It's Been A While....

[skewerz]

Well, fellow DCP-ers, it has been over a year since I have posted, but rest assured I have been a regular reader, and truly appreciate mostly everyone's thoughts and passion for our activity.

It is with that in mind that I find myself punching up a post/topic tonight.

Where is our activity going from a "creative" standpoint? What will "DCI" look like in 2022 when my 16 month old son may choose to march his first year in a World Class corps? On one hand, and sadly, I am of the opinion that DCI will no longer exist unless some serious changes take place. Changes in the area of judging, the creative direction (if you want to call it that) of the activity, the business practices of DCI as an organization, and the ridiculous rule changes that the board of directors have been "brain-washed" into approving!!

I mentioned my 16 month old son. Guess what his favorite thing (video/DVD) is to watch? Give up?....... The 1980 27th Lancers!! Guess what his next favorite thing is to watch? Give up again?.... The 1993 Star of Indiana!!!! Goes to show you that "old school," and a show with some DEMAND in it are and SHOULD still be the norm in DCI rather than the exception!! Yes -- I'll say it again... Goes to show you that "old school," and a show with some DEMAND in it are and SHOULD still be the norm in DCI rather than the exception!!

Now before I go any further, many of you may remember that I am an avid advocate of bringing back a demand sub caption for at least the music captions.

I am at a loss as to why corps who play quarter notes and half notes for 75% of their show (brass books) are being rewarded with 18 plus points in the GE Music and performance captions. It's easy to clean easy brass (and drum) books, so what's the point? Why aren't some of these corps challenging the "students" as Jim Prime did with Star's 1993 (and 1991!) brass book, or Wayne Downey did with BD's 1994 and 1995 brass books??

Are the kids marching today any less talented than they were 15 to 20 plus years ago??

Now before the "hammerers" come after me in this forum, I am still a supporter of the activity. However if some of the current direction of the activity continues to go where I think it's going, then my money will be spent elsewhere, and my son will never set foot on a football field as a member of any corps!!

Now some questions and comments:

1). DCI -- why are you financially in dire straights?? (Rumor has it after this year you'll be $500,000 in the hole!) You were in a similar position before moving to Indianapolis, and are still paying rent for offices in Illinois where you moved from!! Might I suggest mandatory attendance at a Financial Peace University for all DCI staffers and the entire DCI Board of Directors!!

2). Fan attendance is down due to rising gas costs, but more importantly due to ticket prices that are unrealistic!! Again, someone needs to come up with a solution (I've suggested many over the years, so I will not belabor the point here).

3). Your current roster of judges includes many band directors, and they are the ones "nudging" the activity in the direction it has gone from a design standpoint the past 6 years. Although on the surface it may not appear that way, but take any novice fan and drop them in as an audience member at a BOA Superregional, and then at a DCI show and I got $1,000 bucks that says they will be hard-pressed to tell the difference!! The activity used to have a clear distinction between marching band and drum & bugle corps, but that isn;t the case any more! No -- I am not slamming the marching band activity, but the distinction I speak of used to be true!!

4). Why not be bold, and "nudge" the activity back into it's uniqueness? Pass a rule banning narration and props for a year ot two! Pass a rule stating that color guards have to actually do equipment work for at least 70% of the show time limit that a corps is on the field!!

5). BAN ELECTRONICS!!

6). Why aren't their "incentives" for marching members who say with a corps for 3 plus consecutive years?? The average length of time a young person marches with a corps has gone from 5.2 years in 1992 to 2.2 years in 2006. yes -- the cost of marching may have something to do with it, thus the suggestion on incentives!

In closing let me say that my intention to open up a preverbial "can of worms" by posting is on purpose and fully intentional!! Those of us who have loved, lived, and supported this activity for decades are witnessing the slow death of the activity whether we want to see it or not! It's high time that we make our voices heard so the "powers that be" quit acting like the U.S. Congress (doing very little or nothing) and start taking action!

Ok -- I am stepping off of my soapbox now. Thanks for listening (reading).

hmmm...

dunno enough about 1 to comment

2 is debatable...some shows have more people, but there are less shows...so either/or

3 is a definite possibility

4 i could live with

5 i could definitely live with

6 makes sense, but if a kid wants to stay, odds are, he/she is gonna stay

as far as "old school" goes, pretty much everyone on here knows I prefer the 80's-90's show over a majority of the shows this decade...there are exceptions of course...Crown the last couple years for an example...as far as Crown goes, both last year and this year, to me, are of the "essence" of "old school" shows, with more modern arrangements. They are playing actual melodies!!! (yeah, yeah, I know Vesuvius, e.g., has a melody...just not one that those not really into Tichelli will know...face it...Copland is a tad more famous than Tichelli...(i'm sure that's gonna bring a flame or two)

The reason Crown has been SO popular the last couple years is a combination of old school music with new school arrangements/drill...Sometimes you gotta take it back ($1 Nick Cannon)

[traveller30]

You have no idea what you are talking about. Before 07 blah....nice try, I was part of a staff that got Crown into the top 12 back in the 90's, so before you go talking #### about anyone getting fired, know your facts, punk. You still can't name the corps or the years you marched?

DCP rookie ...le' me guess, high school drummer?

Good grief, what is it with drum guys? I think they are just striking out at the world for having to wear the Vic Firth team jerseys to the Headquarters party after Semifinals. Hard to work it with that cute guard instructor when you are wearing the same shirt as 100 other dudes, having forgotten to take off your staff pass from 2 hours earlier. Have fun discussing the minutia of tap heights during a left lead triple ratamacue invert-a-diddle blah blah blah while the rest of us are hanging out having fun. (Ok maybe a little #### talking between all of us, but I am not calling anyone a punk on a web forum. )

[jsualumnus]

Good grief, what is it with drum guys? I think they are just striking out at the world for having to wear the Vic Firth team jerseys to the Headquarters party after Semifinals. Hard to work it with that cute guard instructor when you are wearing the same shirt as 100 other dudes, having forgotten to take off your staff pass from 2 hours earlier. Have fun discussing the minutia of tap heights during a left lead triple ratamacue invert-a-diddle blah blah blah while the rest of us are hanging out having fun. (Ok maybe a little #### talking between all of us, but I am not calling anyone a punk on a web forum. )

[DCImonkey]

Good grief, what is it with drum guys? I think they are just striking out at the world for having to wear the Vic Firth team jerseys to the Headquarters party after Semifinals. Hard to work it with that cute guard instructor when you are wearing the same shirt as 100 other dudes, having forgotten to take off your staff pass from 2 hours earlier. Have fun discussing the minutia of tap heights during a left lead triple ratamacue invert-a-diddle blah blah blah while the rest of us are hanging out having fun. (Ok maybe a little #### talking between all of us, but I am not calling anyone a punk on a web forum. )

That's some funny #### right there!!!

[GMichael1230]

Deman is MUCH, MUCH harder these days than in the past. You can't argue that.

I totally disagree. Seems like execution is sacrificed for effect. If there was more emphasis on execution prsentation I would agree but seems like we are throwing these things out the window to let more and more "design teams" be more "ot there" in terms of design, to heck with how well it is executed or of ot can be cleaned up and presented in a solid, confident manner.

Great, sad, true, telling post Vic.

Geoffrey

[PepsiTwist]

Well, fellow DCP-ers, it has been over a year since I have posted, but rest assured I have been a regular reader, and truly appreciate mostly everyone's thoughts and passion for our activity.

It is with that in mind that I find myself punching up a post/topic tonight.

Where is our activity going from a "creative" standpoint? What will "DCI" look like in 2022 when my 16 month old son may choose to march his first year in a World Class corps? On one hand, and sadly, I am of the opinion that DCI will no longer exist unless some serious changes take place. Changes in the area of judging, the creative direction (if you want to call it that) of the activity, the business practices of DCI as an organization, and the ridiculous rule changes that the board of directors have been "brain-washed" into approving!!

I believe I said the same thing after the 1993 season. My last year marching was 1992, and here we are 16 years later and things are still happening, and going great for what is on the field, in my opinion. One way or another, the activity will live on and there WILL be significant changes along the road. I never played on a 3-valve horn (2-valve bari for 5 years) and I got to sit back and watch them add 3-valve (starting in 1990, but not for my corps) and then onto Bb in 2000. By 2022, you can bet there will be many things different about dci and maybe some of us that are not fans of the changes will be removed from the activity some, but the organization will attract not necessarily more people but other people as it has in the last 10 years.

I don't post on dcp that much these days but I find it difficult to get involved with the majority of the threads that are up these days which happen to be more about what we - as fans and alumni of the activity - are worried what dci will turn into, or even if it will still exist.

Saying that you are worrying that dci may not be around in 14 years is an understandable assumption, considering the direction our economy has been going the past 5+ years, but I believe it will still be around even if they are only fielding a portion of what corps they have right now. Thinking back to all the corps that were around in the 1960's and 1970's and what is left today, who knows what will be left in 2022?

Edited August 1, 2008 by PepsiTwist

[just_another_fanatic]

Does the OP's remembrance of the past hold true for all corps? That is, were the kids more talented, the shows more creative, more demanding, ACROSS THE BOARD, not just the cream of the crop?

The OP references shows like BD 1994, Star 93,91 as proof that Old-school shows were superior to contemporary shows. To use those shows as comparison is unfair and invalid. The OP makes it seems that corps like those mentioned were the norm, which they clearly weren't. BD 94, Star 93/91 were special, truly classic, for-the-ages shows; we'd be hard-pressed to find worthy comparisons to these shows from ANY ERA, let alone the last 5 years. It would be only fair to compare these shows to other classics: SCV 81, Cadets 83, SCV/Cadets 87, SCV/PR 89, Cadets 93, PR 96, SCV 99, Cavies 00, Cavies 02, Crown 07 (sorry, I'm not too hot on pre-80s shows). My point is that you can only compare classic shows with other classic shows.

A good measure to see if the activity is going in the wrong or right direction is to compare the middle corps of today with the middle corps of the past... not the top 7 but those below it. I'd venture off to say that, in recent years, our 8th to 17th placing corps are at their strongest, most competitive they've ever been. All these corps produce more demanding and creative shows, and the kids are more talented than in the past.

Looking at it like this, I say our activity is not just healthy, but lively and growing.

[SF2K4]

Looking at it like this, I say our activity is not just healthy, but lively and growing.

I have to disagree on that note. We have fewer corps than ever and even some of the few we do have have trouble filling out their entire membership roster. Financial stability appears to be the exception, not the standard, and at least one if not two corps every year flirt with or go under due to monetary issues; sadly, we don't get that same number coming back into the game every year. If something, I don't know what, doesn't change I wouldn't be surprised if there were only 10 corps in 10-20 years... and at that rate, who says the activity itself will even last another 25? Remember this: If DCI fails, percussionists and guard members still have WGI, which if you haven't noticed, for those groups, is starting to become not just the rival organization but for many the better outlet (meaning they do WGI instead of drum corps).

[Jared_mello]

Used to teach crown before they fired you guys and got a good drum staff?

I mean really, Look at crown pre 07, bleh drum line.

I marched, I taught, and I don't flaunt it around on the internet.

watch the crown 2001 drumline, some really good stuff there, especially the beginning of the show

[The Other Mike]

Well, fellow DCP-ers, it has been over a year since I have posted, but rest assured I have been a regular reader, and truly appreciate mostly everyone's thoughts and passion for our activity.

It is with that in mind that I find myself punching up a post/topic tonight.

MAJOR SNIPPAGE

Where is our activity going from a "creative" standpoint? Ok -- I am stepping off of my soapbox now. Thanks for listening (reading).

While I would have agreed with you on many points over the past few years, I must say that as an old schooler, I have found several shows this year that are very entertaining. VERY entertaining.

Stop looking at marching to be clean, seldom will it be clean. Instead, lood at the demand of the running while playing. I can't run a drill like that much less run AND play. When I look at it from that viewpoint, it's easier to appreciate. Just don't ever stop, freeze frame or pause a drill, you'll puke.

As far as DCI itself goes, follow the money. As long as Yamaha, King, and the like are "helping" and using drum corps as a moving billboard for the big bucks in the band market, there will be a DCI. Well, at least 10 or so supercorps. Once you get past the old notion that drum corps is a youth activity FOR the youth and realize it's a "market approach" giving the kids who can afford it, the ride of a lifetime, it's easier to deal with.

DCI will show little growth if any. It's no longer geared that way. Look into just how difficult the "good ole boys club" makes it on any new corps trying to get off the ground. Look at the pay ( bahahaha ) for any corps not willing to make a national tour..........and even some that ARE willing to do a national tour.

DCI has become a very tight , closed circle of some of the best instructors and marketing managers you will find. The horn makers courted them for the change from bugles so they could market multi key instruments to the band market. Face it, the band market is huge.

At the same time, bands in most areas of the country are filling the void of class C and B corps. Many band programs have staffs of 4 or 5 people, not like when I was in high schooland we had one director for a 130 piece band.

Times have changed.

Are all the changes good ? IMHO, no, but I must blame McCormicks for pushing that dang electric bass rig on wheels for the electronics in marching band. Drum corps ( cough cough ) just improved on the idea ( at least in their minds)

The best thing about modern corps to me is this:

As long as most high school bands play " chase the top 12 shows of today game", I can entertain the heck out of a crowd with Muchachos of 74 or 75, I can do so old Madison, 27th, Bridgemen or VK and people will be standing and clapping while Joe average at a football game with scratch his head and wonder why the heck the other band is playing opera or ballet at a high school football game.

It doesen't mean I don't appreciate the talent level of todays DCI kids, I'd just feel a little better if they could hit a form and rotate it while keeping proper distance and interval but as fast as they move, whats the use ?

GOOOOOOOOO INT