What makes DCI of today musically inaccesible?

[Todd Tanji]

The music is inaccessible because:

music that involves anything beyond a single mostly naked female singer and several dozen electronic pitch correctors is no longer popular music.

Win.

[Hrothgar15]

I find the music of DCI today to be MORE accessible since it is performed much better and

actually sounds somewhat like real music, as opposed to the honking sound of G bugles and

plinky sound of un-amplified pits.

Joke post?

[Todd Tanji]

Joke post?

No.

[Hrothgar15]

except yeah, they often do.

Bocook and Boerma (and Michael Klesch for that matter) are masters at weaving in tried-and-true, original "drum corps" elements: mello/hornline runs leading into a huge ensemble moment, fast paced end-of-opener chord progressions, ballads that approach a climax, end-of-show musical retrospectives, you name it. And they fully understand how to score for each instrument to make them sound like they belong in a drum corps. None interfere with the source music since they're simply a layer on top. They truly know how to make drum corps the unique, unmistakable musical medium it deserves to be based on their arranging techniques. It's when other, less qualified arrangers like Aaron Guidry and Drew Shanefield supply sound effects to support the drill, based around a few motifs from a piece, that arranging becomes immature and awkward.

Come to think of it, "awkward" is the best word I could use to describe a lot of the arrangements I hear on the field these days

Edited October 4, 2010 by Hrothgar15

[Hrothgar15]

Additionally, I think we should compile a list of musical comparisons that perfectly illustrate the point. All the explaining in the world can't hold a candle to actually studying the musical differences.

One that has been mentioned is the Blue Devils' 1982 vs. 2007 Pegasus. Perfect example.

I'll add in La Fiesta from Blue Devils 1984 compared to the Boston Crusaders' rendition from 2007. Listen to them one after another, and you have a perfect example of 23 years of degradation of the art of drum corps arranging.

[Blackstar]

the 70s and 80s were just as bad if not worse. some top placing WSS and App Spring shows barely sounded like the original thanks to "enhancing" efforts of HOF arrangers.

WWWOOOOWWW really.....REALLY....Okay lets take 84 Cadets vs 2009 Troopers or even 2009 Cadets...Which one is not like the others. 77 Vanguard...even 82 Vanguard over 2008 Cadets or maybe 2009 Crown. Just listen to these and then listen to the orginals.

I grew up with only top 40 and R&B and listening to these corps of the 80's made me run out and by Aaron Copeland, Bernstien. et al. I haven't felt that way since 1992

[Mello Dude]

I find the music of DCI today to be MORE accessible since it is performed much better and

actually sounds somewhat like real music, as opposed to the honking sound of G bugles and

plinky sound of un-amplified pits.

Well, I appreciate the people that apparently don't know anything about music chiming in. Good to see that DCI as it is today will have a few people that appreciate noise rather than music.

[Mello Dude]

The music is inaccessible because:

music that involves anything beyond a single mostly naked female singer and several dozen electronic pitch correctors is no longer popular music.

Why do I get the feeling of someone looking down their nose at me (and others) without a tata's worth of arranging or playing time?

[supersop]

Bocook and Boerma (and Michael Klesch for that matter) are masters at weaving in tried-and-true, original "drum corps" elements: mello/hornline runs leading into a huge ensemble moment, fast paced end-of-opener chord progressions, ballads that approach a climax, end-of-show musical retrospectives, you name it. And they fully understand how to score for each instrument to make them sound like they belong in a drum corps. None interfere with the source music since they're simply a layer on top. They truly know how to make drum corps the unique, unmistakable musical medium it deserves to be based on their arranging techniques. It's when other, less qualified arrangers like Aaron Guidry and Drew Shanefield supply sound effects to support the drill, based around a few motifs from a piece, that arranging becomes immature and awkward.

Come to think of it, "awkward" is the best word I could use to describe a lot of the arrangements I hear on the field these days

I was going to try and stay away from this topic ...... but I need to weigh in right here. This is about my belief system in what DCI should be and is .. and not about how well or poorly something is arranged.

Let's talk about Drew. I marched with him. He's very familiar with how Michael Klesch arranges obviously. He was the soloist in Prelude Fugue and Riffs in 1991 as well. The boy can play ... he does have skills as an arranger. Now, is he the greatest ever? Not yet. Is he getting an opportunity to grow and expand and learn on the job? YES. And that is what drum corps always stood for. Giving people a chance to learn, grow and flourish with the proper nurturing and backing. There are 100's of guys like Drew who burst onto the scene at some point and either made it or they didn't. But they got the experience and learned from it. It's totally unfair to compare every single DCI arranger to Klesch, Prime, Boerma et al. These guys have their own bag of tricks that they know how to use effectively in order to generate their own brand of drum corps that people connect with, understand and enjoy. So how is a guy like Drew going to compete? He has to make up his own bag of tricks and that takes time. You can't just rip off the style of a HOF arranger and expect to survive.

I have plenty of issues with the established arrangers that were once considered all time greats that are now ........ not so much. Unfortunately, when a HOF arranger decides to go in a new direction, change their bag of tricks and go with the times .... they are often still successful to the point that they influence a change in the activity ......... a change that a lot of fans are not diggin'. Then you have the 5 year cycle of everyone moving in that direction and by the time they catch up and start doing it right ... that direction is now stale. The bigger problem is when each change occurs every 5 years, it's going further in the wrong direction than the last recipe for what wins. And that ......................... is how you lose people.

Lastly, for those who are so snobbish about the corps of yesteryear .... go sit at the symphony. You're missing the boat if you can't respect the work of Wren, Boerma, Klesch, Prime, etc etc etc Just because their work was being performed on a Bugle. Get over yourself ..... you require a roof and a tux ...... not a hot dog, t-shirt and SPF90. Their kids .. not pro's. Most of what you don't like about the G bugle era was poor mic'ing placement, outdated technology and a total inability to capture the true full sound of pre-2000 drum and bugle corps due to those issues. I'll leave it at that because I don't really want to say how I feel about the overall topic in detail ........ I've said it enough over the past 10 years in detail ad nauseum.

[Jeff Ream]

arrangement style. too much thought put on the big hits for GE, but lack of thought and flow to develop them. source material at times may be part of the issue, but really it comes down to how it's arranged, and worse, because of the lack of thought into the development of the flow, they still get rewarded for it.

I see many fans on here say that the music of today is inaccessible and unentertaining. I don't agree with that, but that's not the point of this thread. I want to hear people's opinion as to what is causing this. Is it musical selection? Is it arranging style? Is it generational gap? I would love to see no "the people want this or that" talk because that's not what I'm interested in here. I want individual's opinion on what offends them musically in DCI 2010.