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OMG Could We Have Been So Young?


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1977 Alberta All Girls, lead sop line

and while all the competing corps had brand new two-piston sopranos that season, the Alberta Girls had brand new THREE-piston G sopranos !!!

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and while all the competing corps had brand new two-piston sopranos that season, the Alberta Girls had brand new THREE-piston G sopranos !!!

I noticed that, and am wondering about the other voices. Only 2 valve sops were legal in jr. corps that year. Did AAG have 3 valve mellos and baris too?

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And I mean like candid shot of us kids at practice or rehearsals.

Fridayrehearsals.jpg

And you have to know it's the late sixties very early seventies! The guy with the hair? He's Nunzio Virgilio - Bari, Euphonium, Contra.

Is a wafro....a white person trying to wear an afro.

GUILTY as charged.

Just thought-for some of you late comers-I'd show the original post ... which posed the question above.

Still laughing after all these years!

:laughing:

Puppet

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Did you realize that rhymed when you wrote it?

Nice work.

Thanks. The answer to your question is yes. I like to rhyme some of the time. I’m kinda shy but here’s a glimpse of the past…on Jan. 20 1972, the Board of Directors passed a motion to accept females in the horn line. We needed more members and a horn/bugle instructor. A marching member started a campaign to recruit in schools. The guard remained all female, had a busy winter guard season and new guard were joining. I was guard captain and in April 1972 assigned the drum major role. We had 2 feeder corps in 72, Scarborough Knights and East Scarborough Kinsmen. On August 5, 1972 we changed our name to Seneca College Princemen.

June 18, 1972, contest is Urbana, Ohio sponsored by Urbana Lions Club

1972-urbana-a.jpg

On this day, I accepted my very first best drum major trophy.

My brother marched De La Salle baritone and picked up this flyer while on tour.

1972-flyer-a.jpg

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Fast forward to 1977 Paris, France…Pam and I were guard/M&M instructors as well as drum majors. It was my 5th year as DM, her first, got along well and became ‘forever friends’. It was Mike Duffy’s 4th or 5th year as Music Director for Alberta All Girls and many of the girls were in their 4th or 5th year of marching. The summer of 77 was as if the stars were aligned. We had good instruments, awesome arrangements, dedicated support staff, wonderful corps directors and a 10 week tour through Europe. 2 photos from under the Eiffel Tower; no flag work for the guard that day; peek-a-boo.

1977-20.jpg

1977-19.jpg

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and while all the competing corps had brand new two-piston sopranos that season, the Alberta Girls had brand new THREE-piston G sopranos !!!

…and the sound was very good…apologies in advance for the length of this post; a glimpse of an all girl drum corps world…I started with an all girl flag line 68, by 71 a ‘guard tech’; between 74-76, taught up to 6 all girl guards from different corps winter or summer, including Ventures. What I remember of the Ladies of Gold was the rich sound of the 75 baritone line, their easy marching stride, rehearsals were effective and efficient, a hard working and dedicated group of ladies.

Fast forward to the summer of 77, the promotional material said ‘Alberta All Girls Drum and Bugle Band Sound Spectacular – 100 Girls…’, there was a recruitment campaign in Philly 76, people were contacted (Bonnie of 76 BD) but no-one joined. We accepted a few 12 year old girls from our feeder corps, the Directors’ 5 year old daughter was on National party, Pam and I were drum majors to bolster the number to 86 local area marching members.

We left for Europe 6:00 p.m. July 1/77, flew to Iceland to re-fuel (daylight all the way) and landed at Gatwick July 2 at 9:00 a.m. during an airport baggage handlers strike. Michael Whitney was the only person with lost luggage. July 3 our first performance at Ipswich 3:00 p.m. (long story short, the 2nd plane with the instruments and uniforms was an hour later so we improvised), July 4 practiced all day, July 5 performance in Yarmouth, July 6 we rehearsed all day. Mike Duffy had auditions for lead sop solo for 3 of our 13 musical selections. The solos were sweet duets. The drum line was strong and talented. We didn’t take our contras; the baritone line had depth and experience; the middle voices, 5 French horns/6 mellophones were melodic and solid. Mike wrote wonderful arrangements for them. The soprano line was younger but talented. Pam and I would ‘conduct’ (wave our arms) together or we picked songs we liked and played drum major tag team. The repertoire was 10 – 20 minutes long (7 – 13 musical selections) depending on performance venue and we had challenges in finding rehearsal space ‘cause we were loud and proud.

I enjoyed my drum major role with the Alberta All Girls, especially the finale which had a baritone intro, full ensemble cue on the upbeat, new 3-valve G horn sop duet in the middle, an accelerando at the end that included fine multi-tom drum action badda-bing. Pam and I wrote the visuals; park and play, bit of marching/drill, some full ensemble fancy footwork and a ton of flagwork badda-boom. My back was to the audience but could hear the applause. Pam said sometimes the audience danced. Our drum corps version was about a minute shorter, had an upbeat tempo but similar to this link. (‘walter murphy and the big apple band a fifth of beethoven’)

While on tour we heard ABBA on the radio, saw KISS jumping into a limo; the staff usually slept on the floor but had a hotel break in Brussels where Pam and I met Bonnie Raitt’s backup band. Kathy remembered our 3 bus music tapes, Hotel California-Eagles, A Star is Born-Streisand and Kristofferson, Supertramp-Even the Quietest Moments…one last photo I took of ¾ of the arc at the park in Paris, combination warm up and photo op. I scanned this the other day and noticed the guard is standing on chairs. Cool.

1977-paris2.jpg

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I noticed that, and am wondering about the other voices. Only 2 valve sops were legal in jr. corps that year. Did AAG have 3 valve mellos and baris too?

This page is from the April 1977 product guide and may provide an answer to your question. With regard to the legal comment, we didn’t compete in Europe 77. It was to be our last year as a drum corps but kept going 78 and 79; then 10 years winter guard; 15 years as other forms; we let our not for profit status lapse in 2004; the remaining monies were donated to charity. A group of us get together every year for over 30 years at our annual Super Bowl party; we reminisce about the good ole drum corps/winter guard days, lots of laughter and smiles, fun times, good food and good friends :devil:

DEG-1977-3-a.jpg

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