after seeing Star of Indiana Alum

[drumno5]

BD was not, no. A few finalist corps were, though, namely Carolina Crown, Cadets, and Phantom Regiment, entirely contingent on their musical arrangements and performances.

I was there. They were the corps that had the greatest emotional effect on me that night.

OK, Blue Devils (who blew me away) didn't do it for you; fair enough. But you named 3 more corps, a healthy 50% of my proposed "half a dozen others." My point is that there are groups out there today reaching the crowd the same way as groups back in the day moved the audiences of the past. Star Alumni may have been great, and props to them, and no problem with anyone who stood up and gave them their due. But I'm still not buying the whole nostalgia trip/it-was-better-back-in-the-day thing.

Fred O.

[drumno5]

I think there is a difference between a medley of songs, or even an overture that has snippets of various tunes from a musical and a lot of what is happening now. With a medley, you get enough of each song to appreciate it, and they aren't being played on top of each other. It's different from the sound bite, quick cuts. It does seem like a lot of this has come from a generation of instructors and designers having been molded by WGI. I remember teaching winter guard in the early 90s and being absolutely forced by the judges to add layer upon layer of work. If you tried to have a few spots where there was one main thing going on, with the rest subdued in the background they would crucify you. While I understand how this adds demand and complexity to score points, at some point it seems to become white noise, both visually and musically. You can only absorb so much and actually be moved by it. You end up with a presentation of stunning technical achievement, but with an audience who goes home with a headache. Since tickets ARE still being sold to a supposed entertainment experience, would a bit more balance in all this be such a ridiculous idea?

As I said, your original point is well taken. And of course, changing times and fashion dictate different programming approaches; to be fair, the shows I cited were all from 25+ years ago, when the activity was quite different than it is today.

I guess what I'm getting at more than anything else is that some folks post a lot of faux philosophy out here, when what they're really saying is "why don't corps program shows like the ones I enjoyed back in the good old days?"

Thanks for the dialogue,

Fred O.

[Hrothgar15]

What the heck does this mean? May as well say "pick music that I like and I'll tell everyone that it's better than something that I don't like."

peace,

Fred O.

How to determine if the musical choices for your drum corps show are appropriate:

Step 1. Make a list of the musical productions that will be in this show. If this cannot be done, then the show will not work.

Step 2. For each musical production, enter its name into one of the following search boxes. If one of these pieces has no name, the show will not work.

If no results are returned for any of these searches, the show will probably not work.

Step 3. Preview the piece, then your arrangement of it. If they match up somewhat accurately, the arrangement of that piece should work just fine. Bonus points for adding standard drum corps musical elements like the halt-and-full-ensemble-chord as a segway between sections, or an original tag ending.

Step 4. If Step 3 is successful for each piece will arranged, congratulations! Your drum corps show will work provided you also incorporate a visual program representative of the music and a way to package the sections cohesively into a single show (theme, concept, story, etc.)

[drumno5]

How to determine if the musical choices for your drum corps show are appropriate:

Step 1. ...

Step 2. ...

Step 3. ...

Step 4. ...

Thanks for the comprehensive 4 step programming plan. But this:

QUOTE (Hrothgar15 @ Aug 28 2010, 01:24 PM) *

Here's the best way to put it: pick music that the audience may or may not be familiar with, but as a requisite, could be familiar with. ...

is still baloney- gobbledygook. All that search engine business notwithstanding, was it likely that any significant percentage of our hot dog-eating audience was familiar with "Medea," "Spartacus," or even more run-of-the-mill fare like "Concerto in F" when those tunes first hit the field?

You're still basically saying "play something with a good beat that we can dance to, like [insert name of favorite corps/year from your golden age]." Now that may or may not be a good idea, depending on your point of view. But just say what you mean, call a spade a spade. Don't obfuscate the issue by saying stuff like "We need something that is not necessarily familiar, but could be familiar, if melodic elements and obligatory power chord-ready passages are available in sufficient quantity, and blah blah blah... " You'll lose your audience with that mumbo-jumbo; too complicated!

Fred O.

Edited September 1, 2010 by drumno5

[Jeff Ream]

sounds so much like a clinic Cesario gave a few years ago.

I think there is a difference between a medley of songs, or even an overture that has snippets of various tunes from a musical and a lot of what is happening now. With a medley, you get enough of each song to appreciate it, and they aren't being played on top of each other. It's different from the sound bite, quick cuts. It does seem like a lot of this has come from a generation of instructors and designers having been molded by WGI. I remember teaching winter guard in the early 90s and being absolutely forced by the judges to add layer upon layer of work. If you tried to have a few spots where there was one main thing going on, with the rest subdued in the background they would crucify you. While I understand how this adds demand and complexity to score points, at some point it seems to become white noise, both visually and musically. You can only absorb so much and actually be moved by it. You end up with a presentation of stunning technical achievement, but with an audience who goes home with a headache. Since tickets ARE still being sold to a supposed entertainment experience, would a bit more balance in all this be such a ridiculous idea?

[atlvalet]

I think there is a difference between a medley of songs, or even an overture that has snippets of various tunes from a musical and a lot of what is happening now. With a medley, you get enough of each song to appreciate it, and they aren't being played on top of each other. It's different from the sound bite, quick cuts. It does seem like a lot of this has come from a generation of instructors and designers having been molded by WGI. I remember teaching winter guard in the early 90s and being absolutely forced by the judges to add layer upon layer of work. If you tried to have a few spots where there was one main thing going on, with the rest subdued in the background they would crucify you. While I understand how this adds demand and complexity to score points, at some point it seems to become white noise, both visually and musically. You can only absorb so much and actually be moved by it. You end up with a presentation of stunning technical achievement, but with an audience who goes home with a headache. Since tickets ARE still being sold to a supposed entertainment experience, would a bit more balance in all this be such a ridiculous idea?

Good designers know when to stop. Bad designers think "Well, if a little was good, then 'more' will surely make it better."

This is true for drum corps along with other disciplines.

Edited August 31, 2010 by atlvalet

[Medeabrass]

Yes they were. They were booed for music that was too subtle, too soft and a bunch of other "toos" and "nots." The money and the expertise were getting boos too. But those were more justification for rude behavior. The music, the entire program in 1993, was villified for not being proper drum corps.

HH

How can any of us truly know why an ###hat boos unless that person is an ###hat that boos (not directing that at you). I know for sure that we got booed in '92 but I wouldn't call that music too soft or too subtle...Too patriotic? Maybe. Too cheesy? Maybe. Star got ill treatment going back to the pink days. I'll state it again here so folks who weren't around then won't be led to think Star was some audience darling until '93; Mason mentioned at our Alumni banquet that he once had to escort a crying member to his starting spot because said ###hat in the audience thought it would be an excellent idea to throw a quarter at the corps and hit the kid in the eye. I'm not sure of the year but by implication I thought he meant somewhere between '85-'88.

I think it is true however that by '93 we (the membership at least) embraced the villain roll and relished the opportunity to give our haters more reason to hate us and our fans more reasons to love us. ..it was a blast and the boos actually made us laugh at retreat...in an odd way it felt awesome (The sound of crickets after horns down at DCM was priceless too...it was WTF before WTF). I love imagining how it probably chaps the haters' hides that it's still being talked about so much 17 years later...it's their worst recurring nightmare or their worst case of drum corps chotch itch that just won't go away.

editted cuz i suck at grammar

Edited September 1, 2010 by Medeabrass

[Medeabrass]

It’s as much today’s fan and the drum corps model as anything

Drum corps was more local, more blue collar and more like a softball team as opposed to today where its more like Interlochen summer marching seminar based in a town that none of the marchers have ever been to and that doesn't know or care about the corps either

A lot of the Blood, Sweat and Tears in the activity was replaced with Bartok, the reactions similar to their sources followed

Drum corps didn’t use to be this dorky (but marching band always was nerd city) and the dorks brought their oddly displayed passion to the activity. So instead of acting up and going nuts at a show they discuss musical depth, color and textures while watching the DVD’s – a live show might ruin their paler, so they only hit one each year And if they get too excited at that one show, they’ll have to use their inhaler so they just judge at a safe distance, on an intellectual level, because you know a wall of 80 horns is all about the intellectual senses, right?

I am dinosaur hear me roar....in numbers easily ignored

When I marched, drum corps was anything but local and I would say we were anything but band dorks. When the Northwest Louisiana foosball team is looking at you in amazement from the air conditioned confines of their weight room as you stand on shoes that are slowly melting into the 118 degree astroturf, you're anything but some fragile bando loser. We had plenty of music majors too. I fail to see the downside of knowing a few scales. If the local model is so superior and cost effective, why haven't one of you genious "blue collar" types created a local circuit where only 6-5 endzone to endzone countermarching played to Sousa marches is allowed? No matter what restrictions on content you create to satisfy your limited "blue collar" pallet, I doubt you'll be able to find enough interested kids in this day and age who are not already getting a teaching environment from their school bands. You're pining away for something that isn't possible given the circumstances of our current society.

No matter how you slice it, creating pictures out of people as they play instruments is a goofy concept. None of us are truly as cool as we thought we were. Take off your rose colored glasses and you'll see that all of us were wearing some incarnation of knee high socks, nut hugging short shorts, all while sporting a nice male version of the Farah Flip. You are not that cool and you d**n well weren't working any harder than the kids of today. So get over yourself!!!

[supersop]

Good designers know when to stop. Bad designers think "Well, if a little was good, then 'more' will surely make it better."

This is true for drum corps along with other disciplines.

Just to back up your point .................

4 paintings in U.S. Art Galleries in 2008 sold for over $100,000 each. They were painted by elementary school art students. When the art teachers were asked about their gifted students, there was a common answer. "All children have the potential to be incredible artists. The only thing it requires is giving them a clean slate to work with .... and knowing when to take the paint away from them. If you let them go unchecked, you end up with a brown canvas and nothing else."

In other words, great art requires knowing when to stop!!!!!!! Less is more ... I wish people would actual start figuring that out again. Bad Art equals the color of something that doesn't smell very nice.

[SCV Biker]

None of us are truly as cool as we thought we were. Take off your rose colored glasses and you'll see that all of us were wearing some incarnation of knee high socks, nut hugging short shorts, all while sporting a nice male version of the Farah Flip.

Madea-- Your posts are some of the best "in the trenches" testimonials I've read in a long time-- if I ever meet you at a DCI function, I owe you two beers!