REAL Drum Corps...

[silvertrombone]

Kind of self-explanatory. Just curious given all the, "This isn't REAL drum corps" talk lately--as in the last 17 YEARS--how many DCP community contributors have a leg to stand on.

I suspect that this poll will be about 40% No, 55% Exempt and 5% (rounding up) 'walked uphill in the snow both ways.' And I also expect that it will bump on to page 2 and obscurity pretty quickly as well due to lack of participation. Funny how that works, hmm?

BTW, bugles sound like trash--REAL bugles. I own one. They weren't meant for playing music on. Funny how that works, too. But I'll be interested in some of the snappy comments this is sure to generate.

Flame on!

[rut-roh]

Drum corps died in 1971. They made t-shirts and everything. Ergo, anyone who marched after 1971 did NOT march in a REAL drum corps. Whatever that is. :)

[BD2Rings]

I did not march with a no valve military bugle, no. I did march with a conical piston rotor contraption that many did and still refer to as a bugle. For some, the definition was the conical versus tubular construction.

I don't think this is what you are looking for however.

[Harvey]

Yes, I did march with a G-bugle (no valves) for quite some time.

(BTW, I just spent several hours reading all of the posts on the new DCI rules after being in the hospital for quite a while. I guess I won't be posting much on here anymore, since what they are now creating is just too different from what I did back in the 40's and 50's, REAL drum corps.)

[silvertrombone]

Drum corps died in 1971. They made t-shirts and everything. Ergo, anyone who marched after 1971 did NOT march in a REAL drum corps. Whatever that is. :)

Drum Corps? Or bugles? Someone should have told that to DCI, hmm?

And on other notes, interesting to see how percentages are working out thusfar.

Continue.

[Martybucs]

Describing a bugle as only the valveless variety is not exactly accurate.

Some bugles have valves, some have rotors, some have both, some have slides, some have sax style keys, some signal bugles are indeed valveless.

Some trumpets have one valve, (the aida trumpet), some have no valves, (natural), some have tone holes and some have rotors and some have valves.

I think, for most, it is the G instrument they played when they marched. For me, that would be a single piston with a slip slide and a piston with a rotor and a two valve and a 3 valve bugle, but not all at once.

Yeah, I marched real drum and bugle corps.

Still do.

I almost forgot. Uphill, in the snow both ways, too. We used to march the Pottsville, PA Winter Carnival parade - cold as north pole, windy, and uphill or at an angle across the hill and then a steep downhill at the end. The valves always froze - so they were pretty much valveless! (yeah i know kerosene on the valves and all that, but it's the spit that freezes)

Edited January 31, 2008 by Martybucs

[Lance]

Just because a g horn with 1 or 2 valves was the intrument used by an entity calling itself a drum and bugle corps in the year 19XX doesn't make the instrument a bugle. This is why the neverending banter about dictionary definitions and site-specific definitions of "bugle" are so silly most of the time. I dont' understand what anybody is trying to prove one way or the other.

[cwallace600]

Perhaps a more accurate question might be "Who marched on a conical-bored instrument in the key of G?"

<$1 to Trooper for that description>

Edited January 31, 2008 by cwallace600

[Martybucs]

Just because a g horn with 1 or 2 valves was the intrument used by an entity calling itself a drum and bugle corps in the year 19XX doesn't make the instrument a bugle. This is why the neverending banter about dictionary definitions and site-specific definitions of "bugle" are so silly most of the time. I dont' understand what anybody is trying to prove one way or the other.

Well, that's just the point.

Doesn't make it NOT a bugle either. For people that actually play the instrument, it is more a matter of; which is it closer to - trumpet or bugle.

When the corps today buy their sopranos in Bb what does it say on the invoice, trumpet or bugle?

People and usage determine the definitions of words. Dictionaries, online or in book form only tell you what the publishers feel is appropriate.

[BD2Rings]

And I forward that $1 to Marty. I would guess that the invoices of today would not itemize any of the Bb nor F horns as bugles. If we could go back to the G conical horns of yesteryear, I'm reasonably confident they would have been itemized as bugles, regardless how many valves and rotors were present.

I can remember discussions from my junior high school music classes, where the questions were asked about trumpets versus bugles. The teacher, one Mrs Arline Fox, explained the difference was in the conical versus tubular construction. She was even able to comment on the difference in sound this would create. Her answer was more than any of us expected. Maybe this is why I remember it all these years later. Mind you this was 3 years before I had even heard of a drum and bugle corps. Now I don't wish to start a word war with any of the dictionary companies, but I can also remember looking up what Mrs Fox said in more than one dictionary after I joined the Blue Devils. All of those dictionaries stated a bugle was of conical construction (in their own words), so Mrs Fox's words were reinforced. I have no idea why we no longer see mention of the conical construction.

Any ideas? Please note that I am making no reference to the key of the instrument's overtone series. I don't care if it is G or even Bb. Conical versus tubular is the deciding factor.

Edited January 31, 2008 by BD2Rings