The staff merrigoround

[mingusmonk]

This quote is going to garner my first post on here in a year or two lol. Without trying to sound condescending, I am quite positive that Crown is happy with Thom Hannum as their percussion caption head. From an outsider's perspective it looks like they are only in the first stages of building their percussion program. Keep in mind that Matt Harloff and Donnie Vandoren came to Crown in 2003 and it took 7 seasons before they won the Jim Ott in 2009.

To me it's obvious that Crown percussion program doesn't have that far to climb but sometimes it can take a few years of recruiting and teaching before things really start to come together and gel...no matter how good the staff is. We can't all be as lucky as Star of Indiana '93 when Hannum brought in a truck load of his very finest and DCI-experienced students from UMass all at once.

(Not to derail, but coming from a guy in the brassline that year, the first camp I saw our percussion line, thoughts of the first US Olympic Basketball "Dream Team" came to mind...a true embarrassment of riches. The collective experience of the battery alone almost equaled the hornline ;) lol)

I don't want to speak out of turn, as you marched there and I did not. But Thom began working with Star of Indiana percussion midway through 1990. And it seems like a disservice to folks like Coley, Judd, Otto, Fitzgibbon, Clark, Huffman, Himsel, Reeves, etc to imply that it took Hannum arriving with UMass students to make Star percussion elite. Those guys and gals coming back, sometimes after multiple years, were no slouches. Much thanks to Hannum as well, of course.

[jjeffeory]

I'll say it again, and then I'm done because this conversation has very little to do with the original topic.

If you can't see that Devils have been in a league of their own in terms of visual effect the past few years, I don't know how else to explain it. No. The rest of the top three have not been comparable in terms of performance. You may not like WHAT they are doing, but HOW WELL they are doing it can't really be argued.

In terms of music effect, the same can be said for Crown. Some don't like that they are all about brass, but the four Ott awards in a row seem to say that they are accomplishing what they are setting out to do.

The past two years have been a very two sided race. Crown and Devils have stood above the rest of the pack with very little legitimate competition in terms of performance quality. While each brings a different set of skills to the table, they stand apart at the moment. I don't really see how anyone could possibly argue that any one else should be winning effect over the two of them.

The group that everyone likes isn't always going to be the group that performs the best. Emotional engagement is only a third of the sheet. The people buying tickets to be entertained are still being entertained. When I was a kid, my parents took me to see Michael Jordan because he was the best basketball player in the game. He was far and away the most fun to watch, and at the time was also the most popular player. That didn't mean that I had any right to be upset if he didn't win the game. Conversely, LeBron James is among the most hated players in the league. That doesn't stop him from also being one of the best in the game. He has a right to play basketball too.

As for staff changes, I think its going to be an interesting off season. With some sweeping changes at Regiment, we could see an entirely different corps from them next season. I'm still interested to see what happens at Crown. While I don't attribute their percussive struggles entirely to their instructional staff (I think the way they choose to design shows makes it difficult to feature percussion, and thus draw strong percussionists), I'm interested to see if they make a move their simply due to the recaps. Bluecoats look like their moving in a different direction visually, which could be interesting as well as I think their musical direction has been really solid the last decade or so.

Lots of interesting things going on. Any word on Cavaliers? Haven't heard much from that camp so far this offseason.

I'll just have to mostly disagree on most of what you've said here regarding BD and the visual effect caption. Yes, there are many things that they do that are done the best in the activity and ARE trend setters. They have many state of the art ideas. There are also other things that haven't been done as well visually, both from an execution point of view and programmatically as their peers. They get away with these more traditional things completely because they are so trend setting on the other stuff... That shouldn't be... Just because you have a new idea that you do so well doesn't mean you get to be less on the old ideas and still expect to be the best overall. That's a BIG disconnect for me.

Also, you mention that emotional engagement is "only" a third of the sheet. That's a pretty significant portion of the sheets to potentially ignore. For BD, it has not proportionally been reflected in their score since 2007. Basically, they could just completely ignore emotional engagement if they wanted to and still get almost perfect effect scores ( and they've proven this with several shows). Now I like and appreciate aspects of every show that they've performed, but I look at shows as a whole. I do not normally deconstruct the various captions like a judge would need to do. When I ask myself if I feel that their shows work for me from a GE standpoint with this specific type of design that they've been doing, I come to the conclusion that they do not. Their shows haven't worked for me as much on the whole. The shows looks "structured" and deliberate to me. The new effects ARE the best in the business, but the more traditional effects are pretty lacking compared to their peers and the execution of this isn't up to the standards of their non-traditional work. All that being said, they shouldn't change. I wouldn't change a thing staff-wise. I'd probably look towards a different design approach for the whole shows though, as this design approach is getting "stale" for them. Maybe they could throw me a bone and play a show with the following music:

Marius Nordal's Life Raft

ELP Trilogy

ELP Karn Evil 9

ELP Piano Concert No. 1

Pat Metheny's First Circle

This music would continue their tradition of using sources that provide complex chordal music for them to perform and would give their soloist opportunities to shine.

As far a Crown... Does the Crown organization really consider themselves "brass-centric"? I mean, I feel that they're pretty decent visually as well and their guard is one of the best as well. They just happened to have gotten some of the best brass people around from both a design standpoint AND a teaching standpoint. I'd be willing to wager that they're not putting less into the other captions.

As far as the staff merrigoround, I'm not sure what's going on... I would guess that the Cavaliers might have some new faces, but I haven't heard anything. I probably wouldn't say anything if I did and I wouldn't want to stir the pot around here either.

I hope that Madison stays the course with the designers that are in place and their membership just stays put another year so that the whole organization can grow.

Anyway, just had to chime in. I know there are some knowledgeable people on here but I wanted to give another opinion.

[jjeffeory]

Now that CROWN won the ultimate prize, when do we expect to see flight of staff? SCV has deep pockets and is probably licking her chops to get that brass staff to compliment that percussion team taken from PR. Once you win, there is only one other direction to go..

Not very likely but stranger things have happened...

Gotta remember that much of Crown's staff is related to the Cadets way back in the day. Wonder how Cadets got let them get away?

[jjeffeory]

Where is Phantom's 2008 staff? Where is Cavalier's glory years staff? After CADETS won in the eighties, Zingali, Sylvester, VanDoren, Twiggs all went to STAR for the increase in paycheck and to build another team. Just saying that the guys that built up Crown are now officially the DREAM TEAM by winning the Gold and people will be contacting them for sure. Whether they stay or go, time will tell but for every BD group that stay together, there are staffs that start to market themselves or just want a new challenge.

...and I can tell you that many of those staff from the above mentioned corps moved for reasons OTHER than $$$$$.

Let's given Crown a little while longer before we talk about their staff moving around.

[Medeabrass]

I don't want to speak out of turn, as you marched there and I did not. But Thom began working with Star of Indiana percussion midway through 1990. And it seems like a disservice to folks like Coley, Judd, Otto, Fitzgibbon, Clark, Huffman, Himsel, Reeves, etc to imply that it took Hannum arriving with UMass students to make Star percussion elite. Those guys and gals coming back, sometimes after multiple years, were no slouches. Much thanks to Hannum as well, of course.

I'm not disrespecting them at all. I thought they were already fantastic and elite, and then you bring in all of these other fantastic guys to join them in '93. It was a wealth of riches that made my jaw drop is all I'm trying to say. It was like having Magic Johnson, Bird and Lebron in their primes on your team, and then you bring in Jordan, Olajuwon, Dr J., and Pete Marovich.

Star won it all in '91, but I do not remember the VOLUME of experienced guys coming in. (Heck, we couldn't fill our brass line until halfway through the season...we were not the cool kids to march with back then). Clark came in with me in the class of '92 and I think even he would agree that the number of highly experienced new players, such as himself, were not as high in '92 as in '93. It was simply an embarrassment of riches...that percussion line went from multi-millionaire status to billionaire status.

Hopefully Clark's ears are burning and he'll chime in.

I also wasn't implying that '93 was Hannum's first year with the corps. I think I'm realizing why I haven't posted in a long time.[/thread officially hijacked]

Edited August 22, 2013 by Medeabrass

[actucker]

This quote is going to garner my first post on here in a year or two lol. Without trying to sound condescending, I am quite positive that Crown is happy with Thom Hannum as their percussion caption head. From an outsider's perspective it looks like they are only in the first stages of building their percussion program. Keep in mind that Matt Harloff and Donnie Vandoren came to Crown in 2003 and it took 7 seasons before they won the Jim Ott in 2009.

To me it's obvious that Crown percussion program doesn't have that far to climb but sometimes it can take a few years of recruiting and teaching before things really start to come together and gel...no matter how good the staff is. We can't all be as lucky as Star of Indiana '93 when Hannum brought in a truck load of his very finest and DCI-experienced students from UMass all at once.

(Not to derail, but coming from a guy in the brassline that year, the first camp I saw our percussion line, thoughts of the first US Olympic Basketball "Dream Team" came to mind...a true embarrassment of riches. The collective experience of the battery alone almost equaled the hornline ;) lol)

I agree that Hannum is fantastic, but he is not the day to day instructor there. He is the battery arranger.

Crown may or may not be happy with their instructional staff from a percussive perspective. I wouldn't know, or presume to speak for them. Simply speculating that when an organization goes into an offseason, typically their goal is to shore up their weaknesses. For a few years in a row now percussion has been one of their lowest scoring captions with a largely similar instructional staff. That's the only reason I even mention it. Who knows. I just think it will be interesting.

[trumpetcam]

Where is Phantom's 2008 staff? Where is Cavalier's glory years staff? After CADETS won in the eighties, Zingali, Sylvester, VanDoren, Twiggs all went to STAR for the increase in paycheck and to build another team. Just saying that the guys that built up Crown are now officially the DREAM TEAM by winning the Gold and people will be contacting them for sure. Whether they stay or go, time will tell but for every BD group that stay together, there are staffs that start to market themselves or just want a new challenge.

Music Staff (arrangers and/or caption heads)

Shaw and Rennick - SCV

Crotts - BD and now DCI Judge

Hampton - Boston

Other brass stayed, some left, but percussion all left with Paul. That was a pretty happening music staff in 08.

Edited August 23, 2013 by trumpetcam

[bullethead]

I'm not disrespecting them at all. I thought they were already fantastic and elite, and then you bring in all of these other fantastic guys to join them in '93. It was a wealth of riches that made my jaw drop is all I'm trying to say. It was like having Magic Johnson, Bird and Lebron in their primes on your team, and then you bring in Jordan, Olajuwon, Dr J., and Pete Marovich.

Star won it all in '91, but I do not remember the VOLUME of experienced guys coming in. (Heck, we couldn't fill our brass line until halfway through the season...we were not the cool kids to march with back then). Clark came in with me in the class of '92 and I think even he would agree that the number of highly experienced new players, such as himself, were not as high in '92 as in '93. It was simply an embarrassment of riches...that percussion line went from multi-millionaire status to billionaire status.

Hopefully Clark's ears are burning and he'll chime in.

I also wasn't implying that '93 was Hannum's first year with the corps. I think I'm realizing why I haven't posted in a long time.[/thread officially hijacked]

It may be tempting to compare Crown and Star, especially considering the strong links between the two groups. I will resist the temptation to do so.

Star was Star, and Crown is Crown.

I thoroughly enjoyed Crown's show, and I congratulate them for a fantastic season. Success never happens overnight.

(For whatever it's worth, Thom's writing for 2013 Crown was my personal favorite effort of his since I had the pleasure of performing his music in 1993 (there were also numerous "complaints" about his writing back then, too.....and it seems to be somewhat respected 20 years later, so don't push any panic buttons just yet). His writing has significantly evolved while retaining his usual musical integrity.)

[Bruckner8]

Watch the visual program. Any time the horns play anything of substance they are standing still (or sitting on bleachers) Although others in their competative neighborhood do that at times it not always.

Not to dredge this up again, but dude, you need to watch the Bluecoats Contra Cams from finals week:

Contra Babe:

Contra Dude:

Plenty of movement there!

[drilltech1]

Not very likely but stranger things have happened...

Gotta remember that much of Crown's staff is related to the Cadets way back in the day. Wonder how Cadets got let them get away?

[/quote

You present an interesting question for those unfamiliar with Cadet history.

Cavaliers' music arranger Dr. Drew Shanefield, Crown's visual designer Leon May, Cadets' visual designer Jeff Sacktig, Bluecoats' visual designer Jon Vanderkoff, and former Boston Crusaders' and Crossmen's visual designer and still Cadets' drill tech Professor Jason DeGroff all marched next to each other in the same Cadet soprano line for several seasons. Each teched for a bit at Cadets, but it was really a case of so much talent and new opportunities for growth.

Michael Klesch, Crown's music arranger, marched Cadets as a Holy Bass Drummer, then as DM, then as music arranger and brass instructor; he dealt with Hopkins as a student, then a peer, now two gurus. One of the Harloffs also graced Cadet halls along the way before landing at Crown. Ditto for former Cadet contra Chad Pence now of Boston's staff, once of Crown.

Cavaliers' guard designer Andy Toth marched Cadets guard for a while while both Crown's visual/program man Keith Potter and color guard whiz Rosie Miller Queen marched in the Cadets' Color guard, taught by fabulous guard icons Peggy Twiggs and April Gilligan Martinez.

Again, so much talent and so many opportunities.

Percussion wise, Dr. Thom Hannum, Hopkin's college roommate at West Chester State while marched Crossmen snares, did teach Cadets percussion where he taught Tom Aungst. Hannum was part of the Star of Indiana faculty bought by Bill Cook and now arranges for Crown. Aungst went on to teach great Cadet drum lines and returned this summer to consult, to clinic, and to clean. He taught Zack Schichtler, Crown's percussion man while Hannum arranges there now, in the Cadet drumline. But Tom Aungst is also a parent whose son marched Crown this year (to keep that father-son relationship more special than an instructor-student relationship.) Dad won the drum trophy, son won the World Class gold. And there is the irony that a Holy Bass drummer, Michael Klesch, now Crown's music genius, has won the Ott award three peat and now a World Class trophy with Crown as well. What bloodlines!

I probably forgot someone in this mix amongst the parents (Cadets), the kids (Star), and the grandkids, (Crown). Salutes to all these corps. We're all family, and sometimes hassle as most siblings do but the love and respect remains even when not always voiced.

Edited August 23, 2013 by drilltech1