DCI BOD Drama....more to come?

[Jeff Ream]

Your posting here is a typical type response when you can no longer support your position. Unless you are being obtuse, you have to admit that the leaders who pushed DCI into the mess you so despise are also the leaders you also want to follow now.

or he's just quoting you accurately

[Jeff Ream]

In case I am misunderstood, I love Drum Corps, and I am NOT against change. I do however feel most of the changes have been for the sake of change, and to chase this mystical "new fan/member", and that is not for the good of the activity. Not good because it has really not been well thought out, and none of them in whole or part have made much of a positive impact to the activity IMO.

In fact, if we focused less on the changes we have made or contemplate making regarding instrumentation that closes the gap between drum corps and band, and spend more time focusing on how to keep drum corps around beyond all of our lives, we could be in a slightly better, more optimistic place for the whole activity.

Just a thought...

amen

[Jeff Ream]

Harkening back to BOD drama for a moment. Did the MIM/DCI issue ever get resolved to everyone's satisfaction, or were the TOC shows a band aid? I'm just wondering if we're going to see the same fight flare up again in the near future?

Mike

no it has not. but it seems even the 7 can't all agree on direction

[cixelsyd]

more thought needs to be put into eliminating the word "bugle" from the activity.

I think that has already been done, quite some time ago. Could you give an example of where DCI uses the word "bugle"? It is not in their name, not on the judging sheets, and not in colloquial usage among the people actually participating in the activity.

Yes, it's blasphemy. But its time to start having the conversation about letting woodwinds in. The activity has already moved in that direction, its the natural progression. If the marching arts are to survive, we have to find a way to market the activity to more people and become more inclusive.

Woodwinds are no more of a "natural progression" than us growing antlers. But okay, let us try to have a conversation.

You mention marketing the activity to more people. Which people are we not currently marketing to? As previous posts indicate, the one group we definitely market to is scholastic bands, so that is a done deal. What other group are we unable to market to because of DCI not having woodwinds?

As for becoming "more inclusive", please explain what problem that will solve. Nearly every DCI member corps is full, and turning away kids by the hundreds.

[MikeD]

Nice diatribe; however the question still stands: Did Hopkins have a major leadership role in all of the massive DCI tour expansions, the elimination of the regional systems, and other DCI organizational changes, which you previously complained about that massively increased DCI organizational outlays?

No.

[MikeD]

Thats just speculation, MikeD. Its just as likely that the Twenty Somethings of today that enjoy the current shows and instrumention may find that once they get into their 40's or so and the shows continue to " evolve " into the use of saxophones, clarinets, flutes, and drum majors that engage in high stepping, with whistles planted in their mouth and with with batons ( but no sabres, rifles in the auxiilary dance troupe, etc ),... that the younger generation of 13-22 of then might like this " evolution " of so callled" Drum Corps", but that the current Twenty Somethings that'll be in in their 40's by then might believe that " Drum Corps " has " evolved " into something that they too no longer relate to either. And that could be a real problem if the next generation of legacy fans does not contribute financially to Corps fund raising efforts as the current legacy alums and fans do to keep the few remaining Drum Corps afloat.

Of course it is my opinion...just about everything posted here are peoples' opinions.

And note...I did not reference WW at all. I said the new shows and the items being used....I was thinking about what is there now...such as A&E, modern visual designs, guards, etc...not what might come along down the road.

Hopefully DCI will add WW, but that is not anything I noted in my post that you responded to. If they are added, the marching members who march with them in use will over time become the legacy fans that marched in DCI with WW.

[MikeD]

I think you're right as far as speculation. I think not relating is just something that happens to many ( not all BUT many for sure ) in every activity. I have uncles who were involved way BITD and couldnt relate by the early 70s and still bark about it and cousins involved in the activity after I aged out that cant relate yet I still teach and involved...depends on alot why someone doesnt relate to something anymore.....could be anything from the activity has gone far beyond and isn't like someone remembers anymore...... to someones ego.

Agree. My dad went to a show in the late 70's and bemoaned the loss of the old off-the-lines and exits. He hated seeing corps start and end on the field.

[MikeD]

A lot of it has to do ( imo ) with the fact that there is no other youth activity, nor competitive sport, nor musical entities ( with symphony instrumentation changes, orchestra instrumentation changes etc ) that has undergone more transformative ( or some might say radical ) " evolving " than has the Drum & Bugle Corps musical ensemble. Not Opera. Not the Symphony. Not Baseball. Not Soccer. Not anything, as near as I can tell. Even Major Leauge Baseball has repeatedly forbidden the use of the advanced technology aluminum bat... instead opting to remain with the traditional Louisville Slugger that as the principal weapon of competition ( along with the unchanged baseball ) essentially has not changed in more than a century.Most big city devotees of their Symphony would have a coronary if the regular and normal instrumentation of these genres decided to permanently utilize electric guitars with a guitar section sitting beside the first trumpet section as a means of " evolving " the genre. Seen inthis context, it is quite understandable to me to see why the Drum & Bugle Corps genre has bled the loss of so many fans over the years. There are levels and degrees of " change", in most everything. Drum Corps has changed more in the last 50 years than perhaps anything else we could possibly think of in the youth group competitive realm.

There are no limits to what other musical units you mention can use. One difference between marching music and an orchestra concert is that the orchestra playing Beethoven's 9th is playing the symphony as written by Beethoven in the 19th century, hence there would be no guitars (we hope!). A modern orchestral piece might well include a guitar, and the orchestra would be perfectly free to use one for that piece.

Drum corps is making specfic arrangements of the original work, and it has to use what is available for the genre. Beethoven did not write his music for bands, be it the drum corps version or HS/College marching band. The arrangers today take the original and modify it for the band genre, be it corps, MB or any other type of band ensemble. Heck, my HS band director, an orchestral oboe player by desire, had our concert band play primarily transcriptions of the great orchstral literature, as opposed to original works for band.

[cixelsyd]

Its not as simple as yes or no. There are way too many factors that have contributed to how drum corps has changed through the years to point specifically at one thing or one person. For example, the biggest economic set back to drum corps, or any activity for that matter is the cost of transportation. 15 years ago, the cost of fuel was a fraction of what it is today. I don't know this for fact, but I'm guess that the number one expenditure on a touring drum corps budget is fuel. Add to that housing cost, the rising cost of food, supplies, etc., and it isn't feasible to make drum corps work economically as it did 10-15 years ago.

Or how about marketing and corporate partnerships? Do you understand how much partnerships influence what organizations due today and how important they are? The instrument makers use drum corps as a marketing tool to help sell instruments. They give the corps instruments, the corps let them use their logos and photos and say "Hey, the Cadets use Yamaha, you should too!", and that helps them sell instruments. But when Yamaha began to figure out that kids weren't buying G bugles, and that they had a better chance of selling horns, electronics, etc. when the Cadets we're actually using these instruments, then it was a no brainer that they try and find a way to help persuade the drum corps community to use these instruments. So doesn't it make sense then that they would want to have woodwinds included in one of the biggest music stages in the US? And why wouldn't it make sense for DCI? You would reach hundreds of thousands of new possible participants! You would grow the activity! And you would bring a sense of renewed trust and new marketing activities with several of your corporate sponsors. Win-win! I'm thinking with these new marketing opportunities, you would more than cover the cost of any potential instrument repairs you might have on tour.

Sorry, but I do not follow your logic. See, the reality of it is that even back when fuel was cheap and housing abundant, we had about 20 corps that were full while the rest, no matter how hard they worked at it, could not recruit quite that many people. Now, despite all the types of changes you point out having occurred in the interim, we still have about 20 full corps while the rest, no matter how hard they work at it, cannot quite recruit that same number of people. There is nothing to suggest that adding yet another wave of band instruments is going to change that reality.

The number of kids participating in DCI is not a function of what instruments DCI corps use.

[cixelsyd]

And let's be honest about a few things while we're at it. For years marching bands were influenced by drum corps. The sound, the drill, marching brands would strive to be just like drum corps. But somewhere in the past 15 years, that culture changed. Now it's marching bands that are leading the way. And it was going to change whether we wanted it to or not. Marching bands have become so good, that they have begun to influence what drum corps do. For example - it was marching bands who started using electronics far before drum corps, and that's what fed the electronics frenzy. And marching bands we're using b-flat brass instruments before drum corps. This is not something the Hop initiated, it was going to happen regardless, he is just one of the few people smart enough to be open to change. Drum corps was just trying to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape.

Several misconceptions here. First, neither corps nor bands lead the way in design - people do. With that in mind... we went for many decades with bands and corps not copying each other. It was not even possible to do (muich less assess) on a large scale until the day when technology provided readily available recordings. Most impressions of what followed are colored by what limited exposure each of us had to the band activity in our own circles. Today we have 100 times as many competitive HS bands as DCI corps, and Internet access to much of their video; naturally, we tend to see more creditable design ideas on the band side today compared to 35 years ago, when there were ten times as many corps and fewer competitive bands. That does not mean that the Santa Clara Vanguard is making design decisions because of what Lawrence Central or Avon did last year.