would love to see someone produce something like this with a couple of different sized cups. When I play a 6 size cup I feel like am squeezing into pants two sizes to small. Guess that what happens when we get old and our waist line expands. I am not sure about where the IYM mouthpieces are normally available from, but it appears the Cavaliers are still distributing them; http://www.cavaliers.org/cgi-bin/news.pl?c...tory&id=563.

Wow, not this science fair project again! As far as G bugles go, I'm going to be a homer here and say the King K series. The K-90 Contra is still worshiped in some circles and I am yet to see or hear a euphonium as impressive as the K-80s. The K-50 mello was light and agile in feel, yet still capable of a dark sweet tone. For whatever reason the three valve bugles I have played just don't seem to have the same feel or response as the two valve Kings. I might feel different if I spent a season or two on them. The F mello I play now is far easier to control, though ponderous compared the G mello. From a mello player perspective the switch to Bb/F has been better. We are no longer soprano-lite, and now a true dark middle voice.

Does that mean we at Star United have to change our 'uniform'? We thought after three years we were okay. Or is just a case of 'Fran HATES small soccer teams'?

I will go with Donnie VanDoren in the position of program coordinator. He could bring in who and what we need, and make sure that they make it happen. Of course I sure hope he would bring Jimmer Prime on board.

Really? Does it have to be so complicated? Let's see; Powerful Brass, check, smoking percussion, check, stunning guard, check. Hmmm. The basics are there I can enjoy it. I guess it comes down to what about the activity really hooked you in the first place. When I go down around the buses with todays kids, it is as familiar as could be (save for the iPhones ect). Same smells, same grab-@##, same activity. Just because there some new amps to load on the truck do we really need to rename the activity? A good deal of the recent changes in the activity are more like sprinkles on my ice cream. I was fine without it, but as long as it is still ice cream, I'm good. It is not like someone dropped brussel's sprouts in place of our ice cream here.