Iconic music in DCI history

[rayfallon]

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Yep. This one arrangement did more to redefine DCI than any other. An icon not only to Cadets, but to the whole enterprise.

One I haven't seen mentioned: Sky Ryders / "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

Phantom: I think you have to say "Spartacus" because PR helped reshape the whole idea of a drum-corps program with it in '81, then won a championship with it in '08.

SCV: For me, "YPGtDC" contains the highest concentration of Vanguard DNA. Equal parts majesty and subtlety.

For some corps, I have difficulty picking out the most quintessential music. Cavies, for instance. Is it the swashbuckling Cavies ("Softly")? The classical Cavies (Planets)? The Saucedo Cavies ("Frameworks")?

Same problem with BD. To me, "One More Time, Chuck Corea" will be the iconic sound of Devils. Their '82 performance was pure anger on the field. I've never heard any corps play anything with such urgency and musicality at the same time. It was bloodthirsty, yet cool. That's BD. Or, at least, it was. These days, I can't point to any piece of music that defines them. If there's anything "iconic" about BD these days, it's their aloofness. They ought to print T-shirts that say "Blue Devlis: We Dare You" and be done with it.

Remind me never to post right after one of your posts. Way too much writing style. I feel semi-literate. Gonna log off and go read an old DC Batman Comic...

Keep writing...

[rayfallon]

I'm very glad to see the discussion has come to this point if not a little frustrated because I am personally TERRIBLE at picking favorites. After a far longer time thinking than I would like to admit here, I came to a decision that my personal favorite that always comes to mind when I think DCI now, is in Phantom's 03 closer when they go back to Canon again. But that doesn't answer your question.

Gun to my head, beast DCI piece ever... man I have to go with Music of the Night 89 SCV.

With that out of the way, what would yours be?

OK, with a gun to my head and 50 years of listening my moment is 84 Garfield, "I Had a Love" right to the end of the show (Z Pull and all).

That's an emotional response, but that's the one for me. Ask me next year.

[rayfallon]

[/size]

Yep. This one arrangement did more to redefine DCI than any other. An icon not only to Cadets, but to the whole enterprise.

One I haven't seen mentioned: Sky Ryders / "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

Phantom: I think you have to say "Spartacus" because PR helped reshape the whole idea of a drum-corps program with it in '81, then won a championship with it in '08.

SCV: For me, "YPGtDC" contains the highest concentration of Vanguard DNA. Equal parts majesty and subtlety.

For some corps, I have difficulty picking out the most quintessential music. Cavies, for instance. Is it the swashbuckling Cavies ("Softly")? The classical Cavies (Planets)? The Saucedo Cavies ("Frameworks")?

Same problem with BD. To me, "One More Time, Chuck Corea" will be the iconic sound of Devils. Their '82 performance was pure anger on the field. I've never heard any corps play anything with such urgency and musicality at the same time. It was bloodthirsty, yet cool. That's BD. Or, at least, it was. These days, I can't point to any piece of music that defines them. If there's anything "iconic" about BD these days, it's their aloofness. They ought to print T-shirts that say "Blue Devlis: We Dare You" and be done with it.

I'm going to opine that you selected bookends - "Rocky Point" - the introduction to the "new" drum corps (or at least DCI) approach to repertoire, and Sky Ryders "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" a nostalgic look back at what drum corps repertoires had been, and for the most part probably won't be again. I don't mind being wrong about that, but it's the way it hits me. Interesting choices.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I'm going to opine that you selected bookends - "Rocky Point" - the introduction to the "new" drum corps (or at least DCI) approach to repertoire, and Sky Ryders "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" a nostalgic look back at what drum corps repertoires had been, and for the most part probably won't be again. I don't mind being wrong about that, but it's the way it hits me. Interesting choices.

Yeah, maybe so. The OP was fishing for music that will forever be associated with a particular corps in a particular season. I think both selections fit.

It would be ludicrous to suggest there is any kind of back-to-basics movement afoot in DCI, but it is interesting to note, for example, how Madison's return to roots in 2010 has propelled Scouts back into contention. Troop is trying something similar this year.

Imagine if BD tried something similar in 2014. Hot, swinging jazz charts played, and marched, with unmatched skill.

[Florida Sun]

BEST CLOSING COMMENT FROM A DRUM MAJOR

I AM SPARTACUS drove the crowd wild

[rayfallon]

Yeah, maybe so. The OP was fishing for music that will forever be associated with a particular corps in a particular season. I think both selections fit.

It would be ludicrous to suggest there is any kind of back-to-basics movement afoot in DCI, but it is interesting to note, for example, how Madison's return to roots in 2010 has propelled Scouts back into contention. Troop is trying something similar this year.

Imagine if BD tried something similar in 2014. Hot, swinging jazz charts played, and marched, with unmatched skill.

I like, in fact love, the occasional retro show... but in general I think that horse has left the barn, and I think it had to. I think we'll continue to see corps vacillate between forward and errrr... less forward, but I think the eventual momentum is forward.

In a way it's good as every now and then someone will drive us long time fans crazy with a cool jazz show, or familiar hits, or Broadway, but I think that the movement is heading in the direction that Rocky Point pointed us in (bad word play, couldn't avoid it).

I think though that if DCI decreed that all shows played in 2014 had to come from 1976 it would make us nuts, and not in a good way... (or 86, or 96... pick one).

Sometimes we don't even notice we've moved on... you look up and you're in a new neighborhood. Not always bad, not always good.

[lameisrob]

BD/76: "Legend of the One-Eyed Sailor"

SCV/00: "Adagio for Strings"

Crown/11: "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Cadets/87: "To Tame the Perilous Skies"

Cavies/95: "The Planets"

Madison/75: "MacArthur Park"

Phantom/03: "Canon in D"

Bluecoats/08: "The Boxer"

Bridgemen/79: "Pagliacci"

Spirit/81 "Georgia on my Mind"

Velvet Knights/92: "Magical Mystery Tour"

Some different takes and by no means a comprehensive compilation

[ShainaBassoon]

BD/76: "Legend of the One-Eyed Sailor"

SCV/00: "Adagio for Strings"

Crown/11: "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Cadets/87: "To Tame the Perilous Skies"

Cavies/95: "The Planets"

Madison/75: "MacArthur Park"

Phantom/03: "Canon in D"

Bluecoats/08: "The Boxer"

Bridgemen/79: "Pagliacci"

Spirit/81 "Georgia on my Mind"

Velvet Knights/92: "Magical Mystery Tour"

Some different takes and by no means a comprehensive compilation

Love the Adagio for Strings choice. Obviously there are going to be others by SCV mentioned before that, but they performed that absolutely beautifully. One of my favorite moments from the '00 shows.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I like, in fact love, the occasional retro show... but in general I think that horse has left the barn, and I think it had to. I think we'll continue to see corps vacillate between forward and errrr... less forward, but I think the eventual momentum is forward.

In a way it's good as every now and then someone will drive us long time fans crazy with a cool jazz show, or familiar hits, or Broadway, but I think that the movement is heading in the direction that Rocky Point pointed us in (bad word play, couldn't avoid it).

I think though that if DCI decreed that all shows played in 2014 had to come from 1976 it would make us nuts, and not in a good way... (or 86, or 96... pick one).

Sometimes we don't even notice we've moved on... you look up and you're in a new neighborhood. Not always bad, not always good.

Old music is one thing. "Retro" programming is another.

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is a far more contemporary composition than much of the music being played on the field this year by Phantom, Madison, Crown, Blue Devils, Oregon Crusaders, and others.

Yet if you put the 1982 Sky Ryders and the 2013 Blue Devils on the same field today, which show would be more retrograde? Which show would be more contemporary?

It's not the music. It's what you do with the music.

Thus, Troopers can play a tune that is about 200 years old ("Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us," now known as "Battle Hymn of the Republic"), and do it in a way that is completely in step with current DCI standards. Vanguard can play the music of "Les Miserables," which is about 40 years younger than "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," yet still create an air of a long-ago time. Phantom can bring a 2,000-year-old story (Spartacus) to life with music that was composed after "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and make it feel both ancient and contemporary -- and, by the way, win a championship with it. In 2010, Madison reached back into its catalog and opened with a song that A) is older than "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," B) it first played in 1974, and C) was first performed by a drum corps in 1950. How retro can you get?

That show returned Madison to finals, after they had missed it the previous year.

It's not the music. It's what you do with the music.

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is an iconic piece of drum-corps music because (in my mind, at least) Hutch owned it and defined it so exclusively. It was completely of a piece with that era of drum corps. If anyone else were to pick up the same arrangement today and put it on the field (with, God forbid, the same rainbow! Ack!), it would definitely come off as "retro," no matter how well it was played. Especially it if were staged with the same visual approach used in 1982.

However, I could imagine a corps such as Crown picking up the tune, arranging it according to contemporary drum-corps standards, and matching it with modern visual concepts. And I have no doubt they would make "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" a new icon for a new time.