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A plea to Cymbal lines


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"Paging Mr. Braga, Mr. Braga...white courtesty phone please, Mr. Braga: white courtesty phone !"

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Okay I have read some well articulated arguments for both sides, some do ignore the tonal possibilities of cymbals, most of which have yet to hit the field, but all are well thought out and thoughtfully put.

My turn.

As someone who has marched and taught cymbals the pallete a cymbal line can use is limited only by the arranger tossing the dots, not by the judging standards of the day or any other day. A really good cymbal line, the one that lives in my head, by the by, can play passages that can mimmic a quick snare passage or lay a groove. The pit is a wonderful place, filled with well intentioned musicians who have a spent a great deal of time honing their craft( :laugh: ) and yes they have the ability to add the odd crash here and there, but wouldn't it be a misallocation of resourses to use someone who has spent hours perfecting there Steven's grip to lay down a blazing sizzle/suck, running taps, crash/choke groove that takes four people to play? I personally would love to hear BD lay some serious #### down with an exceptional cymbal line, heck, I'd even teach it (shiver). I think it is much more challenging to have four guys play a screaming ride pattern then have some guy lumped behind a set do it. (close your eyes and open your minds, yes four guys playing a screaming ride pattern, with choke sucks and all-it works in my head) Everyone creams, and rightfully so, when a bassline plays amazing 16th note runs, why not a cymbal line, which actually have the potential to create a wider range of timbres? It is my well considered opinion that those possibilities have not been explored fully, yet.

In my day, when we walked 20 miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways, cymbal lines were more or less a dumping ground, the notable exceptions being top tier corps such as BD, Madison and the corps I marched with, SCV. But now there are kids that fly hundreds, some thousands, of mile to audition for those few spots. I digress. Does anyone remember the Argonne Rebels cymbal line??

Okay, tag...someone else go. I'm done. Did I fail to mention the visual possibilities? D@#$!!! Does anyone remember the Argonne Rebels cymbal line?? They did the whole head chopper thing in 73.

Okay, have at me... :worthy:

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I love SCV and all, and 04 was an incredible year, but all of the lot videos I can find that have the cymbals there are what I was talking about above -- 95% percent visual. Granted, they look extremely ###### and are very precise with everything they do -- drum corps excellence -- but their book is one note a bar, two notes a bar.

I'm going to keep checking them out and doing my research so I'm not a complete jackass (maybe they had some super tasteful notey cymbal feature that I've forgotten since watching the actual show years ago) -- but the writing is extremely sparse to allow for the clarity of the drum parts to cut through (even despite super wet quads).

Find the following years of SCV:

2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008

And listen to their notes. Casella and Gusseck know how to write for cymbals.

Also:

Imagine seeing that on the field. All it takes is the right caption head to hire the right person. Instead of just grabbing someone who marched a random line once or twice.

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Better yet, lets put snare drums, bass drums, and multi tuned toms in the pit, just because you can march a pit intsrument, doesn't mean you should anymore.

Your logic is garbage.

:worthy::laugh:

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You can't tell me I'm wrong. This is my opinion. There are others who feel the way I do just like there are those who feel the way you do. I never said you were wrong because you're entitled to the way you feel about it. But if you wanna go that route, tell all the drum corps who don't use cymbal lines anymore that they're wrong as well. :laugh:

you're wrong

:laugh:

:worthy:

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Wrong. WRONG. RUDE. Arrogant. WRONG... bad idea. How 'bout this: We eliminate tubas/contras and stick them on the BACKSIDE of the field "where they belong." Or wait... how 'bout we just put the whole drum section up in the pit "where they belong."

Eliminating COMPLETELY any instrument from the field that a group of people plays is WRONG. And quite frankly I don't care how snotty and arrogant anyone here gets about their personal point of view about it when I am being told what I should think...

How 'bout this:

We cut back just ONE third soprano (why do we need 30 of those?) ... just ONE baritone (why do we need 30 of those?) ... just ONE Tuba (so what's the "cool" thing for corps to do now? March 20-25 of those because PR had 20 or so last year?) ... and cut back just ONE pit member (aren't there like 25 of them up there now?) and let the cymbal lines LIVE.

Please.

:worthy::laugh:

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It's not THAT serious dude. Relax. Speaking for myself, I'm not trying to be arrogant nor rude. Just offering a viewpoint.

Because if we do that, then people would complain about the LOUDNESS of the hornline. How many times have we heard people complain about the loudness of cymbal line? I never realized how much passion there was about cymbals. Maybe I'd feel differently if I actually played them. I guess I'll never know. Maybe they'll come back....one day.

loudness can be fixed with proper education by the staff and not being stuck in a thunderdome for finals

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The style of writing employed by most of the top lines nowadays doesn't really allow for a marching cymbal line. When the judging community hypes hearing extreme clarity from a million notes a second from the battery instruments, who would willingly cover up all of that with bigger and longer rhythms?

I'm completely aware of the multitude of cymbal techniques out there, but I just think the marching cymbal line has become incompatible with a successful top drumline. Have you noticed that the top lines that still have marching cymbals don't really write a whole lot for them? It seems like what the cymbal lines out there do nowadays is 95% visual. I'm not saying this is bad, or even correct, just that it's my perception.

There are a lot of college lines out there that utilize cymbal lines very tastefully, but the style of drumming is less intense than top drum corps, and there aren't guys in green shirts out there trying to hear extreme clarity to give you that 19.9 or whatever.

Oh, and I read this article a while ago that I thought was interesting -- any of you guys teaching / writing for lines that march cymbals should check it out. [ http://www.clemson.edu/tigerband/CUD/Downl...eCymbalLine.pdf ]

exoplain WGI then since 99% of DCI drumming is a rip off of WGI

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Okay I have read some well articulated arguments for both sides, some do ignore the tonal possibilities of cymbals, most of which have yet to hit the field, but all are well thought out and thoughtfully put.

My turn.

As someone who has marched and taught cymbals the pallete a cymbal line can use is limited only by the arranger tossing the dots, not by the judging standards of the day or any other day. A really good cymbal line, the one that lives in my head, by the by, can play passages that can mimmic a quick snare passage or lay a groove. The pit is a wonderful place, filled with well intentioned musicians who have a spent a great deal of time honing their craft( :laugh: ) and yes they have the ability to add the odd crash here and there, but wouldn't it be a misallocation of resourses to use someone who has spent hours perfecting there Steven's grip to lay down a blazing sizzle/suck, running taps, crash/choke groove that takes four people to play? I personally would love to hear BD lay some serious #### down with an exceptional cymbal line, heck, I'd even teach it (shiver). I think it is much more challenging to have four guys play a screaming ride pattern then have some guy lumped behind a set do it. (close your eyes and open your minds, yes four guys playing a screaming ride pattern, with choke sucks and all-it works in my head) Everyone creams, and rightfully so, when a bassline plays amazing 16th note runs, why not a cymbal line, which actually have the potential to create a wider range of timbres? It is my well considered opinion that those possibilities have not been explored fully, yet.

In my day, when we walked 20 miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways, cymbal lines were more or less a dumping ground, the notable exceptions being top tier corps such as BD, Madison and the corps I marched with, SCV. But now there are kids that fly hundreds, some thousands, of mile to audition for those few spots. I digress. Does anyone remember the Argonne Rebels cymbal line??

Okay, tag...someone else go. I'm done. Did I fail to mention the visual possibilities? D@#$!!! Does anyone remember the Argonne Rebels cymbal line?? They did the whole head chopper thing in 73.

Okay, have at me... :worthy:

:worthy::laugh:

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