bartyount
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Posts posted by bartyount
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I marched mello at Bluecoats in 92 and 93. We used 3-valve G Kanstul mellos both years.
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Please listen again to the Finals performance...much of the first half of the show is based on Los Tontos...also they reprise it at the end of the show. Really there is much more of Cuban Fire Suite in the show than most people realize.
This is the crux of the problem - people don't recognize the music. I am pretty familiar with Cuban Fire and I only recognized about 2 bars of La Suerte De Los Tontos (aka "The Sweat of Tonto").
Also - you say "listen again". This is another big problem in my opinion. It seems to me that more and more, it takes multple viewings of a corps to connect with and start appreciating their show. The vast majority of people that see a drumcorps show during the summer attend one show. They don't get a chance to see it again. And so they don't connect.
That could explain why you don't see growth in the fan base like you used to. We aren't creating very many new fans because it's only the people who are hardcore (hardcorps?) enough to go to multiple shows in a summer that are becoming fans anyway.
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1990 was the first year I marched and first time I ever saw a drumcorps perform live and
I was awestruck by Crossmen. Love that show - so full of energy and the intro is just supercharged!
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If they saw and didn't enjoy Crown, Bluecoats, Blue Stars, or Madison, they probably weren't going to enjoy a drum corps show anyway.
Crown was the only corps in the group you mentioned that was at the show.
I was pretty bored too, so it's not that they wouldn't have enjoyed drumcorps regardless. The people that I brought have pretty diverse tastes and both generally like things like this that are sort of out of the mainstream. Also, one of them had been in, and enjoyed marching band in HS, and so is familiar with the marching music activity in general. They both were able to appreciate and were impressed by the talent and execution. It's just that nothing connected.
If there had been a better lineup, the opinion probably would have been different. But I think that with a few notable exceptions, the shows this year were pretty uninspiring.
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You mention a couple of times that corps are playing obscure music. To that, I say...God forbid somebody hear something new that they might like. Y'know? I had never heard Emerson's Piano Concerto until Spirit played it...and now I like it! Go listen to Bizet's "Jeux d'enfants." Have you ever heard of it? I didn't even know it existed until yesterday, and now I love it. Look at that - I was exposed to something new and unfamiliar, and now I like it! Good for all those corps choosing to play music outside of the "norm."
I am grateful to have been exposed to a lot of new music through drumcorps.
That being said, there needs to be some sort of balance. This summer, I took two people to a show who had never seen drumcorps before. They were completely bored. They did not recognize one thing that any of the 11 corps at the show played. And it's not that they're musically illiterate either, because I was only familiar with a few myself. And then to end with BD whose show had no melody and came across as just a bunch of noise.... (sorry to beat that dead horse to a pulp - but that was our perception).
I was embarrased to have convinced them to go to the show. I feel like I wasted 4 hours of their life.
I don't have a problem with corps doing new stuff or experimenting with different material/concepts etc (like BD). But remember - you have to do something to connect with the audience. There wasn't much audience connecting going on this year in my opinion.
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Yeah - I did it. I voted for Red Violin.
In all honesty, it's hard to top 2008 and I should have voted for it. But I seem to be the only person on the planet the liked 2009 so I thought I'd give it some love.
Honorable mentions to 2006 and 2007.
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Your solo was really bad. In fact the worst I have heard all summer... scratch that... my life
Both Jay Z and I hated your auto tune, and in a lot of ways I've never really even liked you as a person.
Your facial hair is also really ugly, and your ego is disgusting.
heheheh ... good to see the "family" atmosphere I remember from my years in the Bluecoats (and still experience in all my interactions with fellow alumni) is still going strong.
Blloooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wait... what? That was a Bluecoats thing? Uh-oh.
No wonder I don't have friends outside of drumcorps.
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As Crown found out, it's even MORE difficult to stay on top. Bloo has to come out with a vengeance next year, or they will be spanked HARD. BD, Cavies and Cadets WILL BE THERE.
This is so true. Especially since Cadets and Cavies have gone longer than they are used to without a chamionship (5 years for Cadets, 4 for Cavies). They are getting hungry.
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Here is the Baritone solo from Asphalt Cocktail that I played. Isn't EXACTLY as Doug wrote it, but I put my own spin on a few measures.
Try it out! It was an incredible experience working on and playing throughout the season.
Nice job man! You guys made us proud! Enjoy your nickel - you earned it.
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IMO these corps continue to stay at the top because they have such a reputation of success and image that kids who march other corps use those corps as stepping stones to get to one of the top corps. The hardest thing for a corps to overcome is losing their most talented and experienced players to the top corps.
I agree that member retention is a huge factor (along with consistency of staff and some other things that were mentioned). I believe it's one of the biggest factors for Bluecoats current success. When I marched, Bluecoats was one of those "stepping stone" corps. Yes, we had our share of vets who remained loyal to the corps, but alot of talent moved on to the top ranking corps instead of returning to Bluecoats.
In 1999 the corps dropped out of top 12 and the vets recognized that the competitive success of the corps depended on member retention and it was really emphasized and instilled into the existing vets and incoming rookies. You can see the results of the member retention in the progress made in their finals placements over the last ten years. But even in 2007 when they placed 7th, it was arguably the most talented corps to date. They just had the bad luck of it being a very competitve year (bad for them, but good for fans I think) where Crown was also up and coming and other established corps were all packed together within 1 point score-wise.
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Best of luck to Ryan! Hopefully he will recover quickly and in time for next season!
Couple of comments:
As for a member potentially injuring themselves further by trying to move - things are pretty fluid during the show - heart rate and adrenaline are super high and when you fall you don't really have time to sit there and assess the situation. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't even realize his leg was broken. He did what members are instructed to do which is in the event of a fall, get out of the way to prevent further injuries.
From everything I've heard, things happened relatively quickly. For people who didn't see the fall directly, they probably assumed it was just a fall and the member would recover. It would have taken a few moments to realize the seriousness of the situation. It doesn't sound like there was an unreasonable amount of time before someone went to help. So I wouldn't fault DCI or the Crown staff for the handling of the situation.
Someone mentioned that they should have stopped the show. I think if the DM had recognized the seriousness of the problem, the best decision (in hindsight) would have been to stop the show. I don't think there's much risk in doing that. Everyone should be watching the DM and if he gives the cutoff signal in the middle of the show, everyone should know immediately. I was performing once where this happened because of the threat of lightning. Everyone stopped at the cutoff and we cleared the field and no one was hurt.
Debilitating injuries during a show are extremely rare so there are no real procedures for that. I bet that will change. I would guess that the procedure from now on would be that the DM will be instructed to stop the show if there is an injury on the field.
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Just to clarify -- the Dr. Robert Smith that wrote this article for Drum Corps World in 1991 is NOT the composer/arranger. The person that wrote the article was a family physician that lived in Decatur, loved drum corps, and wrote for Drum Corps World. I marched mellophone with him in the 2002 Royal Airs reunion corps. Dr. Smith passed away in May of 2009 after battling brain cancer.
Sorry to hear that. I'm still perplexed by his article though.
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As i was browsing thru some issues of Drum Corps World this weekend in Indy, I came across this article written by Dr. Robert Smith from the November 1991 issue.[/url]
This whole article is bizarre. First we have the criticism of the use of the images of the cross in Star's 1991 Roman Images show:
... I was disturbed with the actual design of the program, specifically the ending involving crosses in the drill and gleaming golden crosses on the flags, both added late in the year. This appears to make a statement.In Respighi's "Roman Trilogy" there is virtually no significant reference to the symbol of the cross, as the trilogy is celebratory to Imperial Rome and does not reflect on Christian persecution. Roman Festivals is a tribute to the glorious festivals of the Empire and only the vaguest "cross" reference could be drawn to the Pines of the Appian Way segment in The Pines of Rome, as Roman prisoners were crucified on crosses along the famous Appian highway.
The third and fourth pieces in Roman Festivals is are "The Jubilee" and "The Epiphany" respectively. Both are references to Christian celebrations in Rome (Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire around 400AD) so I don't see why Mr. Smith would take issue with cross imagery.
He then goes off on a tangent describing how a Texas HS marching band who had lifted the show from Star was in some "religion in public schools" controversy for using religious music and symbolism in their show. But he doesn't really follow up on this with a point.
Again, the intended meaning and statement of the cross finale disturbs me, a conservative midwesterner. This outright offended one California fan when unveiled at Star's home show on August 10. In some ways, I can sense the frustration. Precisely the last thing the activity needs at this moment is a statement.Huh? What exactly was disturbing and offensive? What statement does he think they were trying to make?
It almost seems that he's saying that he doesn't like religious material being used in a drumcorps show but he makes no mention of Cavies show that year which was titled "An Advent Collection" so I'm still lost on what his point is.
Then there's the fact that the whole Star issue seems to be an aside to his main point which is that drumcorps was moving away from entertainment and that we all needed to demand from corps that they go back to producing entertaining shows.
Huh?
I understand we have all have different tastes and opinions of shows but I think 1991 was a pretty darn entertaining year top to bottom. I can only remember the top 14 from that year because that's what's on the CDs, but I felt that all of those top 14 shows were great entertaining shows. To me 1991 was a good year for entertainment.
If we were to compare entertainment value of 1991 to 2010 - 1991 wins by light years.
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From the composer of "Asphalt Cocktail" via Facebook:
John Mackey - Congratulations, Bluecoats! I wish I could have been there to see the finals in person!
That is friggin awesome!
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A quote on my daily calendar from earlier this week:
"Hate is just a special kind of love that we give to people who suck"
I know it doesn't really add to the discussion but I thought it was funny.
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Maybe...but if you go back and watch the Finals performance of 1993 Star, the audience absolutely erupts after the end of that show. I am a relative newbie to drum corps but it often confuses me when people say this was not a fan favorite. That audience reaction at the end of their show is one of the loudest I've ever heard.
I'd be happy to eat my words if the audience reacts in a similar nature at Finals to BD's show this year...but right now I just don't see that happening.
I marched in 93 and Star was absolutely hated most of the season. The problem with the show was that it took several viewings to appreciate it. When I saw it at the beginning of the season I hated it. I saw it many more times over the summer and by finals week I was pretty much in awe of the show.
Most of the people that go to shows over the summer only see one show. So most of the people that saw it over he course of the summer didn't like it. Finals are mostly die hard fans who have probably seen more shows and have more time to let the shows sink in so to speak. That would explain the reaction at finals.
So it's possible that we need to let BDs show "sink in" for awhile. But I have a gut feeling at this point that time won't make much difference in how people feel about it. Tonight was the 3rd time Ive seen BD and I really want to like it because it's such a good performance, but I don't feel any different about yet.
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Crowd at my theater cheered most for Madison, Phantom, Crown and Cavies.
Complete silence at the end of BD. No one knew what to make of it. After a moment there were some "I'm not sure what I just saw" claps.
As an aside - at the Atlanta show, I heard a bando refer to BDs show as "That crappy show with mirrors"!
Sorry - Im really not trying to bash but those two moments were just really funny to me. BD is putting out an awesome performance. It's just not very fan friendly.
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My Finals placements: 12th 11th 7th 6th 1st! 84-88
All great shows!
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As do most of the corps.
They still need something more.
I think what he was trying to imply is that they have plenty of time to add something new to the show.
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PR 91 - awesome start with the cool guard costumes and the Nessun Dorma mello solo to the build to the hit. It was electric.
Ditto also to whoever said Star 90 - started with pure power that just kept building till you thought your head was going to explode.
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2. Finals night the crowd is shocked when none of the Blue Devils Reflections Show In The Mirrors confirming they are all Vampires.......
Haha - Vampires... I LOLed.
I would like to see BD on finals night, break all the mirrors at the end of their show! Now THAT would be entertaining!
Not to mention it would give them such bad luck that it might allow someone else to win next year! (I keed, I keed)
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Did the OP really include 'Coats drill, I'm not hating just confused...Hornline(check), Drumline(check)...GE(check check)...drill...ummm righhhtttt. There drill is what could be their doom(and by doom I mean not challenging for 1st). They are already fairly clean and maxed out and where do they go from here...
I can't speak to difficulty, but when I saw Coats in Atlanta, they were defintely NOT clean visually compared to the rest of the top 6. Which I felt was good since it meant that there was a lot of room to improve.
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haha I do remember my band director telling stories of "back in the day" when the Troopers (he was in that) and BAC would stand next to each other in the tunnel. Of course he said Boston was "Mean in the tunnel"
Hehe - that's the Boston I know. Except it was at retreat, not in the tunnel.
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I've got the following VHS and CDs for sale. All are in top notch condition. Most of them have only been
played a few times so there's not alot of wear. I checked all of them for quality and the picture still looks like new.
The VHS recordings are unique in that they have the between show broadcast commentaries from Rondo
and guests, etc, which are not on the DVDs.
PM me if interested.
1991 DCI CD Top 12 (Collectors Series Edition) $15 photo
1987 DCI VHS Top 12 $20 photo
(no cover sleeve - when I ordered from DCI, they were out of stock on the sleeves and never re-stocked)
1988 DCI VHS Top 12 $20 photo
1991 DCI VHS Top 12 $20 photo
1992 DCI VHS Top 12 $20 photo
1993 DCI VHS Top 12 $20 photo
1994 DCI VHS Top 12 $20 photo
1995 DCI VHS Top 12 $20 photo
1996 DCI VHS Top 12 $20 photo
1996 DCI VHS (PBS Highlights Edition) $10 photo
1997 DCI VHS Top 12 $20 photo
1998 DCI VHS Top 21 (3 Vol Set) $30 photo
2000 DCI VHS Top 21 (3 Vol Set) $30 photo
Shipping in the continental U.S. will be about $5 for a set.
Drum corps and Stan Kenton
in DCI World Class Corps Discussions
Posted
Thanks for the article and video Mr. B! I've been a Kenton fan since the 86 Suncoast show. :)