Rifuarian

Huh? Not promoting anything other than my personal preference. I like diversity. A bunch of colorful onesies would be no more or less diverse than everyone dressing up in different colored faux-Cadet unis. Though from an outside appeal standpoint I feel that military-style uniforms go over better than WGI-style costuming, which is so often a comical mix of bizarre and corny.

You seem to be confused by the idea of a discussion forum. It's for discussing things. There's no expectation that corps will change their minds because of it. If a discussion makes you uncomfortable, as this one clearly does, you can ignore it instead of posting that lame, tired old .gif. I'm glad Cadets have their old uniforms. I'm glad Crown is trying out something new. There's room in drum corps for both styles. I wouldn't want to see every corps in West Point unis, and I wouldn't want to see everyone in WGI jammies either.

"Oh no! A thread is making me uncomfortable! Instead of ignoring it I better post this .gif/video so everyone can know just how bunched up my panties are!" Anyways it's been a slow transition from uniform to costume. Or not necessarily towards costumes but to what you might call "disposable uniforms" or at least uniforms that can be dramatically altered from year to year to fit a theme. From an artistic standpoint I can see how it makes sense. But from a marketing stanpoint I don't know if putting everyone in colorful onesie PJs is the best way for drum corps to move forward.

LOL. You realize that by posting this you just confirmed the "secret"? You're every bit as culpable. Had you simply ignored it no one would have been the wiser. Sadly - or from my perspective, hilariously - this pattern repeats itself year after year with Crown. You ask why Crown cannot keep things under wraps? It's because they are very, very, very bad at it. The show was leaked on this very forum months ago and Crown supporters did the very same thing that you did, confirming the leak and then drawing attention to it through a series of petulant, whining posts. FFS, in this very thread you had people posting lyrics to Space Oddity before the show was announced. Crown tries to keep things secret for way too long. Once you've announced the show to kids/staff/volunteers it will come out soon.

I agree. If Crown announced too early then BD will be able to up with the perfect defense to stop them from winning. It's exactly like football. I think you may want to re-write this. And this is the attitude that will doom drum corps to oblivion. Crown and others can play Secret Squirrel if they feel it's in their best interests. But the long, off-season hibernation is very, very bad for the growth of the activity as a whole.

Many of the shows mentioned here are so silly that I find it hard to label them "offensive". The Northmont Inferno especially. I cracked up the first time I saw it, how can anyone take that seriously? Edit: And I don't understand why so many regular posters here waste time arguing with Lord Pinhead. You could have more constructive, intelligent debates with a refrigerator.

Should have been changed after WW2. Clearly they stopped being bugles with the addition of valves. Adding in other voices like alto and baritone was another nail in the coffin. True drum corps has one voice: soprano. Worse yet was when these so-called drum corps started performing "field shows" on football fields just like stupid disgusting inferior marching bands. When I saw the Troopers do that uber-bando sunburst that was it. Drum corps was dead for me . . . I might as well have been watching a college band at halftime.

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No one knows. Including the judges.

Professors typically only punish graduate students or untenured professors for disagreeing with them. Undergrads are almost always exempt.

A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.

Tour fees wouldn't come close to covering all the added costs. Then there's the question of whether you'd be able to fill up those new woodwind sections or not, assuming that you make room for the woodwinds by adding new spots to corps rather than cutting brass, percussion, and guard spots. Is there really enough interest out there? That's a question that hasn't been answered. Then lost fees from upset donors, potentially lower ticket revenues (these are much more serious concerns with woodwinds than they were with earlier changes) . . . I can't see anyone but Hopkins wanting this.

Woodwinds are hardly inevitable. At least if by woodwinds we're talking about full blown marching clarinet, flute, and saxophone sections. Such a change would be far, far, far more difficult and expensive to implement than any key, electronics, A&E, etc.

Just want to say that this is one of the funniest threads I've ever read on this forum. The Clown Prince of DCP is in top form here. The buffoonery is almost at the level of an Ignatius Reilly.

Leaks are one of my favorite parts of the off season. Even better are the people who act like leakers have just sold the launch codes to the Soviets. So someone has just leaked your highly classified double top secret show on DCP. Obviously this person must he hunted down and given the hanging, drawing, and quartering he or she so richly deserves, but how do you handle things in the meantime? Do you: 1. Ignore the post, leaving people to speculate over its veracity and thus keeping your precious secret safe. 2. Send a polite pm to the leaker asking him to edit the post, and also to ask him what size noose he wears. 3. Throw a public tantrum that hurts the image of your corps far more than an innocent leak, and which also confirms that the leak is in fact true. Three usually seems to be the most popular choice.

In recent years I've spent parts of my summer volunteering with a corps. Great people, but the blind spot regarding DCP is kind of funny. Staff, members, volunteers will go on at length about why DCP is such a terrible place, how stupid the posters are, etc. (all while continuing to read the forum daily) . . . then often in the same conversation they'll say something about a another corps, a judge, or something else that would earn them a permaban on here. Pointing out the irony of this earns you a blank stare at best. DCP is a very mild-mannered place. There are certainly some nuts on here, but the real crazies are out there on tour.

Junior drum corps will still be a mobile music summer camp for middle and upper class band kids. I love the activity, but that's what it is. As far as rule changes go I think this will be one of the last major ones affecting on field content for a while, and honestly I don't think this one is that major. Next year every corps will feel obligated to use their new toys, but use will drop over the next few years. Doubt we'll see full blown marching trombone and sousa lines, just the occasional solo/soli. I know everyone sees this as a precursor to woodwinds but there are some pretty solid reasons as to why that's not happening any time soon. Anyone predicting some sort of DCI/BOA merger doesn't know much about BOA.

It's a great video, but your premise is disingenous. There are a million and one activites where you can have moments like that. Ultimately it's the product on the field that draws us in and keeps us coming back. It really is all about the show. That said I'm fine with this particular rule change.

Well I'm glad to hear that. Usually when I say this I get responses like "Durrr, you must hate America!" But wouldn't reciting the Pledge of Allegiance once, alone, in front of your classmates be more meaningful than doing it everyday? Instead of a mindless task it becomes an important ceremony. And why not save the anthem for only the most important events rather than playing it before every peewee league soccer game and quilting bee? Same idea. I'd rather wait til DCI finals to hear the marine band play the anthem than hear some nervous kid stutter through the anthem at a local competition because we have to. So I'm very much in the less-is-more camp here.

Where would you fit the color pre in say, 2008 PR, or a recent BD show, to name a few examples? I love the flag, anthem, etc. but I take a different attitude than most when it comes to these symbols as I feel they should be used less, not more. IMO overuse dilutes their impact and turns meaningful display into meaningless rote patriotism. Shoehorning the flag into a field show would be the ultimate example of this.

Of course that's not actually true, but it is a good story to use if you're wanting to show off knowledge you gleaned from e-mail forwards. To Anacreon in Heaven was the anthem of the Anacreontic Society, which consisted of amateur musicians. Being musicians they were no doubt inebriated much of the time, but the song itself is not really a drinking and isn't suitable as such given how hard it is to sing.

I don't see Phantom as being more formulaic than any other corps on their level. Like their peers they've hit upon a framework they like and design shows to fit that framework. Kudos to Phantom for daring to be different. Plenty of other corps already engage in the sort of faux intellectualism that gets praised with meaningless buzz words like "progressive" or "innovative". That being said, I don't know what this show will be like (though I'm impressed with the many prescient individuals in this thread who do). All we have is a title.

1. Spartacus 2. The Zone 3. Through a Glass Darkly 4. E=mc2 5. Cabaret Voltaire 6. 007 7. Machine 8. Angels & Demons 9. Winged Victory 10. 1930 All shows I enjoy with the exception of 1930.

Drum corps seems very Gaga-esque to me. Loud, colorful, sparkly, technically proficient, fun to watch. Little in the way of depth even from the allegedly "intellectual" corps but very fun to watch and listen to. Like Gaga it can be completely, utterly, incomprehensibly bizarre to people who aren't fans. It's also funny see many of the posters who whine about "inaccessible" shows suddenly turn sniffy when pop music is mentioned. Many of the tired, pre-packaged criticisms trotted out in this thread can - and have been - applied to drum corps.

While I support pit amplification - at least in theory - I'm not sure where, or who, you're getting this stuff from. For starters we must not have been going to the same PASIC a decade ago. Pretty much everything you've said held true, in my experience at least, in the pre-amplification era. There was never the level of drum corps vs. classical animosity like what exists in the brass world. While technique might have been different (it wasn't "banging" though), it was generally understood that technique is situational. The problem is not amplification writ large but rather how we're going about it now. Forcing the sound of dozens of instruments through a handful of speakers in a setup that does not change with the venue and which are controlled by guys who often have little to no experience with electronics.