CorpsGramps

Now you've gone and done it Ollie! Your comments have generated quite a stir! Hey, don't appologize for a lack of expertise. There are a lot of us who are just fans of good marching and music who are turned off...or at least down by what seems to be the pursuit of esoteric programs to please the sophisticates (judges and designers). And, it seems every escalation in membership, design intricacy and instrumentation means throwing more money at the field, leaving the traditionalists and financial have-nots institutionalized at the bottom rungs of the activity. My brief stint in a service corps goes back to the 50's with no-valve bugles. There have been a lot of good changes but some have gone too far. I've had sons, daughters-in-law and now grand kids in the activity since the mid 60's. I used to buy every record, tape or cd of finals until the mid 90's when I realized they weren't playing music anymore. It was blurps bleeps and blats to match some whiplash drill. Maybe some day we'll learn to love those amplified narrations if they tell us what we should be appreciating. In the meantime, I think there's a lot of folks in the stands that feel the same things you express. Perhaps it's time for a reality-check negative caption to be added to the judging sheet...something like "General Defect"... evaluated by "just a guy who went to a drum corps show".