skajerk Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Hey buddy. This isn't 1986. That's more than two decades ago. Get over it. That's your only response? Really? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skajerk Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Forgive my h for the k.... I'm stuck typing on my iPhone so bad eye sight becomes worse...:) Gotcha. No worries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaseyW Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 That's your only response? Really? Sorry that was a bit of a harsh statement on my part. I just wish that people would give change in drum corps a better chance. As you look in the past years the changes never "killed" drum corps. I'm not saying I'm a drum corps liberal, and I believe that not every suggested change is right (i.e. woodwinds...bleh), but I'm letting the current changes be as they are. Yeah I get it...the synth is a bit heavy, but as the season progresses I believe that the show will start tying together. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrumManTx Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Sorry that was a bit of a harsh statement on my part. I just wish that people would give change in drum corps a better chance. As you look in the past years the changes never "killed" drum corps. I'm not saying I'm a drum corps liberal, and I believe that not every suggested change is right (i.e. woodwinds...bleh), but I'm letting the current changes be as they are. Yeah I get it...the synth is a bit heavy, but as the season progresses I believe that the show will start tying together. No one here is arguing about evolving drum corps or Blue Knights trying something different. What's the problem that everyone has is that all the stuff that is going on is being covered up by electronic gunk. That's it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaseyW Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 No one here is arguing about evolving drum corps or Blue Knights trying something different. What's the problem that everyone has is that all the stuff that is going on is being covered up by electronic gunk. That's it. Simple fix - turn down the volume of the synth, and develop your music ensemble. It'll take time but I believe that the finish product will be satisfying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrumManTx Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Simple fix - turn down the volume of the synth, and develop your music ensemble. It'll take time but I believe that the finish product will be satisfying. Turning it down isn't going to fix it, that's all I'll say now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rifuarian Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 (edited) Unlike the instruments you mention, a synth can be a complete musical voice, just like a marimab, vibraphone or other keyboard instrument. By the way, maybe no cowbell, but I just played an orchestra pops concert Saturday where one of the Brahms Hungarian Dances had a triangle part that pretty much "wailed" throughout the entire Dance. Believe it or not, I do know that synths can play melodies the same as mallet instruments. I thought it was pretty clear we weren't talking about synthesizers in this capacity, but I guess it wasn't. And I'll have to check my score, but I'm almost certain that that triangle part was written into the original of the Hungarian Dances. Completely irrelevant to the discussion. This is more akin to arranging Hungarian Dances for brass band, adding in several pauses for an alpenhorn solo, and calling it "innovation". Just because something is new or different doesn't mean it's bad. Likewise, just because something is new or different doesn't mean it isn't ill-conceived and poorly executed. Now, I've only watched BK's show a couple of times. It's early in the season, and they've got a lot of smart people on their team. I'm sure the show will grow and develop over the course of the season, so things might sound very different come August. Edited June 25, 2012 by Rifuarian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaseyW Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Turning it down isn't going to fix it, that's all I'll say now. Reducing the electronic element and bringing out the acoustic element will create a better blend between the two elements. There are tons of acoustic elements in the show that need to be as equally important as the electronic elements. It's all there, it just needs tweaking in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowtown Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 They should get Young Dope Tchaikovsky to drop some heavy deep woods beats over it chunky style Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywhopper Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 (edited) Based on the Stanford live stream, even though I'm the biggest electronics hater you'll find, I enjoyed the BK show far more than I expected based on the comments. As someone pointed out, the synth and the brass were rarely competing, and synth overlaying the brass is where I have the worst issues (eg Phantom last year in live shows their synth totally covered up the beautiful mello soli, but thankfully most of the recordings' mike placement minimized that problem). Compared to any pre-recorded track or BD's constant white noise this year, I prefer BK's approach. But of course, they were doing some pretty sweet visuals (IMO, dirty, but great conceptually) and maybe I was too distracted). THAT SAID... However - - with this particular show - - it seems that the synth is really THE dominant instrument in the show. I wonder if the kids feel like they're playing and contributing to the show or just dancing to the synth. This is exactly one of my biggest problems with allowing synths in general. It becomes so easy for the synth player to outdo the entire rest of the corps, even while doing next to no difficult work. To go back to last year, at the beginning of the season, Blue Stars gave over a slow-paced bassoon solo in the source material to a synth player who was not being challenged in any way, but thankfully they moved that over to a bari solo later in the season, where the soloist had to actually work hard to be heard and have a good tone. It is possible to feature the synth player without going overboard: see Nick Starr in Crown 2011. But I much prefer to hear a brass player or mallet player or battery player really doing something spectacular to hearing the wall of sound you can produce with a single keypress on a properly programmed modern synth. Edited June 25, 2012 by skywhopper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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