Glassmen - The Past 15 Years

[Britbones]

Ah ok, Thanks for clearing that up for me.

It's a mixture of the Cadets, Blue Devils, and Cavaliers. Together, they've won 29 or 30 of the DCI championships.... They dominate the activity, pretty much.

[gbass598]

The solution is obvious. Bring me in as brass caption head. I'll work for free, as long as they feed me over the summer. I'll beat them senseless, like my corps upbringing.

Gmen get a free caption head, I get free food, and I can promise they'd be scoring better in brass. I'd track these kids into the ground.

You sound like a free, brass version of Lee Beddis.

But seriously, we took a beating from Lee but we performed better because of it. I'm thankful Lee and the rest of the staff made us work as hard as we did.

[GUARDLING]

someone does need to go in there and shake things up..thats for sure

[MikeN]

FWIW, to answer an earlier question, corps did previously get paid based on final standing the previous year. It's only in the last decade that it's changed.

There are several issues at play here. First off being the back-end business of running the corps, raising the money and getting them down the road. I think, just from what I've ever seen and heard on DCP, that Brian Hickman seems to be getting it done. (Alumni issues aside, and I know nothing about that, so I'm not even going to speculate.)

Then there's the on-field placements. As other folks have said better than I, staff turnover can be a real momentum killer to an organization, along with the corresponding bumps in recruiting.

Lastly there's the fan "product" and the corps' image. Which I think folks might be too quick to blame Brian for. It's not like he sits there and says, "Okay, we're playing X, Y and Z this year." There's an entire staff of designers, arrangers and choreographers who figure this stuff out. Brian may give some direction to them, but I seriously doubt he's saying, "okay add another company front here."

The Glassmen did have an image when they started their renaissance in '97 - they played pretty sophisticated classical music. Especially in 1999 and 2001, they were really putting out stuff that put them on the edges of mainstream. I think 02-03 really took the wind out of their sails direction-wise - the wind ensemble / orchestra music brought them back to the musical pack, if you will. (Of course, the staff comings and goings and corresponding drop in placements didn't help.) They brought back the classical for a couple of years, and it seemed like "modern" versions of classical music was going to be their signature (I still think New World Symphony was genius. Genius I say!). Then they zagged again, and about the only constant now is that this year won't be like the last.

But while folks tend to get down on Glassmen because of prior shows, I personally thought that their 2010 program was actually *very* fan friendly if you approached it with an open mind. It was relatively bright, fast paced and had the regular drum corps bells and whistles to it that make DCI so much fun. Heck, I thought their 2008 (Circus) show was *very* underrated - they pulled off a very hard task - making it *look* fun, cheery and easy. (Always much easier to pull off "dark and brooding.")

You can indeed shed past lablels and create a new image for your corps. See: Knights, Blue the last two years. They were considered as dark and esoteric as any corps in the modern era. Took them two summers - a little over 12 months - to completely turn that around. It can be done.

I don't know if I'd say Glassmen are at a crossroads or anything like that. They've clearly got their way of doing things that's worked for them - their longevity and their steady placements should be a compliment, not a criticism. But I think fans - and I know the alums - *want* to love the Glassmen more and see them move up. And I think that's a reasonable and healthy attitude for a corps and its fans to have. But movement upwards in one of these areas - administration, scores or programming - may not affect the other two, either.

Mike

[FHdork]

Well Said, Mike N.!

[IntheMood]

Mike, Thank you....Very well said and spot on.

05 Show - Frank had a very strong hand in making this happen....I remember Frank encouraging the members to play and to feel this show with their souls in order to pull this Show off....And they did just that...I remember being told that the average age of the horn line was around 17.8 years old or something near that number...The Glassmen were one of the very few if not the only WC Corps who were unplugged that year...I also thought that they would of built upon the buzz and momentum this show created....However they did indeed zagged.

I agree with your assessment of what BK and Blue have done with their Shows....However there must be a willingness to make that kind of change happen.... One must question if that willingness is present in the Glassmen Org...

Someone talked about the recruiting area that the Glassmen are faced with considering that there r a handful of top 10 Corps near their area.....This is nothing new...In fact it would of been a bigger issue BITD when there were more Corps in the Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Ill.area... I may have rose colored glasses on but I refuse to believe that the lack of talented people that come to the Glassmen is an issue.....The Glassmen have proven over the years that they will preform the Hell out of any show that is given to them...No matter if it is with 49 or 149 members.....this year is no exception....

[TubaJon]

Another issue I see, is that there is a lot of talent up in that area, but speaking from experience, drum corps is not pushed at all in northwest Ohio. In fact I didnt even know who the Glassmen were until I moved down to Ky, and I grew up 15min away from their move-ins site! Band directors in that area dont make a big deal out of drum corps.

[Drum Corps Nation]

I have various friends who have marched G-men and taught at G-men in recent years, and in talking with them, here's what I think are the main problems:

1) Dynasty Horns are killing the brass and and music captions. The reason why the Glassmen don't play as loud as the other corps around them is because if they do they'll get hammered by judges for tone quality. Blue Devils got away with using Dynasty horns for a long time mostly through clever writing ("it sounds bright because it's jazz and we wrote it to sound bright"), and even my Blue Devils friends explained to me how they heavily modified the horns so that they weren't so bright. I taught at a high school that had all Dynasty Baritones, Mellos, and Contras, and that was the very first thing that I changed. It's amazing how different a Yamaha or King line sounds compared to Dynasty. Even the latest Jupiters are producing warmer, darker tones than Dynasty. The Dynasty horns also had terrible intonation problems. I was testing one of the euphoniums at a conference recently, and the horn was playing 4th line F 25 cents flat when the B flat was in tune (for those of you who don't play brass, that's a note that is actually supposed to be a little sharp on the horn). As of last year, Glassmen were the only top 12 hornline using Dynasty.

2) Glassmen, from an outsider's perspective, are the least fan-friendly drum corps in the top 12. They announce their programs really late, usually just relying on a little picture to suffice until late spring before they announce what they're actually playing. They don't post a lot of media or anything like that on websites or youtube. Recently they had a family day performance and someone posted it on youtube, and a friend sent me the link, where I discovered that the video had been removed after only a couple of days. It's almost like they want everything they do to be a big secret.

3) Staff Turn-over. I think in the last 4 years the Glassmen have had 3 different visual caption heads, 2 different brass caption heads, 2 different drill writers, 2 different percussion arrangers, 3 different colorguard caption heads... A lot of people are talking on this thread about how the staff needs to change and they need to get new people in there and whatever, and it seems like they've done that. To me, and I have a lot of experience in the drum corps world, the corps that are able to build off previous years and constantly improve are the ones that keep the same team around and work together well. The Glassmen need consistency. Not more new faces.

4) Design. The Glassmen, for about the last decade or so (possibly longer) have been known as the "boring corps", even by people within the Glassmen family. A lot of people in this thread have been talking about how Glassmen have no identity, or no clearly definable one. And in my opinion, I think that this "boring corps" mentality has permeated the Glassmen organization more than people realize, to the point where I don't think that the designers are considering all options when they decide what they want to do. Sal Salas went to Madison and did a very Madison-esque show in 2003, and everyone loved it. Why? Because audiences love latin jazz. It's pretty much that simple. Look at Boston in 2000. Latin show. People loved it. Glassmen in 2008... played Pee Wee Herman. 2009... mostly Music of Joseph Curiale. 2010 - Music called the Prayer Cycle. This stuff is all pretty obscure. If a corps wants to make a surge, you can't do it with shows like these. Crown surged with music like Bohemian Rhapsody, William Tell, Candide, music that no matter who is playing it, you're gonna dig it because it's classic stuff. The Glassmen need this kind of a show. They need to stop overthinking it, and not feel like there's a type of show they can't do because it doesn't seem "Glassmen-y".

5) Anyone who is being completely resistent to the things that I have mentioned so far, IMO, is preventing the Glassmen from breaking into the upper ranks. If that's Brian Hickman, Sal Salas, the Caption Heads, the Board, then those people are standing in the way.

6) Recruiting in their area is certainly difficult. Someone's already mentioned this so I won't elaborate.

With all of that said, I think it's rather miraculous that the Glassmen have managed to stay so consistent in making finals while the corps around them have fluctuated, especially considering how every year for the past few years people on this board have been counting them out of finals really early in the season (like in November). But that's not what this thread is about.

[Iplaytimpani]

I have various friends who have marched G-men and taught at G-men in recent years, and in talking with them, here's what I think are the main problems:

1) Dynasty Horns are killing the brass and and music captions. The reason why the Glassmen don't play as loud as the other corps around them is because if they do they'll get hammered by judges for tone quality. Blue Devils got away with using Dynasty horns for a long time mostly through clever writing ("it sounds bright because it's jazz and we wrote it to sound bright"), and even my Blue Devils friends explained to me how they heavily modified the horns so that they weren't so bright. I taught at a high school that had all Dynasty Baritones, Mellos, and Contras, and that was the very first thing that I changed. It's amazing how different a Yamaha or King line sounds compared to Dynasty. Even the latest Jupiters are producing warmer, darker tones than Dynasty. The Dynasty horns also had terrible intonation problems. I was testing one of the euphoniums at a conference recently, and the horn was playing 4th line F 25 cents flat when the B flat was in tune (for those of you who don't play brass, that's a note that is actually supposed to be a little sharp on the horn). As of last year, Glassmen were the only top 12 hornline using Dynasty.

2) Glassmen, from an outsider's perspective, are the least fan-friendly drum corps in the top 12. They announce their programs really late, usually just relying on a little picture to suffice until late spring before they announce what they're actually playing. They don't post a lot of media or anything like that on websites or youtube. Recently they had a family day performance and someone posted it on youtube, and a friend sent me the link, where I discovered that the video had been removed after only a couple of days. It's almost like they want everything they do to be a big secret.

3) Staff Turn-over. I think in the last 4 years the Glassmen have had 3 different visual caption heads, 2 different brass caption heads, 2 different drill writers, 2 different percussion arrangers, 3 different colorguard caption heads... A lot of people are talking on this thread about how the staff needs to change and they need to get new people in there and whatever, and it seems like they've done that. To me, and I have a lot of experience in the drum corps world, the corps that are able to build off previous years and constantly improve are the ones that keep the same team around and work together well. The Glassmen need consistency. Not more new faces.

4) Design. The Glassmen, for about the last decade or so (possibly longer) have been known as the "boring corps", even by people within the Glassmen family. A lot of people in this thread have been talking about how Glassmen have no identity, or no clearly definable one. And in my opinion, I think that this "boring corps" mentality has permeated the Glassmen organization more than people realize, to the point where I don't think that the designers are considering all options when they decide what they want to do. Sal Salas went to Madison and did a very Madison-esque show in 2003, and everyone loved it. Why? Because audiences love latin jazz. It's pretty much that simple. Look at Boston in 2000. Latin show. People loved it. Glassmen in 2008... played Pee Wee Herman. 2009... mostly Music of Joseph Curiale. 2010 - Music called the Prayer Cycle. This stuff is all pretty obscure. If a corps wants to make a surge, you can't do it with shows like these. Crown surged with music like Bohemian Rhapsody, William Tell, Candide, music that no matter who is playing it, you're gonna dig it because it's classic stuff. The Glassmen need this kind of a show. They need to stop overthinking it, and not feel like there's a type of show they can't do because it doesn't seem "Glassmen-y".

5) Anyone who is being completely resistent to the things that I have mentioned so far, IMO, is preventing the Glassmen from breaking into the upper ranks. If that's Brian Hickman, Sal Salas, the Caption Heads, the Board, then those people are standing in the way.

6) Recruiting in their area is certainly difficult. Someone's already mentioned this so I won't elaborate.

With all of that said, I think it's rather miraculous that the Glassmen have managed to stay so consistent in making finals while the corps around them have fluctuated, especially considering how every year for the past few years people on this board have been counting them out of finals really early in the season (like in November). But that's not what this thread is about.

QFT. I've stayed out of this discussion for awhile now as I wasn't sure it was worth saying everything I felt. This post has it all for me. Very accurate in my eyes and I'm certainly someone who has been around the corps the past few years. Only thing I would add is that this thread also sums up the issues for Glassmen, IMO. The general DCI crowd doesn't care. It's 7 pages long. If this was about Madison or Bluecoats or the likes, it'd be 40 pages by now. However, there's many reasons I believe that to be true. I don't believe the 'boring' moniker of before is as much the issue as many of you seem to. However, I personally feel that the way some things are handled, especially media and PR for the Glassmen could help and improve the corps. But, on the flip side of that, it comes down to Brian having to have the right people in the right positions and him having to feel comfortable with those people. He has kept the Glassmen consistent and well, and while some may not always like his way, his way has seemed to do well for the corps and at the end of the day, that's what he's there to do.

[MotorCityMusician]

QFT. I've stayed out of this discussion for awhile now as I wasn't sure it was worth saying everything I felt. This post has it all for me. Very accurate in my eyes and I'm certainly someone who has been around the corps the past few years. Only thing I would add is that this thread also sums up the issues for Glassmen, IMO. The general DCI crowd doesn't care. It's 7 pages long. If this was about Madison or Bluecoats or the likes, it'd be 40 pages by now. However, there's many reasons I believe that to be true. I don't believe the 'boring' moniker of before is as much the issue as many of you seem to. However, I personally feel that the way some things are handled, especially media and PR for the Glassmen could help and improve the corps. But, on the flip side of that, it comes down to Brian having to have the right people in the right positions and him having to feel comfortable with those people. He has kept the Glassmen consistent and well, and while some may not always like his way, his way has seemed to do well for the corps and at the end of the day, that's what he's there to do.

And its always the same people trying get some buzz going. I hate following crowds and I will stick with glassmen but I hate seeing them going down. As a person that has played percussion and brass I can vouch that dynasty horns.are terrible. I got one brand new and it had metal shavings in the valves which screwed everything up. But I do like the drums.