Being in a High School band with drum corps instructors

[sday88]

After just reading another thread about the fellow from Avon HS and The Cadets, it got me wondering... What's it like to go to a high where all/many of the staff is also on the staffs of world class drum corps? I don't just mean you have a drum instructor who once marched, I mean someone like Avon who has many big name drum corps people on the band staff. Especially if it's a REALLY big name. I just couldn't imagine going to a high school where, let's say, Mike McIntosh was the band director. How cool would that be? Would more be expected of you as a band member? Would it be a dissapointment to the band staff if you didn't march drum corps?

[elmhurstmusiced]

I went to a high school that had :

Michael Boo-wind arranger

Steve Brubaker-drill design

Dan Wiles Colorguard

After Brubaker passed away Dan Wiles took over for on drill design. After he left Mitch Rogers was the drill designer. Then I graduated.

It was fun, we had great shows and learned a lot.

Edited September 16, 2008 by elmhurstmusiced

[Trey_b]

Ronald Regan (sp?) HS has many crossmen staff members. They won BOA a couple years ago.

[mbui]

Ronald Regan (sp?) HS has many crossmen staff members. They won BOA a couple years ago.

Just to clarify....

Ronald Reagan HS has won numerous BOA Regional Championships and placed second at the Grand National Championships in 2003 & 2005.

But yeah, Reagan's staff used to consist of Mark Chambers (Head Director), Kevin Nix (Assistant Director/Visual Director) and Aaron Guidry (Music Design). This year's staff includes J.D. Shaw as their music arranger and Mike Sloan as their visual designer.

Edited September 16, 2008 by mbui

[MikeD]

After just reading another thread about the fellow from Avon HS and The Cadets, it got me wondering... What's it like to go to a high where all/many of the staff is also on the staffs of world class drum corps? I don't just mean you have a drum instructor who once marched, I mean someone like Avon who has many big name drum corps people on the band staff. Especially if it's a REALLY big name. I just couldn't imagine going to a high school where, let's say, Mike McIntosh was the band director. How cool would that be? Would more be expected of you as a band member? Would it be a dissapointment to the band staff if you didn't march drum corps?

My decades old experience along those lines was the first HS band I taught, as a freshman in college...1971. Glen Ridge HS in NJ had Garfield's asst horn instructor, Larry Schillings, as their band director. He brought in our percussion instructor, George Tuthill, to write the drum book and teach; I was what would be called a 'tech' today. George, who also was the Cabs drum guy at the time, connected Schillings with Larry Kirchner. Kirchner wrote the band charts...might have been his first, or close to it. He transcribed his great 1971 Blue Rock opener of "American Salute" for the band, along with some other tunes. Schillings also brought in our (Garfield's) marching instructior, Ray Capacelli, to do the drill and teach marching. That was a great world class staff for a HS band back then, as we were 6th at the World Open and 7th at VFW Nats in 71.

We managed to recruit a few kids into Garfield, but it did not matter to us if others chose not to march. I don't know if we expected 'more' of the students, but we did run rehearsals pretty strictly for the day, as this was when corps-style was the rare exception, not the rule, and competitions were not as common as today.

[Kyle B]

Back in the day (70's), the entire staff of the Cadets was the staff to my marching band. Bergenfield HS.

And although he never marched there, Dennis DeLucia went to my school, also Dr. Bernard Baggs basically founded the music department and Don Angelica taught there as well, taking the circle expansion and bringing it to the Troopers as the starburst (I've also heard it was done their first, not sure which to believe.)

I've heard conflicting stories that they never competed back than, or they won so many competitions back then that they had to stop and just do exhibitions.

I'm sure MikeD knows.

[Matt_S]

I just couldn't imagine going to a high school where, let's say, Mike McIntosh was the band director. How cool would that be?

Actually, Mike teaches percussion at my alma mater. He was hired the same year I arrived as a freshman. Richard Saucedo was my band director.

[taters]

Funny thing, I was just chatting with a Manager in my company who lives and works in Utah. Turned out John Meehan custom writes all their music and Mike Huestis writes for and teaches their drum line. They love it, but it ain't cheap! You gotta have a good set of parent boosters.

[MikeD]

Back in the day (70's), the entire staff of the Cadets was the staff to my marching band. Bergenfield HS.

And although he never marched there, Dennis DeLucia went to my school, also Dr. Bernard Baggs basically founded the music department and Don Angelica taught there as well, taking the circle expansion and bringing it to the Troopers as the starburst (I've also heard it was done their first, not sure which to believe.)

I've heard conflicting stories that they never competed back than, or they won so many competitions back then that they had to stop and just do exhibitions.

I'm sure MikeD knows.

Angelica was first a student of Dr Baggs, before Dr. Baggs went on to become the principal of the Roy Brown middle school. Later Don was band director himself...and eventually the personnel manager for the entire district.

As personnel manager, Don was in a position to stock the school district as he desired, basically. For a number of years he used Bergenfield jobs as a way to give Cadet staff their 'day jobs', so to speak. In 1972, for example, Fred Sanford was the band director as well as being Garfield's drum instructor. Dennis' brother Mike worked in the district as well, and I think he taught the band as an adunct staff person.

The band never competed from when I knew them...it was against their philosophy for decades. As good as they were, and they were excellent, they did exhibitions and parades like the Macy's parade, but not competitions. Sometimes they would do an exhibition AT a local competition, but they were never scored back then.

Eventually the orchestra director Frank Levy (he was our asst brass guy to Don in 72) became band drector as well as orchestra director, a spot he held for a long time...decades, in fact. Not sure when he retired. Frank was also a DCI brass judge for a number of years.

At football games they had their own set of bleachers set up near the endzone on the field area, not in the main stands. The drum line would stand up as a group, hook up, and the band would play a stand tune...then they would unhook as a group and sit back down...they were very regimented in approach. We used to play them when I was the Asst band director at Wayne Valley, a place Kyle knows well!

[scv guy]

I think it was 1980 when my HS band had a fist full of drum corps staff. Namely, SCV legends Rob Carson (drums) and Phil Olds (horns). I am not sure if it was on purpose or not. Rob was an alumni of the high school (Cupertino H.S.) and Phil was our choir teacher.

Though we had great corps instructors and usually at least a dozen SCV A and B corps members, due to our hard-headed band teacher, we were not a drum corps style band! Still doing the prance 8-5 step (you know, "show band"). However, that year we played two drum corps charts: "Children of Sanchez" and the Madison version of "The Way We Were" (with a massive end zone to end zone company front). With one SCV A Corps and 2 B Corps snares, we had a decent drum line. Tymps were on the front sideline. I got a baritone solo in the middle of the show.

I was, like, YES!

I remember the previous 2 years bothering my band teacher a lot a about doing a corps style band. After doing drum corps all summer, I wanted nothing more, as our band was huge (200+ nicknamed "The Marching Millions"). I did a lot of laps around the track for making such "suggestions". There is a great picture in my yearbook getting yelled at by my band teacher. I couldn't believe it when he went pretty far in the drum corps direction in '80. We finally won sweepstakes at a contest that year too. On the tapes you heard the judge say, "Nice baritone solo!". Cool!