tell me if I'm wrong and why

[Puppet]

OK, here is my son's last week:

Saturday: Worked 10 hours at grocery store to make $$$ for tour.

Sunday: Trumpet solo at 2 church services. Helped me fix daughter's car. Celebrated Easter with family.

Monday: Golf tournament for HS varsity team on day off school. Practiced mello 2 hours in evening.

Tuesday: School from 8-3, followed by golf practice 3:15 - 6:30. Practiced mello 2 hours in evening.

Wednesday: Wind ensemble contest in morning, then a math exam and college history exam (he's in 11th grade). Practiced in evening.

Thursday: School from 8-3, followed by golf practice 3:15 - 7:00. Practiced mello 1 hour in evening. Wrote English paper.

Friday: Jazz band contest in morning, school for two hours, then varisty golf tournament in afternoon. Working at grocery store tonight until 11:00 PM.

Yeah, kids today are really lazy............NOT.

(BTW, he hasn't been at the mall in quite a while )

Dave - take a breath. Micro managing your son's "work week" will not make you proud of his achievements.

Keeping score to assure you're a "Better Father" will not grant you the status of that.

Even in the sixties when there were no dues, no requirements to pay for our uniforms or instruments, or to pay for our tours many of us had part time jobs in the 3 off seasons. And gee, is your hope that a PGA tour will pay off more important than his ability to work well with others? Isn't there football, baseball, tennis, basketball, track and other activities like the City High School Orchestra, Church Choir, City High School Chorus that he could attend and be a part of?

Are there not debate teams, honors classes, Science and or not Social Studies or Economic forums in which he could participate - like we did as Music and Art High School Students in Manhattan during those vaulted days of the mid sixties?

Nobody drove us around to the various activities we attended. We weren't awarded cars when we were 15 and 16 year old.

There was nobody in my drum corps, my music theory classes, or for that matter our local Tennis lessons with Arthur Ashe who could not parse a sentence or who didn't know the workings of the most intricate public transit system in America. None of the teenagers I marched with did anything without a goal; without Raison d'être! or without some knowledge of the great thinkers like René Descartes, (I think therefore I am or Cogito, ergo sum because we were learning such things from our teachers in school and from our Drum Corps Mentors. Friedrich Nietzsche's That which does not kill us makes us stronger had nothing to do with winning, it had everything to do with testing ourselves against ourselves - oh, the golf reference - Ask Norman, ask Nicklaus, ask Palmer, Hogan, Casper or Woods - they don't play their opponents, they play the course; and that's how you get the most out of any competitive activity. It's not how much you do, it's the quality of what you do while you're doing what you do. And please, for your sake and his - give the young man a day off once in a while.

Let him express and expand - just saying - worked for hundreds of inner city kids in the old days, worked for my son, worked for me.

Don't compare ... achieve.

Puppet

[kansasDC]

Dave - take a breath. Micro managing your son's "work week" will not make you proud of his achievements.

Keeping score to assure you're a "Better Father" will not grant you the status of that.

Even in the sixties when there were no dues, no requirements to pay for our uniforms or instruments, or to pay for our tours many of us had part time jobs in the 3 off seasons. And gee, is your hope that a PGA tour will pay off more important than his ability to work well with others? Isn't there football, baseball, tennis, basketball, track and other activities like the City High School Orchestra, Church Choir, City High School Chorus that he could attend and be a part of?

Are there not debate teams, honors classes, Science and or not Social Studies or Economic forums in which he could participate - like we did as Music and Art High School Students in Manhattan during those vaulted days of the mid sixties?

Nobody drove us around to the various activities we attended. We weren't awarded cars when we were 15 and 16 year old.

There was nobody in my drum corps, my music theory classes, or for that matter our local Tennis lessons with Arthur Ashe who could not parse a sentence or who didn't know the workings of the most intricate public transit system in America. None of the teenagers I marched with did anything without a goal; without Raison d'être! or without some knowledge of the great thinkers like René Descartes, (I think therefore I am or Cogito, ergo sum because we were learning such things from our teachers in school and from our Drum Corps Mentors. Friedrich Nietzsche's That which does not kill us makes us stronger had nothing to do with winning, it had everything to do with testing ourselves against ourselves - oh, the golf reference - Ask Norman, ask Nicklaus, ask Palmer, Hogan, Casper or Woods - they don't play their opponents, they play the course; and that's how you get the most out of any competitive activity. It's not how much you do, it's the quality of what you do while you're doing what you do. And please, for your sake and his - give the young man a day off once in a while.

Let him express and expand - just saying - worked for hundreds of inner city kids in the old days, worked for my son, worked for me.

Don't compare ... achieve.

Puppet

Puppet;

My point was not to brag or micromanage. It was simply a response to the original statement made by Piper:

"Maybe I'm just playing devils advocate, but when I hear the argument that kids today have so many things to do other than Drum Corps I become skeptical. You go to the local mall and you see and hear all of these kids jawing away on their cell phones. The conversation usually starts out with "nothing...what are you doing?"

Blanket statements like this make all of today's kids sound lazy and boring. I was just giving a single example how this statement is false.

[Shadow_7]

Well the motivations before are quite different from after. My first drumcorps show was the one that I performed at. So obviously my motivations for doing it was not the friends, the magic show, and other benefits. It was because so and so did it, lost 50lbs, became a great player, and never stopped telling stories. Unfortunately with the corps density being a lot more diluted, those recruitment tools no longer apply to the same degree. Members have to consider other factors, costs, distance, convenience, demand, size, competitive status.

It's hard to compare corps to MB. You get a grade in MB, and you might be doing it for the A, the P.E. credit, or because the parental units are making you. Motivations that rarely apply to your initial and continued participation in corps. You have tangible assets in MB, if only from the english teacher who opts to give you extra credit to get a B instead of C because you're in marching band. To the local employer who loves the MB and wants to help you because it ultimately helps the MB. Things that just don't apply to corps because of it's obscurity and it's relative remoteness.

As far as old versus new. I like watching the newer stuff more because of the media quality. But it's educational to watch the old stuff. Marching pits, symmetrical drill, and other things that makes it unique. Especially if you know some of the back story. Only had a loaf of bread to eat the day/week of finals. And other corps folk lore.

[pearlsnaredrummer77]

Back to the OP's observations.

I definately think that more difficult, more clean, and more complex doesn't always equal more entertaining.

Also, somewhere along the way, drum corps lost what made it so distinctive. Back in the day, people went to drum corps shows and were amazed by the powerful sound of the bugle section, the unique corps style drum lines, and the military precision of the guard. Also, chances are folks went to a show and knew a few of the kids marching and perhaps had seen the corps in a local parade.

Nowdays, for a variety of reasons-not all DCI's fault- that distictiveness is gone. DCI corps use the same brass instruments as a band, high school and college bands all play "corps style" and guards all do some sort of dance as the primary form of performance. While WE realize that the DCI kids are performing at a far higher level than the average hs band or college band, I'm not sure the general public makes that distinction anymore. But in the long run, that point is moot because DCI no longer attracts people from the local community.

One thing i have noticed at DCA shows is that the alumni corps (Cabs Alumni in particular!) are the ones who seem to get the most audience response and they play simpler music and march more basic shows. Go figure.

[Puppet]

Puppet;

My point was not to brag or micromanage. It was simply a response to the original statement made by Piper:

"Maybe I'm just playing devils advocate, but when I hear the argument that kids today have so many things to do other than Drum Corps I become skeptical. You go to the local mall and you see and hear all of these kids jawing away on their cell phones. The conversation usually starts out with "nothing...what are you doing?"

Blanket statements like this make all of today's kids sound lazy and boring. I was just giving a single example how this statement is false.

Your response was then more in line with the original topic question but to me, because back when we marched we thought we were doing harder, more difficult drills and playing more difficult charts than those in previous eras. If our show designers (we called them drill instructors then!) told us to march at speeds that started at 120 bpm, move up at a near run to 200 and then back down to 80 during a single song performance, be sure we would have done it - and would have mastered it. But we were instructed by guys who were old fashioned. Not the people with computer programs and more time watching and singing Broadway shows - Not that that's a bad thing - I spent a lot of time at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall - point is; in my era it was as hard as it got and I've got photos with totally filled front and back stands for shows in Lynn, Ma where there were over 64 corps competing (Senior & Junior) in one weekend! In the mid to late sixties when the Troopers and others started spreading the word and instigating the "tour" aspect, they didn't begin to change their basic attitude to their shows until they were literally forced to go away from decades of tradition.

Is drill (are the shows) harder to perform these days? No; and here's why: Aside from when they are on the road, Young folks these days are healthier. Tour diet notwithstanding, they are bigger, stronger, older and more trained in many more ways than the 12 to 17 year old kids who marched BITD who did not have to supplement their diets with Adderall.

Sure, they're more obsessed with sex - but they like many of my fellow horn players of the my time - don't smoke. (not cigarettes, anyway!) and we played longer shows with much less "follow the leader."

And that is not to say that if I could go back to my 17 year old body, I could show some of these non smoking, hop skip-a-doddle kids why I was part of the record-breaking Penn Relays mile squad from a "sissy school like Music & Art. It's not any harder - there were just many more close by shows where friends, well wishers and parents could show up weekend after weekend. In the seventies as has been mentioned, gas prices slowed people up. As we grew older, our Parents naturally started paying more attention to our younger siblings. There was a draft. There was a war of sort during which I dare say 50,000 or more (many of them Drum Corps young men and women who's lives were changed forever). Which also led to a real social change to a less fervent National Pride which lasted for years. Not pointing any fingers here, (expecting a lot of PM over this) but those young men who did not don Military uniforms began to express a need to do more than just toss rifles or carry flags and, because they all couldn't make their way to Broadway to become members of Cats, began expressing themselves in tights. Don't know how many middle aged Fathers were willing - even in the eighties and early nineties - to jump up and scream: "See the guy in the pink tights!? That's my son!"

But all those are digressions. Money is the reason. You rarely get huge crowds to spread themselves all over the contiguous United States during a very short season to follow their favorite corps. Anyone remember $5.00 back stand tickets?

BTW, after a couple of $2,500 expenditure seasons the kids can't do both college and drum corps. And that's because the average marching age has risen from 16 to 20 during the past 3 decades. Also, the pressure to be excellent after a couple of training camps as opposed to year round rehearsals has got to be tough.

And oh yean! you're bound to have more fun when you're 15 or so on your way to a place you've never been as opposed to now - fun was different back then because every road trip was not precluded with an internet search. It was "adventure" fun. Not "I hope I don't get a STD or pregnant" fun.

Ok. I've stepped on all the toes I could possibly step on.

Let me know if I missed any.

Or said something you have always been afraid to say.

Every era says it's stuff is much more difficult than the past era's stuff. All crowd participation is down and will continue to do so. Change is not good for just change sake. There is no such thing as an impossible piece of music - the mere fact that someone else has played it, no matter what the circumstance means it can be played. It's all human nature ... goes like this: "Oh, heck! I can do that!" Now, who hasn't thought that?

Puppet

Edited April 17, 2009 by Puppet

[soccerguy315]

Is drill (are the shows) harder to perform these days? No

... you can't be serious.

[skewerz]

... you can't be serious.

these days compared to when? compared to 85...sure....compared to '93? nope...

marching hasn't gotten "tougher" since the early 90's.

Music may have gotten "tougher" since the early 90's (or maybe easier, since before they were playing in G), but it's much less melodic.

I haven't really seen much "improvement" since the early 90's. I've seen tons of new gadgets, but no improvement. Lots of moving sideways instead of moving ahead..

so, to answer the OP's original question? who knows???

Edited April 18, 2009 by skewerz

[FTNK]

I haven't really seen much "improvement" since the early 90's. I've seen tons of new gadgets, but no improvement. Lots of moving sideways instead of moving ahead..

Watch harder plz

[Shadow_7]

... you can't be serious.

Why not? We never stopped moving to do the macarena like todays corps do.

[MikeD]

It's hard to compare corps to MB. You get a grade in MB, and you might be doing it for the A, the P.E. credit, or because the parental units are making you. Motivations that rarely apply to your initial and continued participation in corps. You have tangible assets in MB, if only from the english teacher who opts to give you extra credit to get a B instead of C because you're in marching band. To the local employer who loves the MB and wants to help you because it ultimately helps the MB. Things that just don't apply to corps because of it's obscurity and it's relative remoteness.

At least in my area...MB has become a totally extra-curricular activity in many school districts. No grade...no PE credit..etc...just kids who want to play and march...just like drum corps kids.