dannyboy

Thank you, Ryan. None of us could have expressed those thoughts better. I fully enjoyed both of our performance opportunities, and I hope the expanded audience of Finals enjoyed the show as much as we did peforming it. I was very happy that time-wise we could fit in Auld Lang Syne for the crowd. It was 5 years ago we lost "Lothar" at DCA, and it did not escape my notice that the sun came out while we played "Syne." WWBD.

*sigh* Relax brother/sister. Just march and have fun. Entertain the crowd. After 8 years I've learned you can't have a great time doing all the other season performances (think of the crazy fans at every MACBDA show or like last weekend at the Raider's halftime) and let one last show ruin it. We have fans that ADORE us. Did MBI or Govies have sold out shows two weekends ago with fanatical fans and multi-ovations? Nope. Was our home show a sell-out? Yep. Poles and rankings here really have little meaning, in the big picture, right? What's the purpose? See you Friday. Let's have fun! See if we can catch some babies! WWBD PS: Saw the video of the fine folks from across the pond. Impressive.

It was a fun weekend. Fans really enjoy our show, and it's fun to perform. Wish it would last longer. Shows are over in a blur, and we've only got 8 more days together. :(

And now a momentary break from the scores and other seriousness... http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/wan/1830807700.html Lost tuba off a truck on Milwaukee highway??? I find this both unfortunate... and kinda funny. Imagine the road-kill collectors poking this with a stick... "Whatzat, Earl, some kinda freak buck been hit?" "Ahhhhh, nah, Ernie, far's ah kin tell it was a Yamaha YBB-641." "Ewww... poke it with the stick again!!" "Nah, leave 'er alone Ernie. Just leave 'er alone." BTW, with the combination of high tuba/beer-per-capita in Wisconsin, this may actually be an under-reported problem...

Too busy with the HS band thing (won BOA in 1980) and then had to work for $$ for college so couldn't do DCI corps. Always wanted to be in the Scouts; funny, now I'm surrounded by/related to some of those guys. So, it all worked out in the end. And being involved for 9 years with Kilties would beat the heck out of the short-term experience most kids have with DCI.

In 2003, we marched the Racine 4th parade, then got married with the Kiltie horns playing all the music at the wedding. Of course, the problem is that we spend every wedding anniversary marching in parades. Cozy did a half-page "review" of our wedding in the DCI-week issue of Drum Corps World. That was pretty cool.

This past 4th weekend, Kilties did... July 3 Full corps camp + exhibition field show, Sun Prairie, WI (MACBDA) July 4 A.M. Parade and P.M. exhibition field show, Kenosha, WI (MACBDA) July 5 Union Grove WI Parade (almost 2 miles) + Racine WI Parade (3.5 miles) - Afternoon Off. Three parades and two shows plus practice over 2 1/2 days.

1. Agreed. 2. Agreed. And, Fellow Plaid Bari Dan S. knows exactly how hard it was for me to say: "I liked their show."

I know. Just had to get my little G dig in. Do like British brass band. They have Eb and Bb in the upper voices, both Bb (flueglehorn) and Eb (tennorhorn) in the mid-voice, baris/euphs and trombones in Bb, but also EEb and BBb tubas. Lots of color overlap. Do similar in corps: have trumpets in Bb, some "altos" in Bb (Flugelhorns!!!) or Bb "French horns", F mellos, and maybe even (gasp) F French horns. Could get kinda muddy. Or sound beautiful? Doesn't Kanstul make a small-bell "alto" that would bridge the Bb trumpet and F mello?

Go back to G horns. Problem solved. Wasn't that easy? I love my G bari's B-naturals. The whole horn resonates on that pitch and comes alive, and in our tuning sequence that B-nat just rings in the chord progression. Beautiful sound. But I also moved to a huge-throat/bore stainless Kellyberg (based on the controus of the Helleberg tuba piece -- kinda scaled to trombone/bari/euph proportions, and that has been a magical match for the G Kanstul. I had to watch Madison on Saturday (overflow crowd, standing-only, me in a performing corps so without a seat) from the endzone/souvie area, but the sound seemed huge. I completely agree with the post about "room to add/layer & clean" - that's the smart way to design the show. A good clean flexibile frame to add layers of meat to -- rather than complete rewrites because of no place to grow.

Ummm... yes. Yes, it did. This season. With the influence Cadets have on trends/fads in the scholastic band activity, will this spawn "retro" shows among the marching bands? Thoughts?

I liked Cadets' 2010 show Saturday night. There. I said it. Absolutely nothing to gripe about. For the first time in a decade. I did not get a hot dog. I watched. I enjoyed. But I do have to complain about something... but what? ... There HAS to be something...ummmmm.... AH!! I have it: George is distracting when he paces the sideline during the performance. hehehehehe.

We're watching the average age in Kilties plummet since Scott Stewart came on board. With only $350 dues (it might only be $300), most meals provided, transportation (motorcoach) provided for out-of-area performances (free) -- as far as activities go, how can you go wrong? And the organization is debt-free. So for a young person, the cost is similar to -- or less than some of the high school activities with pay-to-play, and they can still work a job during the week. Is there ANYTHING about this that doesn't make sense? A very financially-sane choice over junior corps. And maybe just time/family-sane, too. Drinking? Some of us adults will naturally go out for dinner and a few cold ones AFTER practice on Saturday night. Adults do that. You might do it after a long day of golfing, right? But Scott would frown on anything Saturday night that would lessen our ability to learn and perform on Sunday morning. Sunday morning breakfast at 9AM and whole-corps stretching and warmup starts at 10AM. Better be there - on-time, awake and ready to go. This has become FAMILY ACTIVITY.

Nobody seems to know why the Kilties are named such.

A few. At least "surviving" if not "thriving." Some were poorly run and would have gone under anyway. Some had ill or retiring directors leaving a leadership/knowledge vaccum. The DCM ending just speeded up their own end. But others have no excuse... There is a stubborn director in Columbus Ohio that for years has refused my urging to even attend DCA to see what it is about. A whole half of the activity discounted by his warped 1980's concepts of what "senior corps" was in his eyes back then.

No withering. It will happen fairly quickly, as it did when the big boys abandoned DCM. Difference being the corps now are far more financially fragile. Many will die quickly. Some (I hope) smart ones will go all-age, weekend-only and survive with DCA.

About 3 miles below the surface. Man, there's just not much to talk about yet, is there? *fidgets with crusty mousepad* Hey, can I use the same valve oil in my G horn as my Bb horn? Or do I need multi-grade?

It woke my nephew up (Elgin area). His dresser was rattling. But again -- no drum corps were involved.

A mild earthquake shook DeKalb, Illinois this morning. The U.S. Geological Survey initially reported a 4.3-magnitude quake at 3:59:33 a.m. centered about 5 miles east of DeKalb. The quake was felt over a wide area -- from Wisconsin to Tennessee -- but there were no reports of any damage so far, according to the Kane County and DeKalb County sheriff's departments, which are closest to the epicenter. "We got hundreds of calls," said DeKalb County Sheriff Barry Toanne. "Most people thought all the DCM drum corps had come back. There were people in the streets looking for the practice sites." "I thought it was those goshdern Kilties again," said Art Effisule, an NIU stadium maintenance worker. "The magnitude and epicenter were revised (to 3.8) after the U.S. Geological Survey studied the 'wave forms' from the quake," said Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist with the geological survey in Golden, Colo. Early analysis of the wave forms were complicated by Renegade rudimentary data.

Yes. Yes it is.

And by the way, WELCOME, Matt, to the Kiltie Baritone Village!

Right. They are not region coded (plays in all regions), and they are also not copy-protected (costs way too much to license the protection). Which means you can also transcode them to virtually any other format/res/frame rates (such as PAL). We got permission to use up to 3 minutes from the DVD in our recruiting video. Very simple to extract and add to the video editor timeline.

Bacchanale? Scott has his "names" for the other tunes... but not sure about Bacchanale. Just calling it "Act III" is so... understated. How about: "Delilah Cuts a Rug!!!"

And the logic of continuing to loose that much money every year on an event?

1- It's in Columbus. Cap Reg is pretty much the the capital's corps. --- Virtually nobody in Columbus is aware of the corps; they are fixed on the OSU Band. "TBDBITL" 2- They used to be WC so the money to run the show wouldn't have been a problem back then. --- It has been a costly "necessary evil" since it went to Crew Stadium 3- It's a hell of a nice stadium. --- Like I said, I'd like to see DCA held there someday. DCA is held at a (smaller) stadium in Rochester.