Family support for drum corps members

[corps-mudgeon]

Has anyone else ever dealt with this? Either when they were marching or now with their child marching?

You should be very proud of having a child who wants to do something active with his life and who is willing to take personal responsibility to make it happen. It's cool that it's drum corps, but anything proactive is great. His positive approach to this and other things is what's going to get him through life successfully, not 3 months worth of dipping frozen potatoes into a vat of of hot grease.

[Calistar]

Congrats to you for supporting your child!! Because of your experience you realize the importance of parental support...

My wife and I are both musicians and music educators..When our children reached the age where they could join a corps as a youngster we took them and said check it out..we will support you no matter what... We always felt that their time spent in DC through the years was far more valuable than a summer job learning to say "would you like to biggie size that?".....because of corps dues (three different division I corps at the same time) we may have been money poor but we were family rich...We traveled to every DCI championship they performed in as well as many shows and dont regret it for a second. Neither do the "kids"..All grown up now and all three musicians with music ed degrees, 1 getting his Doctorate in trumpet performance at UT, one just finished masters in Opera performance at Roosevelt in Chicago, and one just received her BS and spent a year in Japan as a cast member of BLAST. You dont know where life will take you....enjoy the ride and keep supporting your kid.....the memories will be worth far more than a big pile o money....

wow...congrats. Thats awesome.

Cali.

[Kevsmomm]

This is a post after my heart. Keep doing just what you are doing, your child is lucky to have you. One of my greatest joys is watching my kid perform, and I am soooo glad he's had a chance to march drum corps-keep up the great work, there are a lot of impediments to marching, cost, logistics, etc, but parents shouldn't be one of them:)

[mellofan]

My daughter is finishing her seven season career in drum corps this year. She learned about drum corps at her first show in 1999 even before she began playing an instrument in her 6th grade band. She had heard various recordings of the Troopers and the 1975 Madison Scouts show many times. We caught the local show in 2003, prior to the start of her marching band career as a freshman. She spoke with Mike Gough, the Troopers drum major after the show that night. We filled out the online interest form that evening on their website. Mike called her out of the blue the following February, and she attended her first camp in March of 2004. She was hooked. After convincing her father, she joined the Troopers. She marched her first two years with Troop. When they went inactive for 2006, she found a new home with Vanguard and will age-out after marching 5 years with them. Did I support her? You bet. I will be attending my 7th Finals in two weeks and wouldn't have missed any of them.

I cannot express enough gratitude for what this activity has done for my daughter. She had been in an accident when she was in the 8th grade and was understandably self-conscious about the scar on her head. Each time she looked in the mirror, it stared back at her, reminding her that she was different. Our once vibrant, always-smiling daughter had disappeared because she withdrew from the world and started hiding beneath her many hats. It was that first season with the Troopers gave us back our daughter. I saw her six weeks into her first tour but didn't recognize her. She had confidence, stood straight with her shoulders back, and once again smiled. I firmly believe that it was drum corps that helped her develop the courage to face the world and see herself as something other than a victim.

Drum corps also taught her what it meant to work and achieve--at any level. Although her band director wasn't thrilled about her marching, he told me last fall that her impact was still evident in the French horns. More importantly, music became her passion and provided her a direction for her life. She is a music education major in college. Professors do not truly understand what it means to teach "regular" kids. Her drum corps brass instructors over the past 7 years have taught her more about teaching music by their examples than she will ever learn in college. These seven years have really been the equivalent of seven internships in how to teach music and marching to students. We have also heard from people about how she should stop that "marching band thing" and get a job; however, this "thing" will actually help her learn how to teach more than any retail job she might have taken.

Yes, people thought we were nuts. Unfortunately, we were never able to get kids from her school to join a corps. Even though they commented on drum corps' effect on my daughter, none of the students--or their parents--thought it was worthy of their commitment.

In two weeks, she will become that magic "adult" and will be able to commit to a job and focus completely on that symphonic music that college professors teach; however, it has been the last seven drum corps seasons that will actually impact her success most.

Good luck to you and your son.

[Lightness]

My daughter is finishing her seven season career in drum corps this year. She learned about drum corps at her first show in 1999 even before she began playing an instrument in her 6th grade band. She had heard various recordings of the Troopers and the 1975 Madison Scouts show many times. We caught the local show in 2003, prior to the start of her marching band career as a freshman. She spoke with Mike Gough, the Troopers drum major after the show that night. We filled out the online interest form that evening on their website. Mike called her out of the blue the following February, and she attended her first camp in March of 2004. She was hooked. After convincing her father, she joined the Troopers. She marched her first two years with Troop. When they went inactive for 2006, she found a new home with Vanguard and will age-out after marching 5 years with them. Did I support her? You bet. I will be attending my 7th Finals in two weeks and wouldn't have missed any of them.

I cannot express enough gratitude for what this activity has done for my daughter. She had been in an accident when she was in the 8th grade and was understandably self-conscious about the scar on her head. Each time she looked in the mirror, it stared back at her, reminding her that she was different. Our once vibrant, always-smiling daughter had disappeared because she withdrew from the world and started hiding beneath her many hats. It was that first season with the Troopers gave us back our daughter. I saw her six weeks into her first tour but didn't recognize her. She had confidence, stood straight with her shoulders back, and once again smiled. I firmly believe that it was drum corps that helped her develop the courage to face the world and see herself as something other than a victim.

Drum corps also taught her what it meant to work and achieve--at any level. Although her band director wasn't thrilled about her marching, he told me last fall that her impact was still evident in the French horns. More importantly, music became her passion and provided her a direction for her life. She is a music education major in college. Professors do not truly understand what it means to teach "regular" kids. Her drum corps brass instructors over the past 7 years have taught her more about teaching music by their examples than she will ever learn in college. These seven years have really been the equivalent of seven internships in how to teach music and marching to students. We have also heard from people about how she should stop that "marching band thing" and get a job; however, this "thing" will actually help her learn how to teach more than any retail job she might have taken.

Yes, people thought we were nuts. Unfortunately, we were never able to get kids from her school to join a corps. Even though they commented on drum corps' effect on my daughter, none of the students--or their parents--thought it was worthy of their commitment.

In two weeks, she will become that magic "adult" and will be able to commit to a job and focus completely on that symphonic music that college professors teach; however, it has been the last seven drum corps seasons that will actually impact her success most.

Good luck to you and your son.

My son has also found his home with Vanguard and is marching mello. I think I know who your daughter is, and if it's who I think it is, I admire her for how brave she is!

[Lightness]

Wow..thanks to everyone who responded to my post. You put into words what I can't articulate and gave me a lot of input I hadn't thought about before!

[TerriTroop]

All difficult and brave choices come with burdens - sometimes personal, sometimes financial, sometimes both.

My siblings - all older than me by 10, 13 and 15 years - thought music was a waste of my time. When I chose to be a music major they thought I was being irresponsible. So, of course the whole drum corps thing was even worse because in their eyes I was not helping my recently divorced mom by working. What they didn't know was that Mom was proudly, but quietly, encouraging me to go march. Mom avoided any sort of family conflict, so she never really talked about all of this with me or my siblings. I was lucky that my siblings also didn't pressure her to try to talk me out of it. Maybe on some level they understood. I don't know. All I know is that two of my three siblings really enjoy drum corps now and often go to shows or watch on Fan Network and DVD's. And all of my siblings now see that I am working in a field that fills me with pride and happiness, and I'm earning a living at it.

It was hard at the time to justify drum corps to those who didn't understand it. But I have never, ever regretted marching in either of the corps I was with. Sure, I griped about stuff that happened in corps, but that's what kids do. Looking back, every single positive, negative and neutral event that I encountered taught me something of value. Money does not buy happiness, but at least in drum corps the dues one pays buys one a life education that carries one far, far beyond a degree field in college or myriad mindless summer jobs one could take in order to satisfy cultural norms.

To the OP, thank you for supporting your son's desire to march. It is stories like yours that inspire people like me to keep doing what we can to raise funds for sponsorships and scholarships.

[bluesop08]

I really dislike it when I hear of people cutting the arts, or pulling their kids out of band programs stating that they need to focus on school. Every time I hear that I am reminded of a seminar I went to that featured a man named Scott Lang. By far the best speaker I have ever heard, and he sat there and really put in perspective what music education, specifically band/marching band education does for young kids. Its not about the music, or the marching, or the flag work, those things are easily forgotten (I couldn't play you a continuous phrase from any show I have ever marched). What band is about is teaching three things that NO other class or activity can teach.

1. "The more you give the more you get, and the more you get, the more you gotta give."

Imagine this, in band starting in 6th grade, its the first time that a kid is really something that is wholly theirs to either succeed or not. Playing instrument teaches you that unless you spend the time practicing and getting better, you will NOT be successful. Your parents can't fight the principal, there is no "special remedial class" for band. You are only as successful as you put in the work. Which is one of the most important lessons kids seem to be missing these days, the value of working hard towards an end goal in which you will not be immediately successful.

But, it gets better. Because what happens when those kids do get good? Become our first chairs, our section leaders, our drum majors? We stick them next to the last chair kid and say "teach them". We show that when you have something, when you are good at something, it is your responsibility to help others achieve the same. Because, in a band(music program/corps), we teach kids that the world is win/win.

2. "The world is win/win"

Band/Corps is a win/win, lose/lose world. Because, it doesn't matter how good the individuals in a music group are, if they are playing with people who aren't, they still sound awful. Think about it, our worst performers still have to go out on those fields and in those music halls and perform well because the people around them depend on them to sound good. Where else does that happen? Sports you only see the top players actually playing, in academics its every man for himself, but in band, our best students learn that if they want to be better, they have to help those who are worse than them become better. Because if the last chair trumpet player isn't winning, nobody in that band is winning.

3. "Do it again, and again, and again, and again until its Perfect."

This is the biggie. Think about it, every time you redid a set, every time your band director or visual caption head said "it wasn't right, do it again", every time you spent hours on a lick repeating it over and over until it was right, what were you learning? You were learning that scraping by with minimal effort wasn't good enough. You learned that you had to do it until it was right, and that accepting anything less than your personal best was a failure.

Its for these reasons why the best kids in a school are band kids. Why your AP classes are filled with musicians and singers, why its going to be a band kid that cures cancer, solves world hunger, everything we dream for. Because its only in band where we teach the values that its going to take to accomplish these goals.

I am a music educator not just because I love music, but because I know that there is a chance that I will instill these values of hard work, of charity, and of never giving up to a student that will one day cure the cancer that killed my grandma; that will learn and grow to become the president of the united states and fix these things; that will grow into a decent human being that helps others and makes this world a better place to live in.

Every time I hear of someone wandering if we can afford to keep music programs in the schools, I ask them "Can we really afford not to?".

I want to thank you, and everyone of you who read this who support music education by putting up money and time for your kids to participate, you are making this world a better place because of it.

(sorry went on a rant, very passionate about this, I know this was kind of off topic, but hopefully you have some ammo to defend your decision to let your son participate)

Edited August 2, 2010 by bluesop08

[chaos001]

it's not often on DCP that you're trying not to tear up and feeling supreme joy at the same time.

even as much as i disdain some of the designs and music choices as DCI progresses, i'll still support someone to march. as someone who never marched because schoolwork was "more important," i've always wanted to give back to an activity that i passionately love. i was finally able (thanks to my first real job since graduating college) at 28 to become a booster of a corps and partially sponsor one of its members. i intend to do more each year for the corps and a member or two.

i'm not going to have children of my own. but i do have a niece who, at 16 months, is very in to music. i'm already encouraging her to be interested in drum corps by letting her watch DVDs. tonight we sat in my sister's home office and watched "Into the Light" together. she was encouraged to start conducting as they were playing and it seemed (as i could only dream of) that she thought she really was making them to play. maybe she will one day.

Edited August 2, 2010 by chaos001

[DrinkinOuttaCups]

it's not often on DCP that you're trying not to tear up and are feeling supreme joy at the same time.

even as much as i disdain some of the designs and music choices as DCI progresses, i'll still support someone to march. as someone who never marched because schoolwork was "more important," i've always wanted to give back to an activity that i passionately love. i was finally able (thanks to my first real job since graduating college) at 28 to become a booster of a corps and partially sponsor one of its members. i intend to do more each year for the corps and a member or two.

i'm not going to have children of my own. but i do have a niece who, at 16 months, is very in to music. i'm already encouraging her to be interested in drum corps by letting her watch DVDs. tonight we sat in my sister's home office and watched "Into the Light" together. she was encouraged to start conducting as they were playing and it seemed (as i could only dream of) that she thought she really was making them to play. maybe she will one day.

When I was at the ATL regional yesterday, as I was walking through the stadium to meet up with some friends, I found myself walking behind this little kid who would stop every couple of steps and salute. Future drum major?