2009 SCV Piano Performance Membership Opportunity

[glory]

Not one of the people who were banging on over my supposedly derogatory use of the word "band" have even squeaked about this post. Did I miss something or is offence only taken when we don't like the posters overarching POV?

Are we supposed to be criticizing that poster or you?

The fact is I mostly agree. While it's often unjustified, we tend to stereotype drum corps for the better and band for the worse.

HH

[kusankusho]

This actually is the heart of the matter. While different might not equal behind in the abstract, it does equal behind in the specific context of drum corps and marching band.

You say it doesn’t because you’re not inside the activity, its influences and choices. The staff who design shows, the kids who march shows come from the marching band context. To them electronics are part of the mix on the field. Synthesizers aren’t just tools you CAN use, they are tools they HAVE USED. Not using them isn’t the neutral option you hypothesize; it’s a negative choice and thus behind.

HH

Huh? A negative choice is thus behind? So if I, as an adult, choose not to play with GI Joes I'm 40-odd years behind - myself????

That's one perspective, I guess. How 'bout this one?

Band was around long before competetive drum corps. Drum Corps took a new direction and dropped woodwinds. Therefore, it would seem that band is about a century behind the curve in not dropping woodwinds.....

Either way - it's a silly premise. Being different in no way equates to being "behind".

[kusankusho]

Not entirely... but there wouldn't be to much of a difference... basically woodwinds is the last straw with me... then I couldn't call it drum and bugle corps... woodwinds is TOO drastic of an instrumentation difference... and it really is the main defining feature of drum corps differing from marching band. There would still be the exellence factor... no marching band can get to the level of the top drum corps... it's just not possible... with the way rehearsals are, and the with the people involved. I would go into this more... but I have to run to class! Sorry, lol.

So to summarize - WW is too much and there would be no difference from band (other than the "excellence" factor which I think we've put to bed as a defining criterion).

So the only real difference between you and me is the point at which you declare it to be band. It's a little further down the road from where I am.

Another member for the club - welcome Brother Kickhalts!

[bawker]

I dunno where I'm at now as a follower of the activity: my gold standard has always been "The Commandant's Own"; no one could accuse them of being behind musically, and they still march with two-valvers (yes, I know that they're going to three eventually) in G.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who looks at the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps as the grandfather of DCI/DCA/etc in some regards . . .so it's difficult (perhaps impossible for a young dino like me) to reconcile band and junior drum corps as being closer together now than the armed forces drum corps and DCI.

[kusankusho]

Are we supposed to be criticizing that poster or you?

The fact is I mostly agree. While it's often unjustified, we tend to stereotype drum corps for the better and band for the worse.

HH

So - while criticizing me for what you perceive to be an "anti-band prejudice" on my part, maybe you're really railing at an "anti-band prejudice" of your own?

Because if you look back through my posts, the absolute worst thing I've said about bands is that I prefer drum corps.

[audiodb]

Personally, I don't see the difference between drum corps and marching band that others have insisted on. I never have. There, I said it. Are you suggesting that if Avon HS or James Logan HS were to drop woodwinds, that they'd then be marching a drum corps?

No - actually, I was suggesting that if "excellence" was the only criterion that distinguished drum corps from band, that Avon and James Logan (and others) would qualify as "drum corps" exactly as they are, woodwinds and all.

Instrumentation has always struck me as a an obvious difference between BOA and DCI, but a minor one at that. After all, a BOA group could change their instrumentation to match that of DCI at a whim (DCI could also do so as we've seen, though there is no swell of support whatsoever for woodwinds, as far as I can tell). If you don't have something more substantitive to hang your hat on, then can you truly call yourself a separate activity?

Instrumentation is the difference between the activities that label themselves "drum corps" and "marching band". Quality is not.

I have noticed in past conversations that some people seem unaware of the corps outside of DCI world-class (temporarily or permanently), and on that basis, speak as if all drum corps are of DCI world-class caliber. That simply isn't true - there are drum corps that serve younger or less experienced kids, operate on less time-intensive schedules, and/or have less of a focus on competitive achievement. Conversely, a few folks take their impressions on quality of the marching band programs they have seen and extrapolate that across the entire scholastic marching band activity, not realizing that the size/quality/intensity of the marching band experience can vary widely from program to program.

[glory]

... I do feel that since we've had so much bleed over between BOA/USSBA/etc and DCI over the years, DCI already takes a back seat to high school programs creatively now...

It’s a phenomenon which transcends drum corps. Since the 90s, the world has truly gotten smaller. Everything seems transportable or shareable. The Internet brought communities closer together. In our community, where once you might only have heard a show described, new technologies allowed all of us to see what’s happening.

I remember as a freshman in the early 70s in my high school band (an excellent band from E.C. Glass High School in Lynchburg, Va.) hearing stories of fabled bands from the Midwest. One, we were told, achieved precision with a marching style where one foot went directly in front of the other. Our band director shared such feats of achievement and excellence to inspire our own success. We heard these tales with awe and without any expectation that we’d ever see those bands – if they were bands at all.

Today, those bands and those corps are all available on-demand via YouTube and numerous other ways. We can see in an instant the cutting edge – for better or for worse – and draw our own judgments in a virtual first-hand sort of way. Moreover, there are so many more bands than corps today. It only makes sense that corps would find fodder for shows among the multitude of experimentation during the fall. And I say there is no dishonor is taking a band’s idea and making it better.

HH

[glory]

Huh? A negative choice is thus behind? So if I, as an adult, choose not to play with GI Joes I'm 40-odd years behind - myself????

No, I’m saying that if you were a teenager in the late 90s and part of the staff of a drum corps today, you likely would have participated in a marching band world where electronics were ordinary. And thus you wouldn’t have understood the necessity of keeping drum corps unamped. In that context, restricting drum corps from using electronics would have seemed behind the times to you.

My mom threw out all my GI Joes, so please don't bring that up again.

HH

[kusankusho]

No, I’m saying that if you were a teenager in the late 90s

I'd be a hell of a lot younger than I really am....

and part of the staff of a drum corps today, you likely would have participated in a marching band world where electronics were ordinary. And thus you wouldn’t have understood the necessity of keeping drum corps unamped. In that context, restricting drum corps from using electronics would have seemed behind the times to you.

Again - with Drum Corps being the "newer" activity, if anything band would seem behind for hanging on to instruments that JP Sousa used. Coming into drum corps the onus would be on those instructors to expand the possibilities of the activity within the idiom. I have a black belt in karate - now I'm doing Chen style Tai Chi. While I can make use of my background in karate to gain understanding of Tai Chi, it would be absolutely wrong to insist that Tai Chi change just because I'm more familiar with certain karate techniques.

My mom threw out all my GI Joes, so please don't bring that up again.

HH

Feeling a little childhood trauma, are we?

[bawker]

And I say there is no dishonor is taking a band’s idea and making it better.

HH

I don't argue that point with you; after all, drum corps, for the most part, steals its ideas from other places in art and music.

I would say that there's not a lot of "making it better" at work these days . . .execution-wise absolutely there is, but not so much in the delivery of the creative vision.

IMO, when you go out on a limb with decisions to base shows on spoken story-narratives, or add electronics or add woodwinds or strings or whatever else you end up doing, there has to be a catch that transcends what has come before. To make people say: "Wow". To command respect by virtue of what you've chosen to do.

The Cadets 2005 show (while still having a corny intro) does so. The brass and percussion performance is so overwhelming and the visual product is so unique that you're forced to accept the percussion speak as valid in the experience; it fits contextually. I've gone from hating that show to liking it quite a bit.

I don't feel like we've seen that sort of thing from anyone in recent years: the Bluecoats cop-speak and boxing announcer, Cadets attempt at "This American Life" . . .no one recently has laid the groundwork first for a "let's blow you the hell away" show and then added on the amplification as the effect that you must accept.

It's as if we've seen the effect try to become the impetus for the show itself; that just doesn't work to me and seems creatively bland and, well, lazy. I don't want that from a drum corps show, no matter what kind of bells and whistles it has.

. . .maybe it's just me.