DCI Trivia Game

[HornsUp]

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. 1972. I'll post another pic and the full story later today.

[DAvery]

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. 1972. I'll post another pic and the full story later today.

Yep, that looks like those Premier drums. What do you think, Matt?

[84BDsop]

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. 1972. I'll post another pic and the full story later today.

Is that bass missing the left head? I don't see the rim OR the tension claws....

[ironlips]

Yes, that bass has no "left head".

[mobrien]

Yep, that looks like those Premier drums. What do you think, Matt?

Looks correct to me. Unless someone comes up with an earlier example, 72 (or is that 73?) Kilts would seem to be it.

The one-headed super size bass was always a mystery to me. I saw a few corps carrying them in the mid-70s, but could never figure out if it was by design or whether they were simply too broke to afford another head and the hoop.

[HornsUp]

1972 was a fun year to design for the Kilties. We had been snubbed by the DCI elite, but were a definite dark horse. The membership was young, but solid in their fundamentals as they were mostly 3-4 season vets of the excellent Kiltie Kadet feeder program.

We weren't concerned with saving tenths, knowing we weren't in contention for the big trophy. Conversely, we also knew we wouldn't be bucking to make the cut for finals. We were comfortably in the middle of the pack, with points to spare.

So we had the luxury to get creative and innovative in all captions. I had been writing most of the drum score, but caption head Tom Sorensen had just learned to read music. So I was training him to write, and in the process learning more of the fine points of rudimental drumming.

We wanted to incorporate pipe band style drumming into the vocabulary. This meant not only learning the technique, but also utilizing appropriate hardware. Which in turn meant "double" snares, with a wire snare unit mounted under the top head.

Now this setup was only available in 14" drums from UK manufacturers. And we knew that the judging community, who listened with their eyes, would react negatively upon seeing smaller drums.

But we went down to Chicago, where our former captionhead Al LeMert was R&D man at Ludwig. We hoped that they could manufacture such a drum. Wm. F. Ludwig Sr. was still kicking around the factory at that time, and he mentioned that they had made drums like that in the 1920s. "You'll break heads", he warned. Wm. F. Ludwig Jr. interjected "But dad - we make plastic heads now!"

Well - - - Ludwig didn't envision any market potential (it was 30 years too soon!) and wouldn't build a double snare for us. We briefly considered buying interior snare mechanisms from a UK manufacturer and adapting them to our 15" drums, but considered it too much of a gamble.

So we came up with a unique compromise. We fielded a six-man snareline, and purchased three 14" chrome Premier snaredrums. It was not a big dent in the budget, and Sorny was able to write some very interesting split snare parts. The rest of the line played on the existing Red sparkle Ludwigs.

Predictably, the judging panels told us at every critique that the 14" drums "did not project as well". But we held our ground, and used this setup for the entire 1972 and 1973 seasons.

POSTSCRIPT: In 1979 SCV came out with their line of 14" snares. I made it a point, at every show, to talk to the drum judges about this new innovation. In most cases, it was the same guys who had been judging in 1972. To a man, they told me "The 14" drums project better."

(It's amazing how the passage of seven seasons severely affected the physics of drum acoustics.)

Here's the other pic I promised. This is the premiere of the Premiers, at a spring standstill in the Milwaukee PAC:

Edited April 4, 2010 by HornsUp

[DAvery]

1972 was a fun year to design for the Kilties. We had been snubbed by the DCI elite, but were a definite dark horse. The membership was young, but solid in their fundamentals as they were mostly 3-4 season vets of the excellent Kiltie Kadet feeder program.

We weren't concerned with saving tenths, knowing we weren't in contention for the big trophy. Conversely, we also knew we wouldn't be bucking to make the cut for finals. We were comfortably in the middle of the pack, with points to spare.

So we had the luxury to get creative and innovative in all captions. I had been writing most of the drum score, but caption head Tom Sorensen had just learned to read music. So I was training him to write, and in the process learning more of the fine points of rudimental drumming.

We wanted to incorporate pipe band style drumming into the vocabulary. This meant not only learning the technique, but also utilizing appropriate hardware. Which in turn meant "double" snares, with a wire snare unit mounted under the top head.

Now this setup was only available in 14" drums from UK manufacturers. And we knew that the judging community, who listened with their eyes, would react negatively upon seeing smaller drums.

But we went down to Chicago, where our former captionhead Al LeMert was R&D man at Ludwig. We hoped that they could manufacture such a drum. Wm. F. Ludwig Sr. was still kicking around the factory at that time, and he mentioned that they had made drums like that in the 1920s. "You'll break heads", he warned. Wm. F. Ludwig Jr. interjected "But dad - we make plastic heads now!"

Well - - - Ludwig didn't envision any market potential (it was 30 years too soon!) and wouldn't build a double snare for us. We briefly considered buying interior snare mechanisms from a UK manufacturer and adapting them to our 15" drums, but considered it too much of a gamble.

So we came up with a unique compromise. We fielded a six-man snareline, and purchased three 14" chrome Premier snaredrums. It was not a big dent in the budget, and Sorny was able to write some very interesting split snare parts. The rest of the line played on the existing Red sparkle Ludwigs.

Predictably, the judging panels told us at every critique that the 14" drums "did not project as well". But we held our ground, and used this setup for the entire 1972 and 1973 seasons.

POSTSCRIPT: In 1979 SCV came out with their line of 14" snares. I made it a point, at every show, to talk to the drum judges about this new innovation. In most cases, it was the same guys who had been judging in 1972. To a man, they told me "The 14" drums project better."

(It's amazing how the passage of seven seasons severely affected the physics of drum acoustics.)

Here's the other pic I promised. This is the premiere of the Premiers, at a spring standstill in the Milwaukee PAC:

Great story. You learn something everyday. I guess that means you're up.

Question- Due to the absence of a wood shell, did you find the Premier's had a very loud ring? If so, what did you do?

Edited April 4, 2010 by DAvery

[HornsUp]

Great story. You learn something everyday. I guess that means you're up.

Notice I originally posted "You're at least 7 years too late with the '79 Vanguard answer."

But I seem to recall the 27^th Lancers using some off-brand pipeband drums prior to the 1972 season. I don't know if they still used them in '72, but they might be the first according to the trivia quiz guidelines. Or the honors could go to the Kilties, who were earlier in order of appearance at the Whitewater Finals.

Edited April 5, 2010 by HornsUp

[jonnyboy]

Side note: Are those Premier drums the "Royal Scot" model? All metal shell, and slotted lugs. Slotted meant you couldn't use a standard drum key to adjust, you had to use a slotted key. You could also use a screw driver in a pinch, but too much of that and the lug slots would distort and break. We used those when I was a freshman in high school, they sounded best when played off center. Playing right over the top snare assembly felt and sounded bad.

[tommyfromhowardst]

1972 was a fun year to design for the Kilties. We had been snubbed by the DCI elite, but were a definite dark horse. The membership was young, but solid in their fundamentals as they were mostly 3-4 season vets of the excellent Kiltie Kadet feeder program.

We weren't concerned with saving tenths, knowing we weren't in contention for the big trophy. Conversely, we also knew we wouldn't be bucking to make the cut for finals. We were comfortably in the middle of the pack, with points to spare.

So we had the luxury to get creative and innovative in all captions. I had been writing most of the drum score, but caption head Tom Sorensen had just learned to read music. So I was training him to write, and in the process learning more of the fine points of rudimental drumming.

We wanted to incorporate pipe band style drumming into the vocabulary. This meant not only learning the technique, but also utilizing appropriate hardware. Which in turn meant "double" snares, with a wire snare unit mounted under the top head.

Now this setup was only available in 14" drums from UK manufacturers. And we knew that the judging community, who listened with their eyes, would react negatively upon seeing smaller drums.

But we went down to Chicago, where our former captionhead Al LeMert was R&D man at Ludwig. We hoped that they could manufacture such a drum. Wm. F. Ludwig Sr. was still kicking around the factory at that time, and he mentioned that they had made drums like that in the 1920s. "You'll break heads", he warned. Wm. F. Ludwig Jr. interjected "But dad - we make plastic heads now!"

Well - - - Ludwig didn't envision any market potential (it was 30 years too soon!) and wouldn't build a double snare for us. We briefly considered buying interior snare mechanisms from a UK manufacturer and adapting them to our 15" drums, but considered it too much of a gamble.

So we came up with a unique compromise. We fielded a six-man snareline, and purchased three 14" chrome Premier snaredrums. It was not a big dent in the budget, and Sorny was able to write some very interesting split snare parts. The rest of the line played on the existing Red sparkle Ludwigs.

Predictably, the judging panels told us at every critique that the 14" drums "did not project as well". But we held our ground, and used this setup for the entire 1972 and 1973 seasons.

POSTSCRIPT: In 1979 SCV came out with their line of 14" snares. I made it a point, at every show, to talk to the drum judges about this new innovation. In most cases, it was the same guys who had been judging in 1972. To a man, they told me "The 14" drums project better."

(It's amazing how the passage of seven seasons severely affected the physics of drum acoustics.)

Here's the other pic I promised. This is the premiere of the Premiers, at a spring standstill in the Milwaukee PAC:

The old Ludwig factory is condo's now on N. Damen Ave........the new Ludwig guys in Indiana don't want to do marching drums anymore. I suppose that's been evident for a while now.