Hello Choreography, Goodbye Marching

[GUARDLING]

One thing is constant.

Change.

There is very little in any performance art that is the same as it was 40 years ago.

TV. Radio. Movies. Theater. Comedy.

Things that were groundbreaking and incredible 40 years ago (Saturday Night Live, Jaws, CBS Radio Mystery Theater, All In The Family, The Graduate, Jesus Christ Superstar, Smothers Brothers, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) are now long-past benchmarks... looked back at with a sense of nostalgia, but no longer the standard to live up to today. That doesn't mean there isn't still some value to them... but why would we keep creating the same thing over and over? Stagnation was never the intent... in any generation or iteration of drum corps or entertainment/performance art. If it was, there would be no "Deadwood", "Dark Knight Rises", "Wicked", "The Voice", ESPN, Drum Corps Planet, iTUnes, "Always Sunny In Philadelphia", Daily Show, Comedy Network, Fan Network, Evanescence, "Jesus Henry Christ" (a movie), Bridgemen, Velvet Knights, Cavaliers' drill, Spartacus in 2008, etc... because none of those things look like what came before...

I love watching the 1976 Madison Scouts performance in Philadelphia on video... but not because I want it to still be the same today. I want that connection to the past, but I don't want to have drum corps be a Civil War Re-enactment activity.

Knowing where we came from helps keep us grounded... but it shouldn't keep us anchored. And by "us", I mean the kids, families, adults, teachers, volunteers, staff and administrators, and yes, today's audience members.

We don't make kids today watch black and white TV... listen to AM radio... wear watches (yes, this is true!)... or any of a hundred things we all did without even thinking it unusual.

For all the love and nostalgia I have for my own personal experiences in drum corps... I wouldn't try to give today's people that same experience. It wouldn't fit the times... and the times, they are a changin'.

I still tear up watching the 1980 Spirit of Atlanta... the 1979 Santa Clara Vanguard... the 1977 Bridgemen... the 1984 Suncoast Sound... the 1978 North Star... and on and on...

My students don't. Neither do my children. They don't think Chevy Chase is funny. "Land Shark" and "Cone-heads" make me roar with laughter. I love "Back to the Future"... and "Stripes". My kids... critique the makeup, and complain it takes too long to do anything. They think the sounds of the instruments on Jesus Christ Superstar sound "old". They don't know AM radio exists. Black and White TV is a concept they can't even understand. They are surrounded by DANCE.. MUSIC.. COMPETITION.. as well as reality freak shows.. sometimes for the better... and sometimes not. We were surrounded and encased in a MUCH different world.

I love old drum corps. I love new drum corps. They cannot be the same, because the world has moved on... and everything in it. I don't love ALL old drum corps... some of it is just flat out painful. I don't love ALL new drum corps... some of it bores me as a musician.

You know that old Cheers episode where the WW I vets get together and celebrate once every 5 years? And finally, at the end, there is just one man shows up and realizes that he's the last one left? It's painful... even in something as trite as a tv sit-com. But... even then... the solution was to keep living... keep learning... keep breathing... make more friends... continue with new experiences.

Remember the old fondly... I do every single day.

There are still kids today who understand and appreciate what came before... but just as someone new to baseball is mildly surprised that the National and American Leagues used to only meet in the World Series and All Star games... it doesn't carry the weight of nostalgia... just trivia.

Designers like the Blue Devils' Wayne Downey, Jay Murphy, Scott Johnson... etc, who ARE drum corps people through and through... who live and breathe it every day... they're the ones who helped set the standards. Today... 2000... 1990's... 1980's... every decade we can point to people who set new standards, or changed the game. And every time we can bemoan the loss of "what was"... or we can just accept that the only way to stop progress and change is to die.

Sorry to have gone on so long... at a certain point we all grow old... and wish things weren't so complicated... so different than when we remember being the happiest (for a lot of us, that's when we were in our marching years). That's human. The next step is to get back in touch with what is going on... and stay open to the idea that there is still good in the world, in people, and in our activity.

Finally... cross-pollination seems to be a concern by some, as if being a "Drum Corps Person" is somehow a life lived in solitary, with no outside influences or interests. Does anyone really think that Gail Royer, Jim Jones, Bobby Hoffman, Dennis Delucia, Larry Kerchner, Jim Ott, Fred Sanford, Marty Hurley, etc., didn't have influences from Broadway... the commercial music world... ballet... symphonic music... wind band music... dance?

Just food for thought... from a person who loves drum corps... marched, taught, arranged, composed, consulted, judged, was a fan in the stands, and sent kids to other corps.

Marching is going to disappear. Music isn't going to disappear.

It will look different. It will sound different.

All the best,

Chuck Naffier

Drum Corps Lifer...

very well said....Amen Brother...and I either marched under, taught with or directed by with all those you mentioned and several other icons in the activity ( many Im getin old..lol ) and youre right everyone of them would have been on this same track and probably would have started many of the things..I have no doubt of that. at all !!

[GUARDLING]

I definitely think that DCI missed the boat in their new so-called fan-friendly judging system. IMHO most fans (and not just "dinosaurs") believe that a well-executed and innovative marching show should be rewarded more than a show with less marching that uses props to literally prop-up their visual effectiveness. I agree that we are really getting away from our roots by doing this --- we still call ourselves drum corps, right?

You don't have to look any farther than the Olympics to see that in international sports that difficulty is essential in achieving a good score. In gymnastics, for example, you start with a maximum score based on difficulty, and then you are judged on how well you execute it. Yes, you can add to your score for unique artistic moves as well --- but it is secondary to difficulty and execution.

I'm not saying by any means that I want to see artistic growth stunted in drum corps, but we shouldn't be getting further and further away from what makes this activity really special --- great brass, percussion and MARCHING!

the activity still is special and there's plenty of marching still .PLENTY..maybe not the 12 min. you want of it but its still there

Edited August 3, 2012 by GUARDLING

[cowtown]

I just cancelled all my room nights in Indy except for Saturday night

I don't like the dancing horn lines or the shows very much this year, finals only will be enough

it's all your kids

[Grandpa]

Change is a constant - it's true....

BUT it's naive to say "change is good".

Good change is good.

Bad change is bad.

DCI has had some of both over the last few years. The trick is to hang on to the good change and have the integrity to toss the bad change, if we can come to a consensus on what changes fall into which camp.

[GUARDLING]

Change is a constant - it's true....

BUT it's naive to say "change is good".

Good change is good.

Bad change is bad.

DCI has had some of both over the last few years. The trick is to hang on to the good change and have the integrity to toss the bad change, if we can come to a consensus on what changes fall into which camp.

well thats the big question....and has always been the question and of course depends who you talk to..its all subjective

[Barifonium]

Marching is going to disappear.

T_T ....all that time in basics......

[charlie1223]

I think the Blue Devils are absolutely amazing this year. I wouldn't like other groups to try to copy them, though, because nobody else could do what they do that well. There are a lot of good designers these days, but the folks at BD are on their own level.

I wouldn't say they are at their own level... They are simply different. You can't say that Phantom, Cadets, Crown designers are no less talented for doing shows that are more generally enjoyed. They are designing based on what they like and what they think the fans will like. And there is much success there! So if that was their goal they have achieved it with flying colors. BD had the goal to design differently, make ppl squirm a bit or appreciate something different. They succeeded!

Both design teams succeeded but you can't put a value on which goal is better.

Edited August 3, 2012 by charlie1223

[over60]

Marching is going to disappear. Music isn't going to disappear.

It will look different. It will sound different.

All the best,

Chuck Naffier

Drum Corps Lifer...

Well, there goes DCI's slogan: "Marching Music's Major Leagues"

[BRASSO]

If competitive success breeds imitation, more corps will begin performing shows like the 2012 Blue Devils, with less emphasis on traditional style marching and more emphasis on choreography, staging and props. How has marching in DCI evolved?

When DCI was formed in the fall of 1971, one major concern was definitely performance fees but the instructors also wanted to get away from the strict military rules of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) that stifled artistic creativity. For example, not only did every corps have to field a "real" color guard consisting of a genuine American flag and at least one armed guard in constant close proximity, but each corps had to perform a formal color presentation obeying strict military flag code etiquette. Also, the VFW and American Legion did not allow what we now call "pit instruments", like xylophones and marimbas. And, the music and marching captions were judged objectively, meaning the field judges were listening and looking for execution mistakes that would have points ("tics", actually tenths of points) deducted for each error, within limits per unit of time.

For many years after DCI's inaugural 1972 season most corps continued to perform color presentations because the American Legion and VFW national competitions were still important shows and the corps' veterans organization sponsors expected them to attend. However, as the years passed and the national and state veterans contests disappeared, corps dropped this former requirement from their performances. The activity was beginning its journey away from its military heritage and heading toward a more mainstream entertainment style consisting of a variety of music including: Pop, big band, light classical, jazz and musical theater. Also, the objective field judging style was replaced with a subjective system that allowed for more musical and marching risk-taking in the form of playing more sophisticated music with a wider variety of instrumentation, and marching in a non-military style that would have been impossible if scores were reduced for every mistake in execution.

Considering one particular complaint of this year, I find it somewhat ironic that during the 1980's Steve Rondinaro and others on the DCI PBS broadcasts began referring to the drum corps activity as "Broadway on a football field", inferring that the activity was becoming more entertaining than ever. This year of 2012, when the Blue Devils are closer than any other corps to performing a true Broadway style "stage show", many fans are upset because they don't think it's more entertaining, or fair in terms of relative physical demand versus how much credit they receive in the Visual captions compared to the more strenuous physical movement other corps are doing. Some of the previous rules changes of allowing dance, grounding of equipment and even changing from bugles to real horns didn't seem to upset too many fans. But somehow, for many, when you now begin allowing corps to march less but still get high Visual scores, that's going too far.

In Jack Meehan's excellent book, Space Music (Amazon.com), if I remember correctly, he wrote that the activity began changing dramatically in the mid-to-late 1980's. During the first 15 years or so of DCI, most instructors and judges were former corps members. But as these corps veterans began leaving the activity, some were being replaced by non-drum corps people, many from the world of high school/college music and arts departments. These people greatly accelerated the movement away from the traditional military style. The decade of the 1990's was when many older drum corps fans of my generation left the activity, the so-called "dinosaurs". (Ouch! I may be somewhat subdued compared to my younger days but I'm not extinct---yet.)

The selection of performance material began to change significantly. Here is an example of a classic non-themed show from DCI's late Cretaceous Period (the Age of Dinosaurs). Even by today's standards, the 1972 fifth place Argonne Rebels' horn performance was incredible. In sequence, they played Barnum and Bailey's Favorite March, a medley from Jesus Christ Superstar, Stars and Stripes Forever for their color presentation, and a Baroque arrangement of the Theme from Love Story. This could have been one of the first shows to initiate the throwing of babies. Seriously, if you've never heard this performance, try to find it, keeping in mind the limitations versus today's corps regarding quality of instrumentation and the smaller size, younger age and local geographical make-up of the membership.

By the 1990's, this type of hodge-podge but nevertheless entertaining musical show was being replaced by more and more thematic program material. It was more "theatrical" to have a theme---more professional, more sophisticated. And, more relevant to what's happening now, it also scored higher so everyone began doing it. Eventually the Marching and Maneuvering caption was replaced by the Visual caption. Clearly, based upon recent scoring, marching in the traditional sense is not a requirement for top scores in the Visual captions anymore. More than anyone else, much more so, the Blue Devil's staff has written their recent few shows to take advantage of this. Now, because of their continued competitive success, will the others follow?

Someone on DCP recently mentioned that in the past several years more and more WGI (Winter Guard International) people are now involved as corps instructors and judges. I don't know if that's true, but obviously the Visual scoring requirements have changed. Since the instructors submit new rules proposals and vote on them, it seems that a majority of these new people want to reduce the amount of marching in shows and have changed the rules so that corps won't be penalized for non-marching movements like standing on chairs, pushing mirrors around and members rolling on the ground (something that many other corps have also begun doing). After all, performers in Broadway shows don't march, they sing, dance and act. And when the performers move and dance on stage among the scenery and props, that movement is called staging and choreography---not marching. Soldiers march. That's military. That's yesterday. Therefore, since corps don't have to march as much as before to score high in the new Visual and GE-Visual captions, expect to see more chairs, mirrors, clothes racks, etc. scattered and moved around the field in coming years by most all corps, with less traditional marching.

Now what? Would you like to see half or more of this years finalists copying the Blue Devils avant garde visual style beginning next year? (not to mention the narration) If that happens and you don't like it, will you stop going to shows? This type of decision-making is what my generation went through beginning decades ago. I've stuck around because I'm one of the relatively few old-timers who's enjoyed most of the more sophisticated music. Many former fans remained loyal through some changes but eventually reached a point where the cumulative changes, both musically and visually, deviated too much from what attracted them to the drum corps activity to begin with---what initially entertained them.

I really don't know if there are more fans who like the Blue Devils "stage show" visual style this year or dislike it, but for those of you who don't like it, even if the Blue Devils don't win this year but many other corps copy their visual style next year, will that be your tipping point---your point of no return? If so, you could become dinosaurs, too. Never fear, Club Barney welcomes all.

I believe that all your paragrahs except your last paragraph pretty much was spot on regarding what has transpired. But from this historical sketch, you concluded in your final paragrapoh that all the Corps next year will copy the Blue Devils 2012 type show. But I don't see Corps all rallying around the Blue Devils type show at all. We've never had Corps all follow the leader and winning Corps in the past the following year. Thats because even the DCI Championship winning Corps does not always follow the same style show the following year. When The Cadets won with The Zone, Phantom Regiment did not change their style, and when Phantom Regiment won with "Spartacus" in 2008, the BD did not change their style at all for 2009, and so on and so forth.

Edited August 3, 2012 by BRASSO

[MikeD]

I wouldn't say they are at their own level... They are simply different. You can't say that Phantom, Cadets, Crown designers are no less talented for doing shows that are more generally enjoyed. They are designing based on what they like and what they think the fans will like. And there is much success there! So if that was their goal they have achieved it with flying colors. BD had the goal to design differently, make ppl squirm a bit or appreciate something different. They succeeded!

Both design teams succeeded but you can't put a value on which goal is better.

Although, I guess you could say that EVERY corps is 'on its own level'.