Can someone explain the G Bugles?

[alumniof]

alumniof -

Your post includes this statement . . .

"My source of marching entertainment now is college marching band. They're big, loud, entertain the audience and I really don't care if it's difficult or they are the all-stars or not. I feel the sound, they blow me back and they're having fun."

THANK YOU!

Standing in front of Alabama's Million Dollar Band as they do a pep rally on the library steps brings tears of joy to my eyes. Of course, it could be those majorettes, they are stunning in every way!

I have a few of the band's CDs. Crank those up and it's big time 70s drum corps all over again.

I don't think the majorettes have anything to do with that joy.

[Stu]

Yes there are sound differences between G and Bb/F. Just like there are sound differences between conical and straight bore, or sound differences between cornets and trumpets, or sound differences between materials used in construction. And yes the G horns have the sound qualities differences stated by many posters on DCP. However, the DCI switch from G to Bb/F was really nothing more than shear marketing and an attempt at easier recruitment. The companies like Yamaha, King, Jupiter can now market their Bb/F horns played by the top DCI corps to University and High School band programs all around the world; and the corps can now have an easier time recruiting because students do not have to learn a whole new system to get into a drum corps. The real bottom line question is: Has it worked for the company marketing and worked for DCI recruitment?

[Stu]

I don't think the majorettes have anything to do with that joy.

Hey Alumniof: Are these uniforms going to be similar to those in your Evangelical Corps? Just askin'.

[JimF-LowBari]

2 valves. Bigger bore. Things may have changed when they went to 3 valve?

Same thought I had, after corps went to 3v what else needed to be different other than key? Been told difference now is length of lead pipe but beats me.

And to answer Stu another reason to go to Bb I read that made sense was it would be easier for new corps to start as members could bring their own horns and save on the corps start up costs. Oh well... too little, too late?

[alumniof]

Yes there are sound differences between G and Bb/F. Just like there are sound differences between conical and straight bore, or sound differences between cornets and trumpets, or sound differences between materials used in construction. And yes the G horns have the sound qualities differences stated by many posters on DCP. However, the DCI switch from G to Bb/F was really nothing more than shear marketing and an attempt at easier recruitment. The companies like Yamaha, King, Jupiter can now market their Bb/F horns played by the top DCI corps to University and High School band programs all around the world; and the corps can now have an easier time recruiting because students do not have to learn a whole new system to get into a drum corps. The real bottom line question is: Has it worked for the company marketing and worked for DCI recruitment?

Recruiting? Is there really a recruiting problem? I don't remember a kid ever saying "wait a minute.....are you telling me that the instruments they use are the exact same fingerings but a different key? I'm out". "Hey, band directors, we're playing what you have! Do you like us now and think we're just so awesome". (Uh, no....we're still jealous and competition ruins kids). DCI, want to appease band directors? Drop competition, but even then realize.....band directors don't want to be happy or appeased. They just want to ##### about something and be glossed and considered really intelligent and liked by the peers they brown nose who kick their ### every time "their" band plays a long tone with a trillion overtones. I used to be a band director and have a degree in music ed so I feel completely qualified to make this statement. As dumb as some band directors are, I don't think they're "that" dumb to believe "hey, Crown plays Yamaha which means if you play Yamaha you'll sound like them". May work for Nike and football jerseys, but a crap budget to BD who hate business to begin with??? I played trombone and played baritone in drum corps OH MY GOD!!!! I HAD TO LEARN A WHOLE NEW SYSTEM. WHAT THE HELL ARE MY BRAIN CELLS GOING TO DO. I don't get the arguments.....we gloss these kids how smart and special they are....so much more advance than us because they can twitter at 6 months - yet, they can't play a G bugle when us idiots who couldn't figure out how to unscramble porn or stop the blinking light on the VCR did it with NO PROBLEMS. I feel like eating a squirrel everytime I hear the lame excuses served to us showing how ignorant and lost (if the excuses are true) why they can't find a way to simply please the general public. Newsflash - the general public likes something LOUD, ENTERTAINING AND THEY CAN TAP THEIR FOOT TO AND DANCE AND EAT (and drink). Can't drink at DCI? Really? Uneducational. Here's the education - you can drink as an adult. I'm not saying to turn this into one big Bush League but the bottom line is here is your audience - the people who marched DCI before, the general public and the kids parents who think there kids are awesome even if they are gutter trash (it's true). But, nobody wants to go to a science fair, a psychology course, a history lesson. Titanic, the movie, succeeded because of the love story - and it snuck in a history lesson at the same time. Brilliant. Jurassic Park - brilliant. You can teach us something without throwing some intellectual mind screw from beat one. Oh yeah.....I didn't get it. And DCI, you're killing music. You are PROVING that music is nothing more than background to something greater. Something to be done to, not something to listen to. It's a supporting cast, not the star.

[alumniof]

Hey Alumniof: Are these uniforms going to be similar to those in your Evangelical Corps? Just askin'.

I just present the topics for discussion. There is nothing wrong with the uniform. If there is a problem, it's the problem of the mind interpreting the image that they see. Personally, I thought I'd get some thanks for the photo. I heard to search for a good one. I mean, it is Alabama after all (oooooooooooooooooooh). Go Noles.

Edited August 14, 2013 by alumniof

[fsubone]

The problem with comparing the early days to today is that in 2000 and 2001 the Bb/F horns being used were nowhere close to the ones being used today. In 2000, for instance, I know the Cadets used off-the-shelf Yamaha trumpets with smaller bore sizes, among other things. Today the marching horns in Bb/F are far superior to those horns.

IMO it is how the staffs mold their desired ensemble sounds far more than the physical horns that make the biggest difference today versus, say, 1999.

True, but the early 2000s was the only time we had overlap of G horn lines and Bb ones. So you can listen to Cadets and BD that first year, and alternate the shows and placements with Cavaliers and SCV, both on G.

[funkjazzaxe]

As a high school saxophone player, what made me want to march in a drum corps was the fact it was all brass, and that the instruments were special G bugles- not standard Bb band instruments everyone else played. I guess to a lot of people, they don't really care, but to me it was a huge factor in my decision to learn a brass horn from scratch and audition/make it in to a top 12 drum corps. If they all played trumpets and tubas, I honestly don't think I would have viewed it the same. I would have viewed it as something like a summer honors brass band or something... probably wouldn't have been that interested and thus never marched. It was the unique nature of the instrumentation that set it apart- it sounded and looked like nothing else. I miss G brass. My conspiracy theory is that Yamaha had a lot to do with it. They didn't (I don't think) make G bugles, and by allowing band instruments in DCI they could ink "total package" deals with corps to use nothing but Yamaha. All of a sudden Yamaha was everywhere and had its mark all over DCI.

I served on the board of directors for a few years with a World Class corps, right after the Bb switch and the new age of buying equipment at cost in the winter, then selling it off the truck after Finals every year (one of the pushes for Bb). While our members got shiny new trumpets and tubas every season, I thought in a way they were missing out on a cool aspect of drum corps. It felt like we were just "borrowing" those horns for a couple months, there was no sense of corps ownership or "soul" in those things. Flashback to the days of G horns and hornlines playing the same instruments for a few seasons or more, and those things just had way more mojo. Sure there were some dings and roadwear, but those horns felt like a part of the corps. Today everything just feels kind of "leased" and disposable. The demise of G bugles was kind of the tipping point in the current direction. I remember Jeff Fiedler (then with Cavies) stating that the change to Bb was and would be the single biggest change ever in the history if drum corps- I totally agree.

[Stu]

There is nothing wrong with the uniform. If there is a problem, it's the problem of the mind interpreting the image that they see. Personally, I thought I'd get some thanks for the photo. I heard to search for a good one. I mean, it is Alabama after all (oooooooooooooooooooh). Go Noles.

So, let me make sure I am understanding you correctly... it would be fine for your Evangelical Corps uniforms to have scantly clad youth, girls showing a lot of cleavage, males showing off tight gluteus maximus, the corps presenting hymns of praise to the Almighty, and all of this Evangelizing the Great Commission, and the problem, if it became an issue, would be in the mind of the audience interpreting that 'incorrectly'? Okey, Dokey.

addendum note: Hmmmmm... on second thought I suppose that as long as they were playing G bugles in their scantly clad uniforms of much cleavage and exposed cheeks performing praise to the Almighty it would actually be interpreted correctly.

Edited August 14, 2013 by Stu

[alumniof]

So, let me make sure I am understanding you correctly... it would be fine for your Evangelical Corps uniforms to have scantly clad youth, girls showing a lot of cleavage, males showing off tight gluteus maximus, the corps presenting hymns of praise to the Almighty, and all of this Evangelizing the Great Commission, and the problem, if it became an issue, would be in the mind of the audience interpreting that 'incorrectly'? Okey, Dokey.

Okay, so you want to do battle. Typical hole. First, you don't want to understand me correctly - you want to argue. Understanding is not your point, fighting is. First, I don't have an evangelical corps. Second, I said I present topics. Third, I said nothing of uniforms that they would wear. Fourth, I said nothing about cleavage. Fifth, I said nothing about males. Sixth I said nothing about gluteus maximus. Seventh, I never said anything about hymns. Eighth, I never said anything about Almighty. Ninth, I never said anything about the Great Commission. Tenth, you just proved my point that the issue is in the mind of the reader and the observer - not the stimulus. What do you think of when I say BS? Do you believe in your own BS? What words you thinking of? I use the initials BS for belief system and I'm sure that's not what you thought. Again, proving my point.

Edited August 14, 2013 by alumniof