REAL Drum Corps...

[Cardman]

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!

Please share your wrong opinions elsewhere. How's that for snappy?

[freakyswotboy]

Life was less complicated in England. Whwt you refer to as a valveless bugle, we called a cavalry trumpet. Hence we marched in drum and trumpet corps not drum and bugle corps. What we call a bugle bears no resemblence to what you played.

But then again you call football soccer and football to yo is a game where only two players on th pitch kick the ball. Go figure!

[BD2Rings]

No, no. Pitch is what you do in baseball. We colonists also don't use prams nor parasols. Our cars do not have sumps nor bonnets.

Then again I've heard the Brits also celebrate the 4th of July, only they call it Thanksgiving. Touche'.

[The Oz]

Does it count if I played on mylar heads and carried the drum on a sling?

[silvertrombone]

Bugles (that really do sound like crap) are a simple brass instrument used for signaling and military calls.

Thank you.

Who knows what the common usage for bugle will be 150 years from now...if it's as wildly different as it would be to the 1865 soldier looking at any modern horn that we refer to as a bugle, then who knows?

I'm guessing the bloke would stand slack-jawed in amazement listening to BD perform that instrument.

I went out looking to find something on this, and I found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugle_(instrument)

Funny thing is, I wrote this thread, then I did my new signature, then went to wikipedia to check out what they had to say. Pretty close, wouldn't you say?

I'm really interested to here what Baroque music actually sounded, it was probably horrible because the instruments sucked.

They did. Sackbut. That says it all right there. Can you imagine a screen name, "silversackbut"? Egad!

I think the point of the OP is, (almost) none of us ever marched in a true drum and BUGLE corps, so we should quit complaining and saying "they aren't bugles anymore". Am I right?

thats the way i understood it.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean.

No-valve bugles sound like butt. Is that what you were referring to? What most people here refer to as a bugle--those pre-2-valve concoctions--probably sound just fine when performed on by a nationally-auditioned corps of conservatory students, but when picked up by a rag-tag group of neighborhood roughians, they sound like crap on mono recordings. That's all.

I'm sure that the organization that he chose, was what he "got".

But what he got was not drum and bugle corps, irrespective of what he was told.

Nice avatar! Is that a picture of you? What's that you're holding?

1.) A kid sees or hears a "corps" somewhere, thinks it's kool, and is told, "that's drum and bugle corps" (lie #1).

2.) Do they know the history of bugles, the DC history of rudimental drumming? Have they found good audio files of historic drum and bugle corps shows? Have they seen any classic guard work? Probably not....

1.) So you marched a drum and BUGLE corps but I participated in a marching music ensemble?

2.) Did they sleep on gym floors? Ride buses overnight? Shower en masse? Eat from an 18-wheeler/trailer? Rehearse 11 hours a day? Perform to sold-out stadiums with no football teams present? Sounds like DRUM CORPS to me!

I love your posts. I feel like a better person after reading them. They make me feel glad that your version of drum corps is dying and never coming back, ever.

Mods, can we award this man some kind of award? Perhaps name a scholarship in his honor payable annually to his choice of corps? Wow--that's gotta hurt! Kind of reminiscent of, "Slider <snifff>...you stink."

And I think some of you are checking 'yes' who actually fall in the category 'no' according to the 'old fart' definition of bugle, which is actually pretty close to wikipedia's. Smart aleck thread? Yup. But I did appreciate the intelligent reparte that invaded with regards to dictionaries and such.

[Martybucs]

Sorry, I've never viewed marchers as mindless automatons, so I don't understand what you're saying.

Didn't Cavies do a show like that?

[Lance]

Ba-dum bum! Martybucks'll be here all night.

:lolhit:

[davidp]

It goes like this (with additional points):

A kid sees or hears a "corps" somewhere, thinks it's kool, and is told, "that's drum and bugle corps" (lie #1).

He/she joins the organization of his/her choice, and is continually told that they ARE drum and bugle corps (lie #2).

(Mmm, tell me that they actually get dissertations about how some experienced people feel that the activity isn't true to its nature, but it really is because balh blah yada...)

What's the kid know different? He/she knows what they're told...

Do they know the history of bugles, the DC history of rudimental drumming? Have they found good audio files of historic drum and bugle corps shows? Have they seen any classic guard work? Probably not....

So then, after spending lots of time, money, and sweat practicing and touring in a "corps", investing themselves in the organization, someone on the 'net or otherwise tells them that they've been misled - that they're actually in a marching/dancing trumpet band with grounded percussion.

Kid takes this new opinion badly, and defends the status quo as drum and bugle corps...

Yeah, but somehow, "marching/dancing trumpet band" just doesn't quite have the same ring to it as drum and bugle corps .

Edited February 2, 2008 by davidp

[monoemono]

No-valve bugles sound like butt.

You must be playing yours wrong.

Is that what you were referring to? What most people here refer to as a bugle--those pre-2-valve concoctions--probably sound just fine when performed on by a nationally-auditioned corps of conservatory students, but when picked up by a rag-tag group of neighborhood roughians, they sound like crap on mono recordings. That's all.

Those rag-tag neighborhood roughians built the "marching music" activity we love so much.

I think the point of this thread is to once again go over how older FMM's are wrong in thinking that they played a bugle, because "bugles" became "trumpets" as soon as you added valves. Problem is, the discussion is a little more complicated than that. Trumpets didn't used to have valves either, but they weren't bugles, they were trumpets.

For those that played on G "bugles", the horns we played (and I know this has all been covered before, but I think it warrants reviewing) were descendants of the original drum and bugle corps "bugles", which were Army-surplus, valveless field trumpets pitched in G. Various additions were made to these original instruments to make them more chromatic, until the dramatic step was made to make a new horn, still in G, essentially the same, but where the valves were vertical instead of horizontal, more like a trumpet, which angered many because the horn no longer used a grip like a "bugle". You handled them more like a "trumpet". The rest of the story (3 valve G's, the Bb switch) is very well known.

But my point here is this. I don't care what you call any of these instruments--that's all a semantics argument. The truth is that these "bugles" in G had certain sound characteristics, different from a trumpet, that many feel are lacking in the Bb lines--probably due mostly to the pitch of the instrument. It's the same reason a classical trumpet player will choose to play a C trumpet on some pieces and a Bb trumpet on others--it's an issue of the characteristic sound of an instrument pitched in that key. Many that argue against guys like me, the "old-school" proponents of the G horns, assume, I think, that we are just playing a semantics game when we talk about "bugles"--we're not. We played horns that were direct descendants of, and the result of the evolution of, the original horns that supplied the activity. Bb horns represent two breaks in that tradition, one that has to do just with the tradition of playing horns pitched in G, and one that has more important tonal implications for the activity.

Hopefully what you will take away from this post is that someone arguing against the Bb horns, or for G horns, may be doing it from an informed and concerned position--one that comes from a love of the history, traditions, and uniqueness of sound this activity had to offer. Not just because they are being an old fart.

Now you kids get off my lawn!