MilesandCassius Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 I absolutely believe it has. Both from a numbers standpoint and an experiential standpoint. I'm sure there are more kids in marching band right now than there were kids in drum corps in the '70s. There's 1072 junior corps listed in CorpsReps. Even if you that assume that half of them were all active in the 70's and give them the healthy estimate of 45 members each, that's 24,120 kids involved. My gut says there was nowhere NEAR that number of performers competing in drum corps any given year. However, the National Center for Educational Statistics says that for the year 2009 there were 24,348 HIGH SCHOOLS. Every high school has to have a band. If they don't, they won't be accredited. Meaning that there diploma doesn't carry any weight. Therefore, we can assume that the vast majority of them have a band program. Even if we assume that only 1/3 of them have a marching band, and that they're all small, say, 30 members, we're talking about 243,480 MEMBERS. It's not even close. Mind you, I'm being stingy with the high school numbers, and generous with the drum corps numbers. As for the experience of marching in drum corps? I myself am a FMM that started at the bottom, in a local class C corps in the early 80's and worked my way up, and ended up marching in Finals 3 times. I've seen all aspects of this activity. While my experiences marching were really good (obviously, since I'm still on this forum after all these years! ) I can honestly say that the majority of todays marching bands are working just as hard as I did in class C, and are putting out a more mature, sophisticated product, and are being taught by very talented, well rounded teachers for the most part. That's my gut feeling. Sure, there are bad bands, there were/are bad drum corps- As there are bad teachers/instructors... That's true about almost everything. But having gone on into the educational field myself for a living, from my perspective the bands/marching bands of today do replace the corps experience for the most part. I taught a number of years under a drum corps hall-of-famer at a local high school marching band, and let me tell you, the experience those kids had was way WAY more intense, rigorous, and deeper than I had in my first little corps. Although, like all of you, I wouldn't trade my class C experience for anything. My 2 cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrillmanSop06 Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 I absolutely believe it has. Both from a numbers standpoint and an experiential standpoint. I'm sure there are more kids in marching band right now than there were kids in drum corps in the '70s. There's 1072 junior corps listed in CorpsReps. Even if you that assume that half of them were all active in the 70's and give them the healthy estimate of 45 members each, that's 24,120 kids involved. My gut says there was nowhere NEAR that number of performers competing in drum corps any given year. However, the National Center for Educational Statistics says that for the year 2009 there were 24,348 HIGH SCHOOLS. Every high school has to have a band. If they don't, they won't be accredited. Meaning that there diploma doesn't carry any weight. Therefore, we can assume that the vast majority of them have a band program. Even if we assume that only 1/3 of them have a marching band, and that they're all small, say, 30 members, we're talking about 243,480 MEMBERS. It's not even close. Mind you, I'm being stingy with the high school numbers, and generous with the drum corps numbers. As for the experience of marching in drum corps? I myself am a FMM that started at the bottom, in a local class C corps in the early 80's and worked my way up, and ended up marching in Finals 3 times. I've seen all aspects of this activity. While my experiences marching were really good (obviously, since I'm still on this forum after all these years! ) I can honestly say that the majority of todays marching bands are working just as hard as I did in class C, and are putting out a more mature, sophisticated product, and are being taught by very talented, well rounded teachers for the most part. That's my gut feeling. Sure, there are bad bands, there were/are bad drum corps- As there are bad teachers/instructors... That's true about almost everything. But having gone on into the educational field myself for a living, from my perspective the bands/marching bands of today do replace the corps experience for the most part. I taught a number of years under a drum corps hall-of-famer at a local high school marching band, and let me tell you, the experience those kids had was way WAY more intense, rigorous, and deeper than I had in my first little corps. Although, like all of you, I wouldn't trade my class C experience for anything. My 2 cents. I agree except for the bolded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SG Director Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 Here in Massachusetts in the past 5 years we are seeing a resurgence of drum corps. Red Knights, Defenders, Imperials, Standish Guards and more, are small to medium size corps. Just because a corps is all-age doesn't mean you can't have a great corps experience. Around the south shore, we now have 3 corps at the same time some school band programs are being cut back while others are being decimated and some are thriving. I think the Pittsfield Red Knights have the right idea about getting their members college credits for perfoming and this is something we are going to look into also. Ideas can be found, it's all about adapting. We need both, corps and band! Dennis O'Neill Director, Standish Guards Plymouth, MA 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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