Howdy Posted July 1, 2011 Share Posted July 1, 2011 (edited) Howdy, on 30 June 2011 - 07:25 PM, said: In my opinion I do not think that Pioneer has a very good chance to make semifinals. Call them a 50 -1 longshot to do that. I hear this same hype repeated year after year, without seeing the changes that are needed to get them there. Many have said that the kids in Pioneer get great experiences. My issue with Pioneer is that in my opinion so many bad experiences also go on there (that should not go on there but do, and are often repeated over and over again year after year). As for Pioneer doing an excellent job recruiting in their backyard, we will have to agree to disagree about that, but I do not fault them for trying. So Mikey,in your vast knowledge of the Pioneer Corps and its inner workings, you know for a fact that there are many bad experiences taking place in Pioneer today? I'll bet that if you asked any of this season's members about that, they would wonder what in the world you are talking about! I never expected you to be so verbally abusive about the Pioneer Corps, its staff, management, and direction. As a Christian, (I assume that you still are), whatever grudges that you have had about the Pioneer Corps, its staff and management, past and present should be forgiven and forgotten, correct? Don't you think that our kids read this? As for recruiting, I take that as a personal insult since I am responsible for it. As far as recruiting in our own back yard do you even have a clue as to what I have been doing? Do you have any realization as to where I have gone, who I have spoken to, and what band directors that I communicate with on a regular basis? How many corps today have a majority of its members from within their own back yard? Do you have any idea of how many proud new Pioneer members that we have this year? Since there are so many positives happening within the Pioneer organization today, the kids, their staff, and yes, not even Roman deserve public negativity based on your past experiences. Within our staff/management today there is no drama, but lots of cooperation focused on our strong desire to give our members the best musical,visual,and social experiences possible. They are not doing it to fulfill their own egos! Please Mikey, if for nothing else but for the sake of our young impressionable members, try and accentuate the positive and let bygones be bygones. You certainly have a right to all of your opinions, but trust me, being away from Pioneer since 2008, so much that you have not witnessed is taking place. I, for one, am so very proud of our eager members, our very dedicated and caring staff, and Roman who has given it all for the past 50 years and continues to do it for all the right reasons. Better Every Day! Re: We will just have to respectfully agree to disagree. Like I said, I have no doubt that Pioneer is ATTEMPTING to recruit new members. I respect that and your effort to do so is honorable. I know that you have attempted to recruit new members locally. This is not the same as the fact that you now have less than 60 students on the field. In 2008 you had over 90. On top of that in my opinion the kids that are on the field are looking younger and younger, the kids on this summers hornline in particular. In my opinion , based upon many things (not just from my experiences in 08) I do believe that the members of Pioneer have had many bad experiences since I left. One example of this would be in the area of logistics. As for my religious beliefs, I am not going to preach here in DCP. As for verbally abusing Pioneer, we will just have to disagree about that as well as I do not believe that I have done that in DCP. I hold no grudges against Pioneer. I am sharing the same things in DCP that I have shared with Roman and other people from Pioneer. I think my honestly will help Pioneer more than being a Pioneer cheerleader. As for staff unity and a team spirit of cooperation in Pioneer in 2011 , if that is currently the case I am very glad to hear it because that would be a big improvement from what I witnessed in 2008. All the best, MIKEY - trumpet Historic Mount Verd , Tennessee Edited July 1, 2011 by Howdy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrillmanSop06 Posted July 1, 2011 Share Posted July 1, 2011 Re: We will just have to respectfully agree to disagree. Like I said, I have no doubt that Pioneer is ATTEMPTING to recruit new members. I respect that and your efforts to do so are honorable. I know that you have attempted to recruit new members locally. This is not the same as the fact that you now have less than 60 students on the field. In 2008 you had over 90. On top of that in my opinions the kids that are on the field are looking younger and younger, the kids on this summers hornline in particular. In my opinion , based upon many things (not just from my experiences in 08) I do believe that the members of Pioneer have had many bad experiences since I left. One example of this would be in the area of logistics. As for my religious beliefs, I am not going to preach here in DCP. As for verbally abusing Pioneer, we will just have to disagree about that as well as I do not believe that I have done that in DCP. I hold no grudges against Pioneer. I am sharing the same things in DCP that I have shared with Roman and other people from Pioneer. I think my honestly will help Pioneer more than being a Pioneer cheerleader. As for staff unity and a team spirit of cooperation in Pioneer in 2011 , if that is currently the case I am very glad to hear it because that would be a big improvement from what I witnessed in 2008. All the best, MIKEY - trumpet Historic Mount Verd , Tennessee The students were there to learn how to "Schmidt" notes from the best! Of course they'd leave after they no longer had the only instructional staff capable of teaching the Schmidt-ing technique, Howdy! C'mon! But on a serious note, I could imagine 2008 was a bad experience on at least a few levels... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PioneerWebmaster Posted July 1, 2011 Share Posted July 1, 2011 On top of that in my opinion the kids that are on the field are looking younger and younger, the kids on this summers hornline in particular. Mikey, You are quite wrong on this... Right before the corps left to go on tour, Roman crunched the numbers and this is actually the oldest corps that Pioneer has put out on the field (at least in the recent history). The average age is well over 19 years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howdy Posted July 1, 2011 Share Posted July 1, 2011 (edited) The students were there to learn how to "Schmidt" notes from the best! Of course they'd leave after they no longer had the only instructional staff capable of teaching the Schmidt-ing technique, Howdy! C'mon! But on a serious note, I could imagine 2008 was a bad experience on at least a few levels... Hardly. As far as Schmidt'ing the notes, I only taught Pioneer's trumpets during one rehersal in 08 (I taught the entire hornline that practice, the rest of the horn staff was absent) so that clearly was not the case. {Schmidt'ing [ or Schmidted ] a note is a term used to refer to playing extremely high notes , as in on a trumpet} I was the contra instructor for Pioneer. As for teaching the contras, those contra players were treated very well by me, and they received a quality music education when they were with me. As one former top 6 DCI wc brass caption head said it so well "When Mikey took over Pioneer's contras in 08 they were the worst part of the line. By the time he had finished with them, they were the best part of Pioneer's brassline". I think my greatest achievement at Pioneer was the fact that I was able to teach Kyle (Bam Bam) how to play. Kyle had been with Pioneer for many years and as a musician he was very frustrated because he had never achieved before as a musician. I also helped teach Dustin (Chainsaw) how to play the baritone {as fate would have it the staff bus which Dustin was on became separated from the rest of the hornline}. I literally taught Dustin by teaching him from how to even make a sound out of the horn as Dustin had just transfered to the hornline from the pit. Dustin went on to become section leader at Pioneer, and this summer he is playing Baritone with the Colts. Edited July 1, 2011 by Howdy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howdy Posted July 1, 2011 Share Posted July 1, 2011 Mikey, You are quite wrong on this... Right before the corps left to go on tour, Roman crunched the numbers and this is actually the oldest corps that Pioneer has put out on the field (at least in the recent history). The average age is well over 19 years old. I was wrong. I stand corrected. I am wondering what the average age of this years Pioneer hornline is, I suspect below that of the drumline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PioneerWebmaster Posted July 1, 2011 Share Posted July 1, 2011 I was wrong. I stand corrected. I am wondering what the average age of this years Pioneer hornline is, I suspect below that of the drumline. You are probably correct on that. There are a couple of 16 year olds in the horn line, but the majority are older. Overall it's a much more mature group which lends itself to cleaning and improving at a more rapid pace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrillmanSop06 Posted July 1, 2011 Share Posted July 1, 2011 Hardly. As far as Schmidt'ing the notes, I only taught Pioneer's trumpets during one rehersal in 08 (I taught the entire hornline that practice, the rest of the horn staff was absent) so that clearly was not the case. {Schmidt'ing [ or Schmidted ] a note is a term used to refer to playing extremely high notes , as in on a trumpet} I was the contra instructor for Pioneer. As for teaching the contras, those contra players were treated very well by me, and they received a quality music education when they were with me. As one former top 6 DCI wc brass caption head said it so well "When Mikey took over Pioneer's contras in 08 they were the worst part of the line. By the time he had finished with them, they were the best part of Pioneer's brassline". I think my greatest achievement at Pioneer was the fact that I was able to teach Kyle (Bam Bam) how to play. Kyle had been with Pioneer for many years and as a musician he was very frustrated because he had never achieved before as a musician. I also helped teach Dustin (Chainsaw) how to play the baritone {as fate would have it the staff bus which Dustin was on became separated from the rest of the hornline}. I literally taught Dustin by teaching him from how to even make a sound out of the horn as Dustin had just transfered to the hornline from the pit. Dustin went on to become section leader at Pioneer, and this summer he is playing Baritone with the Colts. Wait...You really believe this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howdy Posted July 1, 2011 Share Posted July 1, 2011 On a positive note, based upon the latest score, Pioneer is now in 21st place. Way to go Pioneer!! "01 (01) - 81.10 (1) - The Cavaliers 02 (02) - 79.40 (3) - Carolina Crown 03 (03) - 78.80 (6) - The Cadets 04 (04) - 77.70 (6) - Blue Devils 05 (05) - 76.70 (2) - Madison Scouts 06 (06) - 76.40 (4) - Phantom Regiment 07 (07) - 76.30 (3) - Bluecoats 08 (09) - 75.40 (1) - Blue Stars 09 (08) - 74.90 (4) - Santa Clara Vanguard 10 (10) - 72.50 (2) - Boston Crusaders 11 (11) - 71.50 (2) - Spirit of Atlanta 11 (13) - 71.50 (1) - Troopers 13 (12) - 71.45 (6) - Blue Knights 14 (14) - 70.10 (1) - Colts 15 (15) - 68.00 (5) - Glassmen 16 (16) - 67.80 (2) - Crossmen 17 (17) - 67.40 (4) - Pacific Crest 18 (18) - 64.40 (7) - The Academy 19 (19) - 64.10 (6) - Mandarins 20 (20) - 63.90 (1) - Teal Sound 21 (22) - 59.60 (1) - Pioneer 22 (21) - 57.80 (2) - Jersey Surf " - Del Corso Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PioGuyBW Posted July 1, 2011 Share Posted July 1, 2011 As proud alum and member of the staff, though not as a teacher, I am impressed with the work that the staff is doing this season and how well they work together as a team, the best that we've had in several seasons. As a result, the members are improving daily and have improved 9 points in 9 days. On the staff vehicle each night, the teachers work to plan the details of the next day and how they can improve skills, performance and scores. These goals are set to help the corps be competitive; if they weren't trying to move up in the rankings, why would they work so hard for our members? It is important to realize that in any situation, not everybody is going to agree with everything that is decided. This is natural, and it's how all organizations work. Roman has kept the corps alive for fifty years -- a feat that nearly 2,000 other corps have not been able to do. Has he made all the right decisions? Probably not -- nobody can. Has he positively influenced thousands of people? Absolutely. Will this corps be around for another 50 years to influence thousands more? You bet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Other Mike Posted July 1, 2011 Share Posted July 1, 2011 Hardly. As far as Schmidt'ing the notes, I only taught Pioneer's trumpets during one rehersal in 08 (I taught the entire hornline that practice, the rest of the horn staff was absent) so that clearly was not the case. {Schmidt'ing [ or Schmidted ] a note is a term used to refer to playing extremely high notes , as in on a trumpet} Are you talking about the notes you said were so high no one could hear them ? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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