Lets discuss

[KeithHall]

I guess we can beat this to death BUT......

What caused the death of so many corps? Why did the state of NY go from 30 + corps to NOTHING? Why has Canada (Toronto area) go from 3 DCI finalists to a couple small corps? How did NJ lose so many corps?

I have heard the excuses, bad corps directors, blah, blah, blah. There's got to be more to this right? DCI's failure to serve all corps and to continue the regional avenue. Did/do DCI executives make a good living? I mean, they give up careers to do this full-time right traveling around the country all year long.

Since this is the boring time of year I thought I would toss this in the fire and see what happens. Everyone has an opinion, was there and in-the-know (or so they think). I think DCP members who were teenagers in the 70's will have a better recollection than the newer members but welcome all comments.

Have fun and don't get nasty toward me or anyone else ok?

[BariBrian]

I guess we can beat this to death BUT......

What caused the death of so many corps? Why did the state of NY go from 30 + corps to NOTHING? Why has Canada (Toronto area) go from 3 DCI finalists to a couple small corps? How did NJ lose so many corps?

I have heard the excuses, bad corps directors, blah, blah, blah. There's got to be more to this right? DCI's failure to serve all corps and to continue the regional avenue. Did/do DCI executives make a good living? I mean, they give up careers to do this full-time right traveling around the country all year long.

Since this is the boring time of year I thought I would toss this in the fire and see what happens. Everyone has an opinion, was there and in-the-know (or so they think). I think DCP members who were teenagers in the 70's will have a better recollection than the newer members but welcome all comments.

Have fun and don't get nasty toward me or anyone else ok?

Wow Keith you're really gonna stir it up now LOL.

I know when I marched in the 70's, when DCI was young, It was less "Corporate". They actually seemed to care about each corps as well as the activity. (My opinion of course) as the years rolled by, the desparity between the rich corps and poor corps seemed to grow wider & wider. I can't ever say for sure what happened but I know after the first year that we made associate membership, we were told that "If we didn't do our DCI tour obligation then we could expect no help in the future from DCI". That comment always stuck with me. For financial reasons, we could not meet our tour obligations fully and The following year we were destroyed in Philly Prelims. Corps that we beat all year long buried us. I have to assume as it got bigger (DCI) it got less interested in indavidule corps or their troubles and started thinking about the elite that brought the crowds in. Again this is just my opinion. I am an old man now and mean now harm or offence to anyone. My sun no longer rises and sets with drum & Bugle corp, but especially the politics of it

Edited December 30, 2009 by BariBrian

[Scooter Pirtle]

I guess we can beat this to death BUT......

What caused the death of so many corps? Why did the state of NY go from 30 + corps to NOTHING? Why has Canada (Toronto area) go from 3 DCI finalists to a couple small corps? How did NJ lose so many corps?

I have heard the excuses, bad corps directors, blah, blah, blah. There's got to be more to this right? DCI's failure to serve all corps and to continue the regional avenue. Did/do DCI executives make a good living? I mean, they give up careers to do this full-time right traveling around the country all year long.

Since this is the boring time of year I thought I would toss this in the fire and see what happens. Everyone has an opinion, was there and in-the-know (or so they think). I think DCP members who were teenagers in the 70's will have a better recollection than the newer members but welcome all comments.

Have fun and don't get nasty toward me or anyone else ok?

Interesting topic.

Brian Tolzman would have the stats, but I remember one of his interesting reports documented a 30% decrease in competition corps between 1978 and 1979. There had to be numerous factors that created this environment ranging from:

- Operational expenses (insurance, in particular increased substantially during the late 70s until present)

- A population decrease in the age range for junior corps participants (I guess the baby boomers finally got tired of procreating!)

I haven't performed ample research, but anecdotally (as someone who was of drum corps age in the 1980s) it seems there were more competing activities drawing kids away from the activity. Whether it be the need to have a job to maintain a car (which, granted has existed since the 40s), or the impact Mtv had on kids dropping traditional band instruments for the keytar and guitar, to a general trend of drifting away from activities involving such a high commitment level. One could possibly argue that the performance demands required of participants began to ramp up during this period, possibly limiting qualified candidates.

[kstein]

In the mid to late 70's when I started marching, the directors of the corps (now defunct) that I belonged to were a nurse, a salesman, and a plumber. The prices of everything kept going up (transporation, equipment, salaries, etc.), but there were not expereienced business people at the helm, nor were there reservoirs of money these folks could tap into. Several of these individuals (like many of their counterparts in the top corps in the country) mortgaged their homes and sank every dollar they could into keeping these groups solvent, but were ultimately unsuccessful. The kids in these groups were as talented as their Open Class counterparts and wanted to tour and go to Nationals, but many of them also had to work jobs for most of the Summer, making all day rehearsals impossible. In situations like these where money is tight, the members also spent a huge portion of their "corps time" doing fundraising of every imaginable kind. Ultimately, the money dried up completely, the model of "working kids" who could go to Finals didn't work, and there wasn't the interest in rehearsing hours and hours each weekend to simply stay a locally competing/exhibiting entity.

Interestingly, the demise of many of these corps is what allowed several other of the top corps to survive. The early 80s saw the Cadets in dire need of members, and while many were recruited from outside the area, the sudden influx of good, seasoned drum corps kids from these rapidly dismantling small corps in the area helped to fill out and improve their membership. The Bridgemen were able to survive a few more years than their finances would have reasonably allowed by the absorbtion of many of these small drum corps vets, too. Similarly 27th and the Crossmen benefited from the loss of these smaller units (and in the late 70's and early 80's they really were disappearing at an amazing pace).

Could/should DCI have done more to help? Tough to say. I think as the DCI "product" got better exposure through TV and (brace youself, youngsters) albums and tapes, more kids wanted "that" opportunity, but the fiscal realities of these small corps didn't support that desire. Certainly the rise of other sporting and musical opportunities through the schools and communities diminished the pool of available talent, too.

My mother remembers vividly complaining about having to go out on a cold, Winter night to pick my sister and I up from practice...10 minutes away. That suddenly seemed like a picnic compared to the hours drives she would be making just a year later...or watching her kid go half way across the country for her final corps experience.

What I thought was great about these small corps was that anyone could walk in off the street and get drum corps training regardless of their background/experience. Even the smallest, poorest corps tended to have someone on their staff that had come from a larger, more expereienced corps, and the level of instruction was often quite good. When I watch auditions for the top corps now, I wonder how anyone other than kids from the best band programs in the country even have a chance to secure a spot. My sisters and I came from a school with a pathetic band program, and had it not been for the lessons learned/experience we gained marching in the smaller corps, we would have never had the opportunity to march in Finals.

Cheers!

Karen

[amadorj]

I guess we can beat this to death BUT......

What caused the death of so many corps? Why did the state of NY go from 30 + corps to NOTHING? Why has Canada (Toronto area) go from 3 DCI finalists to a couple small corps? How did NJ lose so many corps?

I have heard the excuses, bad corps directors, blah, blah, blah. There's got to be more to this right? DCI's failure to serve all corps and to continue the regional avenue. Did/do DCI executives make a good living? I mean, they give up careers to do this full-time right traveling around the country all year long.

Since this is the boring time of year I thought I would toss this in the fire and see what happens. Everyone has an opinion, was there and in-the-know (or so they think). I think DCP members who were teenagers in the 70's will have a better recollection than the newer members but welcome all comments.

Have fun and don't get nasty toward me or anyone else ok?

My two cents... In just about every case the foundation of a dying corps comes down to money. It takes lots of money to keep a drum corps successful and unfortunately it will get worse as the price of fuel, food, etc... goes up each year. You can blame bad directors, instructors, but it all comes down to money. If you look at the successful drum corps today they have a basis for keeping the money coming in (i.e.; Bingo) but now most have CEOs to run the organization like a business because that's what its essentually become. The days of upstart new drum corps making it big are unheard of in the last 10 years but mainly due to funding. Add to that the caliber of kids marching today. Most of the kids marching today are music majors going on to higher education to be music instructors. Back in the day (old school drum corps) you could grab any warm body off the street and teach them to play a bugle and over time they were marchng in a major drum corps (that's how I got in). The days of neighborhood drum corps also drifted away. Think about it, in the '60s in the greater Chicago area (10 mile radius) you have the Cavaliers, Skokie Vanguard, Norwood Park Imperials, the Royal-Aires, and the Nisei Ambassadors all in a small radius and all (using today's standards) being top notch drum corps. The Troopers and SCV changed all that from the neighborhood drum corps to the traveling drum corps model. Back then most drums corps operated out of a neighborhood hall. The Troopers changed that by now having a drum corps that became a traveling road show that lived, ate, slept and practiced together 24/7. SCV being the second corps to jump on that bandwagen and today just about all corps use this model but of course they have all greatly refined it.

Soooo... (IMHO to put it in a nutshell) I believe it comes down to funds to operate today's drum corps and add to that the high caliber of kids who march today not from a neighborhood but from all over the country which has made the difference why we see fewer drum corps today.

Edited December 30, 2009 by amadorj

[Gary Matczak]

I guess we can beat this to death BUT......

What caused the death of so many corps?

the WC corps business model,........that includes for the most part, talent from all over the country, instead of talent from the local community..............

[DPEmerald]

"If we didn't do our DCI tour obligation then we could expect no help in the future from DCI".

I remember that attitude as well. You were suppose to be gratful that DCI gave you shows and so you took them. Hell there were plenty of other corps who would if we didn't.

That and the first & second tour era I think did in a lot of corps. Most of the lower placing corps (15th - 40th place) would have been able to hang around a lot longer IMHO if you were "allowed" to do just one tour. I know as a staff member we all felt that we needed to do that first tour for exposure or else.......

There was also a sentiment that you need 40+ horns to compete. Many corps that needed to travel less for a year ot two didn't think it was worth it to go out with 32 horns. Plus there were to many options for kids to go to if you wern't going to be a serious corps in the members eyes.

[KeithHall]

This is great discussion! I remember hearing alot of "stories" concerning Royal Crusaders in 1975 0r 1976, something to the effect that if they did this and had that, they would be in top 12. This supposedly came from DCI.

I think nowadays, the season is set from the beginning. Not wanting to sound like a Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Show but...things just look to "fixed" to me.

Getting back to the regional issue......It seemed that corps were able to survive by staying local, obviously money was a factor. It makes more sense to go back to that format, allowing corps to sponsor a show and invite other corps that they could return the favor at their show. Go to a 2 week tour schedule before DCI Week.

[BariBrian]

I kind of think of the bigger corps like the aliens in the movie "Independnce Day" They went from planet to planet consuming all the planets resources and then moving on. Well, thats what happened in the 70's and 80's . They took and took from the associate corps all of the best and brightest, until there were hardly any corps to feed from, so then, in the 90's to the present time, they have made a huge push towards the bands and their music majors. This is why we pushed towards the band instruments that 20 years ago, no corp person wanted anything to do with. . It made it more appealing for the otherwise hesitant band members to make the jump. I'm not saying that this was pre-meditated in anyway. Not at all. its human nature. Survival of the fittest and strongest. Anyway, what will happen next is yet to be seen, but schools are already starting to cut programs including music , throughout the country and if DCI wants to stay strong, it might want to think about strengthening the smaller corps and developing new regional ones.

Please remember that this is just my old has-been opinion and its not meant to offend anyone in the least.

Whats happening will happen weather we talk about it or not. Very few control it, much like our goverment I suppose. We must live with it, or decide to live without it

Edited December 30, 2009 by BariBrian

[KeithHall]

I think the way we are discussing this is the best discussion that has been ever done on this issue. No nasty talking....adults discussing is nice. Thanks everyone.