A suggestion

[kusankusho]

In fact, I do. We as a community need to share our feelings and ideas with DCI. This is our activity. Why should it be something we don't like?

PS If I'm coming off as hostile, I'm not trying to.

Benny - no worries. I was being completely honest when I said I'd love to hear your ideas. No hostility taken or given.

In fact, I have already taken a small step in what you suggest and emailed DCI with my feelings today. I'm not sure it will get us anywhere though, words without financial penalty really don't get the attention you might hope.

[bawker]

In fact, I do. We as a community need to share our feelings and ideas with DCI. This is our activity. Why should it be something we don't like?

PS If I'm coming off as hostile, I'm not trying to.

Well,to be honest...that's been tried by a few people over the years.

There have been petitions and proposals counter to the direction drum corps has taken over the past few years...nothing has worked, really. That kind of sends a message about where DCI is headed relative to someones likes/dislikes.

I don't think going to DCI is an answer, to be honest...and of course, there is much, much more to drum corps than DCI.

[Benny_4]

You could also start a corps that performs shows that way you think they should be performed and join DCI. If

everyone that didn't like the new rules changes did that, then in a few years you could vote to change the rules back

to the way you like them. It would take a lot of work but, if it's something you love, then it would be worth it, right?

Believe me dude, I could if I would. Unfortunately, I'm not of an age that allows me to do this. I hate to be one of those fans that sits there and gripes about what's happening but, nothing else is practical. Plus, one corps; come on. I think that this requires the action of the community as a whole.

[Benny_4]

Well,to be honest...that's been tried by a few people over the years.

There have been petitions and proposals counter to the direction drum corps has taken over the past few years...nothing has worked, really. That kind of sends a message about where DCI is headed relative to someones likes/dislikes.

I don't think going to DCI is an answer, to be honest...and of course, there is much, much more to drum corps than DCI.

While I understand what you're saying, you're wrong. What you're saying is like saying "there is more to baseball than the MLB"! There is but the MLB is the face of baseball.

[Minimaster]

Believe me dude, I could if I would. Unfortunately, I'm not of an age that allows me to do this. I hate to be one of those fans that sits there and gripes about what's happening but, nothing else is practical. Plus, one corps; come on. I think that this requires the action of the community as a whole.

No, not just one corps, but several. Read it again.

[Benny_4]

No, not just one corps, but several. Read it again.

Sorry dude, I lost the thoroughness in my reading in attempt to respond quickly. I was already trying to think of a respone while I was reading the post.

[mad_scotty]

i disagree with the first two posts here.

i do not think that withholding money will sway dci much, cash flow has been down (along with attendance) for years from their peaks in the mid 90's. dci has consistently gone down their own path since then, feeling that they should follow the lead of their creative design talent, and not respond to reactionary fans. theres some justification to that viewpoint, if you're one of the people that looks at the decade from 86-95 (or thereabouts) as drum corps golden age, then you're hearkening back to an era of innovative shows that would have been nearly unrecognizable to fans in the previous decade. the same is true of any of drum corps eras. on the other hand, some people are withholding money already. having to cancel the broadcasts for lack of funding should rightfully panic everyone associated with dci, from fans to members to staffs. this is a big deal, a really big deal, and everyone in the drum corps community should look at it not as a chance to air greivences, point fingers, and blast off internet i told you so's, but as a warning that dci has to collaborate better with drum corps fans to return this activity to the path of fanbase growth and financial health.

if there has been one constant in the history of dci, it is change. and i think that most of the change has been good. some things i regret, i was a big proponent of the switch to b-flat band horns, until it happened and i realized that the trade-off for everyone getting a cleaner, more centered sound was a sound so centered and homogenized i sometimes think i can no longer tell you which corps is playing if i turn my back on them. i also feel that the entire concept of general effect needs to be seriously reevaluated. i believe the original intention of the category was to reflect in scoring those things that made a drum corps show special, the oohh and aaahhh and goosebump moments that can't be codified in a caption score. now, it seems like it's being judged on a "reverse tic" system, where points are added for every little nifty trick, and dead space is punished by points withheld. a lot of the shows end up trying to cram so many GE tricks in that they look like they were designed by 5 year olds with ADD, or a pack of raving methheads to me.

other things i don't regret so much though. i love the way everyone moves, constantly, and uses body posture/modern dance technique to help build more story into the shows. thanks star '93, it turns out you guys had some better than second place ideas after all. as much as i hated the introduction of amplification, the resulting bickering, and honestly, the cadets entire "don't boo us for our amps, we're just good hardworking kids" microphone fest last year, crowns wild horses is easily one of my all time fave shows, and would never work the same without the "track announcer" narration in the finale. i guess for me, while amped hornlines and vocalists are a real anathema, i think some tasteful use of amplification, either to create a sound effect that just cannot be duplicated through traditional instrumentation, or to assist the narrative aspects of the show (without turning the rest of the corps efforts into background junk or a complete afterthought) is not a bad thing. its just bad if its used poorly, and my hope is that designers will learn what works and what doesn't from an audience standpoint and find ways to use emplification as an enhancement, without making it stick out like a sore thumb and take over the entire show. the worst thing for everyone is to turn it into a standoff between entrenched groups with opposing viewpoints. while there may be disagreement between us about the way shows are designed, or new tools used, the one thing we all have in common is a love for this activity, and a passionate desire to see it grow and succeed.

thats what bothered me about the second post. "if you don't like it don't post here" is as counterproductive, to me, as "if you don't like it stop spending cash on it." unfortunately, i see far too many people falling into these two extremist categories. either "boycott it, it sucks", or "respect what we feed you or shut the hell up." what good does any of that do for anyone? corps can never forget that there won't be any gas in the busses if the fans don't come. and fans need to remember that most peoples first response to an angry, confrontational approach is to go into us vs. them mode, aka shut out the fans mode. i think this activity is enmired in a little too much of that. it's gotten to an extreme in some cases. i know of at least one drum corps that refused to publicly announce their show music because they didn't want to be flamed on internet message boards by fans who prejudged them. personally, i think buying into the us vs. them philosophy and letting it influence your judgement to the point where you lock your own fans out is a disastrously bad approach. dci fans feel a tremendous amount of ownership towards this activity and their favorite corps. its what makes them as frustrating, high maintenance, and difficult as they are, but it's also an incredible bond, one of the things that truly makes drum corps stand out from any other type of entertainment. lose that bond, and the busses don't roll. period. not today, not tomorrow, but soon. drum corps have to keep their fans close, on the inside, and in the loop, no matter what a pain it is. and fans need to be willing to step back, take a deep breath, and let the corps do the things they need to do to keep innovating, changing, and growing. to paraphrase a coach, the '75 muchachos are not walking through that door folks, and thats a good thing, because change is as much the lifeblood of this activity as the fan relationship is, and losing that is another, just as effective way to keep the busses from rolling.

if you're a fan, keep watching, and keep communicating any way you can. always remember what you love about this activity, and if you are worried that you're starting to lose touch with some of the things that make it great, don't be afraid to say so. casually, and respectfully. just remember, its only useful if its part of a dialog, and its only dialog if you spend as much time listening, with an open mind, as you do making pronouncements. and that goes for both sides. when i marched, i loved nothing more than to talk to older age outs, marchers from different generations, and get their take on what we were doing. and even marching for the madison scouts in the early 90's when fans loved everything we did, i heard some pretty blunt criticisms, to go along with the rah rah type stuff. thats always been part of the activity, and believe me, the cadets aren't the first, or even the 20th corps to be booed by unhappy fans. thats always been a part of it. but dci is a business that has to make a profit to survive year to year, and i've learned two things in business- first, never stop listening to myself, i spend more time doing this than anyone and really do know more about it, and make better educated decisions as a result. but i also never ever stop listening to my customers, because if i can't deliver them a product (or in my case, service) that they want, i'm out of business. i work with some companies that really need my expertise, and pay me well for it, but they are pretty smart people in their own right, and i've found that with everyone i talk to, communication skills are the biggest difference makers between success and failure. and it isn't just my corporate clients, i hear this everywhere. bill gates didn't make his millions by designing windows, he isn't even a software engineer. he made his money by negotiating a deal to license someone else's disk operating system on ibm's computers. the founder of ebay, when asked why his company was able to step out from among hundreds of similar online auction sites to completely dominate that industry, says it was their system of customer input. that one difference, making people more involved in the site, and trusting each others judgement, made the customers willing to spend more through them than through every similar site combined.

i could go on and on in this vein with like anecdotes, but i won't. you guys get the point. the fact is, communication is key to a succesful endeavor. us vs. them finger pointing is the worst possible response to a misunderstanding. no one wants a war, particularly the kind of war that will happen in this activity if no one shows up. people need to step back, take a breath, and exercise better judgement on one side, and better leadership on the other. anger and finger pointing are almost always a result of miscommunication from the get go. so the question isn't who can we tell to shut up, but who can we get to listen to us, and in return, who can we lend an ear, take the time to ensure that their views are being treated as important and necessary. this is an important skill. i worked in sales when i was younger, and that meant that occasionally i had to deal with angry, frustrated customers. not because they were bad people who were intent on being jerks, or because i had been dishonest or otherwise unprofessional, but because occasionally, stuff happens. i found that the best way to deal with an angry customer was to listen to them, very carefully and attentively, without interrupting, and to let them know that they were justified in feeling the way they felt. letting them get it off their chest almost always defused the situation, and we could then sit down and review the options i had at my disposal to help them out. simple, and fast, it saved me hours of unproductive arguing with the worlds most valuable commodity, a paying customer. as much as fans need to lay off the anger, corps and their members need to lend a sympathetic ear when they are angry. because ultimately, when fans boo the cadets at finals, they aren't saying they hate the cadets, they are saying that they love the cadets, but think they are offtrack and want them to come back home, a little.

another way of saying that is, the fans aren't, for the most part, angry at amps, they are angry at the way they are being used. no one booed crown, that i can recall, and they featured amplification front and center in their show design. if you're george hopkins, or another corps director, you can't come out of this and say "why do the fans hate us," or, "why do the fans hate amplification?" you need approach your design team and ask them, "if we are committed to this technology, and feel it will really enhance our shows, how can we use it creatively in a way that the fans will enjoy?" the next step is to go to every source you have to communicate with the fanbase as a whole, explain to them that you have listened to them, you understand their specific and general complaints, and why those issues worry them, and lay out your reasons for trying some of the things you are incorporating into the shows, and ask for them to watch and listen with an open mind, and let you know after the season what they liked and disliked about everything you did, so you can go back next year and design a show that works better for everyone. this is what every successful business does, from the movie studio or political party that runs test marketing year round, to the garbage company that added a recycling program because you and your neighbors wanted one. the businesses that don't respond to their market positively die. and no one wants to see that.

its simple really. fans, if you have complaints, air them out, but do so respectfully, and don't focus on things like boycotting, fingerpointing, or anything else that becomes us vs. them confontational and isolates your favorite corps from you. and corps, listen better, and communicate better, with real two way dialog, if you want to keep gas in the busses. there really isn't another choice for anyone, theres no competing drum corps tour we can all go to if dci shuts down, and theres no better, if slightly rabid, pack of fans anywhere in the world than drum corps junkies.

[Blueemrld8]

Mad Scotty - That is an amazing post!!!

[kusankusho]

While I understand what you're saying, you're wrong. What you're saying is like saying "there is more to baseball than the MLB"! There is but the MLB is the face of baseball.

#### - I already answered this but the server must have crashed - it just hung at this end. Lots of bandwidth happening today for some reason?

anyway - it might be more appropriate to say "there's more to baseball than the National League" - which is true. For us, there's DCA.

On the DCA forum there was a lot of talk about DCA maybe starting a junior division (all hypothetical and wishful - there has been no official statement). The idea then was that small start up corps with limited budgets could still get on the field and compete without the strain of the touring model. Seemed like a good idea to me at least. I think now there is even more reason to revisit it.

[kusankusho]

Mad Scotty - great post and well stated. I have to disagree on a couple of points.

1 - people don't boo, not because they are OK with amps, but out of respect for the performers. Some boo anyway.

2 - as stated in other posts, communication has been tried, and has failed miserably. I believe the only way to get the attention of DCI is to vote with the feet, and with the closed wallet. IMHO they really don't care about anything else much, except perhaps the creative whims of their staffs.

3 - although not touring - DCA competes longer through the summer than DCI. There are other shows to go to.

Cheers.