Dissension in today's ranks.

[Puppet]

Hey John:

the Bb line you played in had the WORST bass horns on the planet from what I've been told from more than one of your cohorts in crime from last summer. It might have been the players, but it also may have been the instruments..there's enough grief with the low brass as it is. I have a 3 year old bari, and it's a piece of you know what..

Most of the difficulty you describe was inherent to the mis-matched horns that most every drum corps had that were pitched in G..It was a big rarity to see someone buy an entire line of 'matched' horns in G unless it was a total change..Since the change from piston/rotor to 2 valve, then to 3 valve wasn't set up as a complete change at one time..by DCI's design..it was virtually IMPOSSIBLE to get the idiocincrasies out of the different horns to get close..."Close counts in horseshoes" was about the best philosophy for "all-age" lines or non-touring corps..You should ask Paul about having 4 or 5 different horns in a SECTION, much less across a line.

New kids are spoiled..

Pat

Ahh…intonation. A word seldom heard anymore. We had it drilled into our mind set when we were St. Joseph Patron Cadets. I think we had more brands of horns than we had horn players. Some were rotary, some with slides. I'll tell you, pulling that slide out has a real effect on your tuning.

When we moved to St. Rita's we got an entire set of Olds horns in G - one valve, one rotary. It was intoxicating to hear us all be able to be completely in tune especially when playing sharps and flats.

Puppet

[Martybucs]

1972 was the War and Peace show...am I correct?

BTW... wouldn't it be nice to change The Cadets back to The Garfield Cadets?

...or Crossmen to West Chester, PA?

[MikeD]

1972 was the War and Peace show...am I correct?

BTW... wouldn't it be nice to change The Cadets back to The Garfield Cadets?

Our show title in 1972 was "No More War".

...how's that for a show name the year after leaving the VFW/AL?

We passed out a placemat sized poster in 72 with three photos on it. The first was two little kids, a boy and girl, playing together.

The second was the two of them grown up and obviously romantically connected, both in uniform (he was a horn player and she was a guard member in reality), as he left to go to war.

The third shot was the girl standing next to a coffin with his shako and gloves on top of it as she looked sadly at what was left of her lover.

Not TOO political, was it!

BTW...in 1971 we were the Cadets of Garfield for some reason, not the Garfield Cadets...might have been the genesis of the Cadets of Bergen County name used 20 years later.

[Martybucs]

Ahh…intonation. A word seldom heard anymore. We had it drilled into our mind set when we were St. Joseph Patron Cadets. I think we had more brands of horns than we had horn players. Some were rotary, some with slides. I'll tell you, pulling that slide out has a real effect on your tuning.

When we moved to St. Rita's we got an entire set of Olds horns in G - one valve, one rotary. It was intoxicating to hear us all be able to be completely in tune especially when playing sharps and flats.

Puppet

Don't know if that's a fair thing to say.

I believe that intonation was harder to achieve on some bugles, "back in the day", and thereby making it more important, but I haven't really heard many major intonation problems in any top hornline, well, maybe ever.

Once in a while someone will hit a clunker, that happens, but wholesale bad intonation? I don't think so.

I think better instruments and the excellent horn staffs of today have most intonation under control.

Edited July 18, 2008 by Martybucs

[voodoo sweet]

That was 44 years ago. ;)

Joke aside, of course there's dissent. There's always dissent, and always will be dissent. That's the way it should be. Without it, we'd all be boring, and so would the activity.

As long as I'm entertained and blown away, I couldn't honestly care less about the details of the tools being used to do it. I found Cadets' show last year to be boring and ineffective, just like I found Star of Indiana's 1992 show to be boring and ineffective, just like I found Cavaliers' 1989 show to be boring and ineffective, just as I found numerous shows from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s to be boring and ineffective. And on the other side, I was blown away by last year's Bluecoats show, which I found just as entertaining and effective as any drum corps show I've ever seen. The particulars of instrumentation and amplification and whether or not the guard could release their flags or whathaveyou doesn't really play into it, for me.

I happen to like G bugle hornlines, quite a bit. That doesn't stop me from being entertained by BD or Phantom.

edit: I knew I should've just gone with the short post! ;)

well my feelings about the future of Drum Corps is why don't they just use the amps and plug a lead and bass guitars to them. some corps already have drum sets in the pit area now. Some Corps should put on make up like Kiss. I mean if your really gonna make a change don't half step us go all out!! Have you noticed that some of the Corps don't even have a cymbel line anymore?? I also believe that years ago there was a diffrence between Drum Corps and marching band. Now since marching band has infiltrated into Drum Corps the activity has become watered down. Who said we needed trumpets instead of the piston and rotary horn, has the music changed that much?? Instead of the conta bass being called that now it's called a tuba. I'm telling you if it keeps going this way in the near future there will be no Drum Corps. We'll be going to see the Concord Blue Devils marching Band. I feel that Drum Corps has become soft in so many ways, that's why everything has to be miked now whatever happened to the mighty hornlines like the Madison Scouts or the Minisink Warriors and many others, I don't think they had to be miked but I can't stop it from being a part of my life in any capacity. It's in my blood. It's in all our blood especially if you marched, and it doesn't seem like we can prevent the evolututionary process from happining even in Drum Corps. And that's what I think.

[Martybucs]

There's that "evolution" word again. I see no evolution.

It is merely change, through collusion, IMO, that has caused drum and bugle corps to become bands.

BUT...they're really, really good bands, (although, they call themselves drum corps), so I'm OK with it.

I'll always miss drum and bugle corps, though

[KeithHall]

Maybe DCI took Carmine Appice's comments seriously many years ago.

[MoonHill]

There's that "evolution" word again. I see no evolution.

It is merely change, through collusion, IMO, that has caused drum and bugle corps to become bands.

I still can't really agree with the implied definition of "evolution" you're using here; but not with enough passion to actually make an issue out of it.

[Puppet]

Don't know if that's a fair thing to say.

I think better instruments and the excellent horn staffs of today have most intonation under control.

Which is why I said it's " A word seldom heard anymore."

Remember, or should I say you have to know that Back In The Day, most players in drum corps had never picked up a horn, or a pair of drum sticks or read a note of music before they walked in the door of the corps of their choice.

They weren't seasoned band or orchestra members with private teachers and such.

They started from scratch.

11 and 12 year old kids (BTW, we also didn't have all the problems that kids have now like Attention Deficiency) walked in during the winter, probably after making the choice not to join the boy scouts or something - or maybe having seen the corps in a thanksgiving day parade, with absolutely no knowledge and by the next summer they were on the field.

A pretty dandy testament of the time.

I meant no take away from those young men and women playing and romping around the fields today - they work hard and even though most of the snippets of music being played is unrecognizable to even me (although to their credit the Blue Devils' Rite Of Spring and Firebird which IMHO was much better than Phantom's last year were very well played even with the frenzied pace of the drill - SCV also had me for a moment with the Daphnis and Chloé selections it's no wonder why some of the people who still live in the way back machine don't get it. I do. Sorry - I lost track of where I was going.

It's an old guy thing you wouldn't understand.

Anyway I got distracted thinking about that show and how the Cavaliers just floored me with their vapid renditions of Billy Joeldom. How they beat SVC, Phantom and even the Blue Coats will go down in my personal history as one of the World's greatest mysteries. This from a corps that made me an instant fan when I first saw them in 1965 at the VFW Nationals in Chicago indoors no less.

So there - 42 years of Cavalier History in 3 sentences, a quick review of last year's finals in 2 (counting the 1 Cavalier mention, 1 complete halfheimer's moment, an explanation of what I meant in my last post, some background of how it was and last but not least a note to voodo sweet - is that a reference to the CCMC Warriors of the past?

Puppet

Edited July 18, 2008 by Puppet

[Puppet]

Maybe DCI took Carmine Appice's comments seriously many years ago.

Vanilla Fudge, right? Beyond Loud

Of course, when I think about loud I always think of Billy Cobham - he was a Senior at Music & Art High School when I came in as freshmen in 1962. He played for St. Catherine's Queensmen and I think later the Sunrisers. Now he was like thunder.

Thanks for the memory - great reference, too!

Puppet