State of drum corps manifesto

[oldschooldbc]

Like a lot of old schoolers, I come back to shows, to re-live past memories. I can buy a ticket to a show, sit in the seats, listen to the warm-ups in the distance, wait for the first corps to enter the field - and I can imagine it is 1983 all over again. I can re-live the greatest summer of my youth, if only for one night.

(I suspect that it is this sentimentality, that keeps bringing a lot of old schoolers back to drum corps shows. I also suspect this is why a lot of people go to baseball games - they don't like baseball, but they were brought up to love it, so they keep on paying for tickets, for the "fan experience.")

I too agree that I am often disappointed with what I see on the field. But I always enjoy the experience, which is why I keep coming back. If I didn't have that sentimental grip on my past, would I pay $25 a ducket to come to the show? Maybe not.

I don't agree with the point that DCI can continue to burn through its fan base. Its fan base is shrinking, and all the corps will eventually feel the pinch. Again, the junior drum corps activity has contracted dramatically, even by recent standards. By any metric - the total number of corps, number of youth served, number of shows performed - this activity has experienced shrinkage, over the past 40 years. Much of this can be attributed to an alienated fan base - which leads to less shows, less revenue, and less corps. This leads to less alumni, and the effect becomes a death-spiral.

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I have said it over and over again in these forums, and I will keep repeating it - change needs to come from the top. Change won't occur because I don't go to a show, or skip a souvie truck, or forget to write that donation check. No one will notice, and no one will care. I am one face in a sea of thousands.

This activity needs new leadership - one that understands the environment that the activity operates in. I would argue that it needs outside management, with a model similar to that before the invention of DCI. The current model simply has too much conflict-of-interest, which will always function as a barrier to serious change. Again, the BOD simply will always act in the best interest of their corps, not in the best interest of drum corps as a whole.

Outside management should be tasked with one directive: expand the activity. Expand the fan base. Expand the number of corps, and overall membership. Expand the revenue streams. Provide enough revenue, so that new and struggling corps have a chance at surival.

And yes, I would give the outside management complete control, including artistic control, to make the changes necessary to salvage this activity. That may be gauling to some members of the BOD, but some of these individuals need to swallow that bitter pill.

[The Other Mike]

I'm always amazed at how half the people who get involved in these debates, usually do so with blinders on with a view of the product on the field only and not the big picture.

I read what some younger people post and remember my parents words to me, " one day you will understand".

It's about politics and money.

Yes, G horns "could" have been made better but the corps wanted the support of the marketplace and being able to become moving billboards for the 10's of thousands of band programs. I fully understand and appreciate the reason for switching. What irks me is that it's always some BS argument about intonation. It's about sales of instruments and how they can market them.

Once the G7 survives the the death march that DCI has inflected on most corps, they will each get their own pie to feast upon and even those of the younger generation will be able to pull the wool away from their eyes. What a shame, as it will be too late to rescue what was once a wonderful youth activity FOR the kids and we will be left with just the "supercorps" who make their living off the back of kids.

People that like to argue about the number of "fans" seldom stop to realize that 20 - 30 years ago the people that were in the seats were fans ( and family members) where a large portion of the people in the stands today are band kids. Many of theose band kids do so as part of their summer band camps, not because they WANT to go, it's because their directors hope something will rub off on them.

Yet here we sit rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and debating what tune the band should play. Afterall, what difference does it make if there are fewer and fewer lifeboats, the ship isn't sinking, thats just rain on your leg.

All the while, an activity that ALL of us love in one form or another is slipping away and the pee that they keep calling rain is almost waist deep.

[Scoutnout]

Like a lot of old schoolers, I come back to shows, to re-live past memories. I can buy a ticket to a show, sit in the seats, listen to the warm-ups in the distance, wait for the first corps to enter the field - and I can imagine it is 1983 all over again. I can re-live the greatest summer of my youth, if only for one night.

(I suspect that it is this sentimentality, that keeps bringing a lot of old schoolers back to drum corps shows. I also suspect this is why a lot of people go to baseball games - they don't like baseball, but they were brought up to love it, so they keep on paying for tickets, for the "fan experience.")

I too agree that I am often disappointed with what I see on the field. But I always enjoy the experience, which is why I keep coming back. If I didn't have that sentimental grip on my past, would I pay $25 a ducket to come to the show? Maybe not.

I don't agree with the point that DCI can continue to burn through its fan base. Its fan base is shrinking, and all the corps will eventually feel the pinch. Again, the junior drum corps activity has contracted dramatically, even by recent standards. By any metric - the total number of corps, number of youth served, number of shows performed - this activity has experienced shrinkage, over the past 40 years. Much of this can be attributed to an alienated fan base - which leads to less shows, less revenue, and less corps. This leads to less alumni, and the effect becomes a death-spiral.

=====================================================================

I have said it over and over again in these forums, and I will keep repeating it - change needs to come from the top. Change won't occur because I don't go to a show, or skip a souvie truck, or forget to write that donation check. No one will notice, and no one will care. I am one face in a sea of thousands.

This activity needs new leadership - one that understands the environment that the activity operates in. I would argue that it needs outside management, with a model similar to that before the invention of DCI. The current model simply has too much conflict-of-interest, which will always function as a barrier to serious change. Again, the BOD simply will always act in the best interest of their corps, not in the best interest of drum corps as a whole.

Outside management should be tasked with one directive: expand the activity. Expand the fan base. Expand the number of corps, and overall membership. Expand the revenue streams. Provide enough revenue, so that new and struggling corps have a chance at surival.

And yes, I would give the outside management complete control, including artistic control, to make the changes necessary to salvage this activity. That may be gauling to some members of the BOD, but some of these individuals need to swallow that bitter pill.

You make a few good points , although most you will talk to especially here will blame designers not designing entertaing shows ooo and the funny one is corps arent loud anymore..ughhh. Anyway I have been in this many many years and still am . Drum Corps fan base that we grew up on is either dead or on it's way I believe. The days for 50 thousand or whatever in the seats for championships I believe is gone for good. With the demise of many many many small local corps there simply aren't enough people ( general public ) that support this very small activity. It's a very different world from 40 years ago , good and bad. Kids have much more available to them then we did.

I think you are right in your 1st statements, those of us in our 40s -70s are a dying breed and we do re live our glory years in this activity. You are right CHANGE is necessary. How our activity survives is anyones GUESS but trying to recreate something from another time ,maybe a better time ,is impossible IMO.

[Lance]

They don't because they weren't there. There's no way for them to know what it was like if they never saw it live. You are really starting to reach. I marched in the 90s, but I had tapes of all the shows from '72-'90 when I was growing up and had a healthy respect for the shows that came before me.

How could you have a healthy respect for them if you didn't see them live? You said in the previous sentences that people today never seeing older shows live means that "they don't know," after all. Come now.

Kids today definitely respect what people before them did even if they don't find it as entertaining as what they're hyped up to do in THEIR experience...we know this because the board isn't littered with threads by them talking about how what you did was garbage. If it were, it would be interesting to see the reactions on here.

You can keep believing that saying that the kids perform garbage shows with poor, boring designs and bad arrangements isn't insulting toward them...but it's a fact that the things you so hate are exactly what attracts many of them to march. Just like the things that you were seeing and hearing attracted you to march.

[supersop]

You make a few good points , although most you will talk to especially here will blame designers not designing entertaing shows ooo and the funny one is corps arent loud anymore..ughhh. Anyway I have been in this many many years and still am . Drum Corps fan base that we grew up on is either dead or on it's way I believe. The days for 50 thousand or whatever in the seats for championships I believe is gone for good. With the demise of many many many small local corps there simply aren't enough people ( general public ) that support this very small activity. It's a very different world from 40 years ago , good and bad. Kids have much more available to them then we did.

I think you are right in your 1st statements, those of us in our 40s -70s are a dying breed and we do re live our glory years in this activity. You are right CHANGE is necessary. How our activity survives is anyones GUESS but trying to recreate something from another time ,maybe a better time ,is impossible IMO.

Honestly, with all the wars we've been in lately, I'm sure the AL and VFW memberships will rise again. Maybe a time will come where grass roots drum corps will sprout once more ..... and regional circuits will be their model. Maybe the churchs will get involved again if you prove it's a worthwhile activity for their youth ....... but not at the tune of $1 million to start and a national touring model. If not the AL or VFW, then what national organization has the membership in youth to start things small again? Boy Scouts? Girl Scouts?

If I'm really going to be realistic about this ... I would have to say the only source are high school bands. If they started their own summer circuit with all brass as a primer for their fall programs ........ this might be an answer to smaller circuits that tour regionally during the summer and actually expand DCI with a different division or simply make them all Open Class corps. But they would have to embrace the regional model or there's no way the schools could support the activity.

Design and everything else aside ........... G7 has only proven that the 20+ year plan of super corps is coming to fruition ... whether those corps ARE in fact the super corps or not is not the point. Every time the top directors have pushed for a change, they have received that change within 8 years. I don't see this being any different. Let them be selfish and move along ... then pray that whomever steps into the wake to pick up the pieces for the other corps has the skill and fortitude to start over again with the right model and the fan$ and kids in mind first. I'm sure someone will do it. If anyone gives a #### they will.

[Scerpella]

the only way it ever can or will....$$$$$$$$$$$$$

complaining, alone, won't do it.

but, dcp is a nice outlet for getting to voice your concerns.

What else is a discussion forum for? Are you implying that the opinions here though not affecting the direction of drum corps, actually have an effect somewhere else?

Its all opinions.

[The Other Mike]

It's all RAMD's fault

[Lance]

What else is a discussion forum for? Are you implying that the opinions here though not affecting the direction of drum corps, actually have an effect somewhere else?

Its all opinions.

I'm not implying anything.

I'm stating the fact that if you want to try to affect change, complaining on here, alone, won't do it; $$$$$$ will if anything can.

I fully realize that my thousands of posts on here do absolutely nothing to the direction of the activity, but here I am anyway because it's a discussion forum, and can be a source of decent converation and information a lot of the time.

[Citizen-Seth]

Kids today definitely respect what people before them did even if they don't find it as entertaining as what they're hyped up to do in THEIR experience...we know this because the board isn't littered with threads by them talking about how what you did was garbage. If it were, it would be interesting to see the reactions on here.

You can keep believing that saying that the kids perform garbage shows with poor, boring designs and bad arrangements isn't insulting toward them...but it's a fact that the things you so hate are exactly what attracts many of them to march. Just like the things that you were seeing and hearing attracted you to march.

As a kid that performed some of those shows that were labelled on here as boring and not fan friendly, I appreciate that sentiment. I also think you've hit the nail on the head - my generation simply wants something different out of drum corps than those that proceeded us.

[Eric M. Buckman]

As a kid that performed some of those shows that were labelled on here as boring and not fan friendly, I appreciate that sentiment. I also think you've hit the nail on the head - my generation simply wants something different out of drum corps than those that proceeded us.

WRONG...you want exactly the same thing that we have ALL wanted through generations of drum corps...the problem is that you don't realize what exactly is being changed again by those who are at the top and currently in control of the organizations. Get real, the kids don't have say on electornics, valves, bugles etc, who are you kidding...this is the reason why...the activity is hemmoraghing alumni fans and fans in general...OUR generation got what we wanted from Corps...in your face, emotional, muscial performances with pagentry...what is offered today is DCI Marching Band. I can sing most every Corps tune from 80's thru late 90's if given half a chance...today not only do I not really care about what ends up on the field...it doesn't seem to resonate...hell right now most of us only want to hear Space Cords...Canon or Phillip Bliss and a few of our favorite drumlines warming up in the lot and we can call it a day...now that's sad...not to mention that even some of those Corps are struggling to maintain their identity and quality of sections...ahem I could name one in particular this season.

Supposedly one of the major points of moving away from Bugles and into Three Valved Trumpets was to increase the ability of the performer...really well I'll take any of the sounds, arrangements, orchestrations and musicianship of the 70's-80's and 90's over what is being offered in this generation and we played on one and two valve G bugles for the most part...I can handle the change from bugles for cost purposes...but don't feed me a line of BSH_t about musicianship...otherwise go listen to Madison 83 as an example Strawberry Soup and you will get my drift.