"Better Every Day"

[Drum Corps Dad]

An observation……..

I grew up in Garfield NJ in the ‘40s-‘50s. NJ had at one time or another 230 Drum Corps (Ref: Drum & Bugle Corps of North America). My current State of residence, CA, had 304 Drum Corps. What happened? As Pete Seeger would sing, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” I believe the main reason is sponsorship for youth development. That includes the VFW, American Legion, CYO, PAL, Boy Scouts/Explorers, and Churches, all non-profit organizations and all removed from the Drum Corps activity. Today, in the entire US, there are 46 Junior Corps that rely, of necessity, on Corporate Sponsors. Disregarding the implied goal of youth development it comes down to the bottom line, the profit motive. Even with today’s recently depressed economic conditions no one can say that accumulated wealth was greater pre ‘60s than it is now. With the rate of diminishing returns the future is somewhat bleak and limited. There will always be hope though. My hat is off to Roman Blenski and the members of Pioneer for remaining true to Drum Corps traditions in benefiting our youth – their motto: “Better Every Day.” While Milwaukee had, in its past, 23 Drum Corps, Pioneer remains to carry on the tradition. Best wishes Irish in 2011, 50th Anniversary.

[corps-mudgeon]

An observation……..

I grew up in Garfield NJ in the ‘40s-‘50s. NJ had at one time or another 230 Drum Corps (Ref: Drum & Bugle Corps of North America). My current State of residence, CA, had 304 Drum Corps. What happened? As Pete Seeger would sing, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

How many youth soccer leagues were in NJ in the '40s-'50s? There are a whole lot more outlets available than drum corps nowadays.

You equate less participation from fewer sponsoring organizations. Any chance there are fewer sponsoring organizations because there is less participation?

[GUARDLING]

An observation……..

I grew up in Garfield NJ in the ‘40s-‘50s. NJ had at one time or another 230 Drum Corps (Ref: Drum & Bugle Corps of North America). My current State of residence, CA, had 304 Drum Corps. What happened? As Pete Seeger would sing, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” I believe the main reason is sponsorship for youth development. That includes the VFW, American Legion, CYO, PAL, Boy Scouts/Explorers, and Churches, all non-profit organizations and all removed from the Drum Corps activity. Today, in the entire US, there are 46 Junior Corps that rely, of necessity, on Corporate Sponsors. Disregarding the implied goal of youth development it comes down to the bottom line, the profit motive. Even with today’s recently depressed economic conditions no one can say that accumulated wealth was greater pre ‘60s than it is now. With the rate of diminishing returns the future is somewhat bleak and limited. There will always be hope though. My hat is off to Roman Blenski and the members of Pioneer for remaining true to Drum Corps traditions in benefiting our youth – their motto: “Better Every Day.” While Milwaukee had, in its past, 23 Drum Corps, Pioneer remains to carry on the tradition. Best wishes Irish in 2011, 50th Anniversary.

Differnt World. enough said

[soccerguy315]

how many high school marching bands did you have then vs. now?

[Ed from Kansas]

I believe the OP hit the nail on the head. The direction of the activity has caused the number of participants to decline. The cost of fielding and maintaining a corps today vs. 40 years ago is significant. Less emphasis on regional corps and more emphasis, like a disease, on national touring corps. This is the DCI model and what we currently have to live with.

If DCI would return to a more regional model for competition, thus decreasing the annual cost of fielding a corps, I believe that there would be many more drum corps. I don't believe that it is a lack of interest, just a lack of money and sponsors due to the high cost of drum corps today.

We used to have two pretty good corps in our state. Now, we have none. The DCI model of national recruitment and national tours absolutely wrecked drum corps here in Kansas. It's a shame because we do have a healthy high school band program in our state and there are a lot of kids that would like to march. The cost is prohibitive to the average family here because of corps fees, travel cost and other considerations. The closest corps to our town is Denver -- eight hours away by car.

Our son marches with a corps and we easily spend between $12K and $14K per year supporting our drum corps habit. That requires that we don't do some things that we would like to do because of drum corps. If drum corps is going to save itself, we will have to have more corps like Pioneer and people like Roman Blenski to lead the way to the past glory of the activity.

[corps-mudgeon]

Less emphasis on regional corps and more emphasis, like a disease, on national touring corps. This is the DCI model and what we currently have to live with.

Did the national touring model kill off the folded drum corps, or did it enable the remaining corps to survive? I vote for the latter.

[Ed from Kansas]

Did the national touring model kill off the folded drum corps, or did it enable the remaining corps to survive? I vote for the latter.

I believe it to be the former because of the increased cost and smaller audience base. 100 shows per year vs the several hundred shows and corps prior to DCI.

[JimF-LowBari]

Don't forget the sponsors of the 40s and 50s. Lot of VFW and American Legion Posts. IIRC, membership in both hit the peak after WWII and the Posts had resources to sponsor corps along with sports teams and other groups. Also some churches in the cities sponsored some corps. Today many AL and VFW Posts are having membership and money problems and many Posts have closed. Many city churches are in the same dire straights if not closed.

Increased costs killed local shows and corps which ended up being a vicious cycle as distance between shows increased travel costs which killed corps (repeat many times). Not usre how increased cost help ANY corps to survive.

Edited August 1, 2010 by JimF-LowBari

[corps-mudgeon]

I believe it to be the former because of the increased cost and smaller audience base. 100 shows per year vs the several hundred shows and corps prior to DCI.

We agree that Drum Corps Dad has a point. He's a little melancholy that there aren't the sponsors that there used to be and takes some comfort in corps like Pioneer that teach all comers. I think it's a little better than he seems to think, because there's open class corps out there that do the same thing and all age corps as well. Plus ALL the organized youth activities that are available now that weren't 60 years ago. Back then it was Boy/Girl Scouts and little league.

Where we diverge is when you start using the argument that sounds a lot like "DCI killed drum corps." The fact that there are fewer corps now does not mean that they're not here for the reasons you seem to believe. I'd go more with Drum Corps Dad here that there just aren't as many sponsoring organizations. Nobody was forced to go on a national tour, and DCI started very small, with little influence on the hundreds of other corps that were out there. The fact of the matter is simply that churches and veteran's organizations got out of the business of drum corps. When they got out, all that was left was DCI. I'd go so far as to say that if DCI wasn't in place, there would be NO junior corps today, that all drum corps would be all-age, and that it would look a lot like the all-age scene looks today.

The national touring model was not implemented to make drum corps more difficult, it was a pragmatic approach to finding a way to sustain something that was difficult to sustain otherwise.