Interesting Comment from Hop

[WWonka]

Easy answer:

According to the US Census:

Median income -- $24,325

Avg Dues plus all the other crap thrown in $2000.00+ easily.

That is the MEDIAN so you have 1/2 the population below that who would have to give up an entire month of pay to have a kid march. It's not feasable for a huge chunk of the kids to even consider marching.

[Tekneek]

That is the MEDIAN so you have 1/2 the population below that who would have to give up an entire month of pay to have a kid march. It's not feasable for a huge chunk of the kids to even consider marching.

It seems to me, at every turn, DCI tries to up the ante and be more "elite" than they previously were. I see plenty of attempts to appeal to the affluent, but not to anyone else. Hopkins himself has been at the helm of this transition in the activity. Perhaps he is surprised by the unintended consequences. Better now than later.

[DCImonkey]

Dear George Hopkins:

I am a middle school band director at a low performing, minority filled, disadvantaged school. I do my best to expose my children to the activity. Some are intrigued, others think it is neat. some don't care because it's not Beyonce' or 50-cent. To each his own! Almost universally they all cry "WHAT?" when I tell them that you do not get paid for participating and then they ALL cry "YOU CRAZY!" when I tell them HOW MUCH it costs to participate.

Think about this fact....most of the kids in my band aren't the poorest in the school. Those kids couldn't afford an instrument in the first place. Most of my students are in the lower end of the middle class, yet have parents who encourage them enough to take up an instrument. I do not have the numbers to support a well balanced band. In fact, I have never been able to take my bands to festival because they would surely get creamed by the status quo in the district. There was a principal that told me once, "Band is the great segregator. The intelligent and well off kids tend to take it because they can. The poor and often times, low performing students tend to steer clear of band because they cannot easily afford an instrument." That kind of threw a wrench into my belief that band makes you smarter.....DOES IT? Or do the smarter, wealthier kids tend to take band?

Please note that I do not associate wealth with academic success 100% of the time, but there is a pattern there.

There are a select few who individually push themselves to greatness. I've had an enormous number of superior ratings in the past few years at Solo and Ensemble. In fact we have had 2 students audition for drumcorps in the past few years. Cost is the main factor though in keeping these kids out.

On the flipside, when I marched Crown, I had a high school buddy that we called "the black guy" because he was the only black guy in Crown's hornline until late in the summer. He didn't have alot of money and had to earn every nickel to pay for camps working at a grocery store. It just so happened that his uncle who was a city councilman helped pay his tuition. He's in a doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin now.

Edited February 19, 2008 by DCImonkey

[sburstall]

It seems to me, at every turn, DCI tries to up the ante and be more "elite" than they previously were. I see plenty of attempts to appeal to the affluent, but not to anyone else. Hopkins himself has been at the helm of this transition in the activity. Perhaps he is surprised by the unintended consequences. Better now than later.

It's like his proposals, he comes up with ideas but rarely goes beyong the "here and now" of his ideas.

What's the old punchline? Oh. "The smartest man in the world just jumped out with my napsack."

Edited February 19, 2008 by sburstall

[madscout96]

Please note that I do not associate wealth with intelligence 100% of the time, but there is a pattern there.

I associate wealth with intelligence 0% of the time. Wealth with academic success? Those can be associated together more often though, I think. Just thought I'd throw that in there as a side note.

There's some good discussion in this thread, and it's important. Let's keep it going.

[scv guy]

Wow. Eye opening thread. We were so fortunate in the late 70's when tour costs were around $300, so it was more affordable--even for lower-middle class kids. Still, we had kids that were not well off, so Gail would have them work off their tour costs by loading buses, equipment trucks or in Miss Amana (chuck wagon). Some of these guys were SO broke! In suburban San Jose-Santa Clara-Sunnyvale, CA, the public schools all had music programs so everyone had access. As far as ethnic make up, we had many people of color-especially Latino. Check out those old SCV vids and you'll see lots of brown faces.

As far as inner city drum corps in San Francisco, they never really had it in my day. I have been awakened by a Chinese drum and bell corps more than once when I used to live in Chinatown.

I'd love to see drum corps take root in inner cities. Can you imagine the pride a championship class corps could generate for a city? Especially if the kids were all from there. No imports allowed!

[cmdiddle]

The current DCI financial model is unsustaining and not conducive to growth. To discuss ways to rectify a disproportionate racial make-up of DCI performers would be moot until the model changes.

Perhaps it may be helpful to look at the current DCA membership to add credence to the idea of returning to a community-based model. My current corps very much reflects the racial make-up of my community. Having attended DCA Championships for many years, I suspect that this is the same for most DCA corps.

In a different light, we in the South may have a different obstacle to attracting more minority members, because most disadvantaged and minority high schools adopt the "show band" genre of marching band which has a very different standard.

[fecontra]

I don't buy the notion that the lack of diversity is holding down drum corps, Hopkins is always carrying on about finding " new sources of income " to keep the show rolling.

I don't see much diversity in the music industry, especially in the grammys, but there seems to be no problems on that side of the ledger.

Maybe less travel for corps directors , fewer seminar attendances, and lower " student fees " could be a good starting point.

[Kroxxx567]

I personally believe that it's more of the students attitude and their parents attitude towards DC than the actual cost of doing it, if the student wants to do it and their parents encourage them than they will find a way to pay it.

For example:

My friend moved hear from Detroit his sophomore year and loved DC the first time he saw it, and even though he lives in the poorest part of the city and lives in one of the poorest apartment buildings, he has the drive, and more importantly is mother drives him to do it, and he is working his but ff to pay it.

So I believe anyone that is financially challenged will not try unless some one close to them is pushing them, so instead of reaching out to the kids that don't have much interest, we should reach out to the parents of the kids that really want to do it, and have them push their children to raise the money.

Also on a side note, the corps we're doing offers tons of fund raising opportunities, maybe corps should offer more help towards students and make it more evident that they're doing this.

[audiodb]

Three reactions:

1. I question Hopkins' statistic in the first place. Maybe his own corps is 92% caucasian, but I don't think the activity as a whole is. Regardless....

2. Are we supposed to do anything about it? After all, once DCI and their corps married themselves to the scholastic band community for recruiting purposes, it was pretty likely that the racial mix of corps would become similar to that of the bands they recruit from. If that mix is not representative of the population, isn't that a problem for scholastic band to confront?

3. As many have already pointed out, the bottom line is....the bottom line. Money. Like many of the activity's other ills, this one has been exacerbated by the escalating cost of participating in, or operating, a drum corps. Some of this cost increase was self-imposed via equipment rule changes and increasing touring. Inner-city units were priced out of DCI's world-class some time ago. After 35 years of making drum corps more expensive, it would take dramatic change to make it possible for inner-city programs to return to the activity's center stage.

Edited February 19, 2008 by audiodb