MikeD Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Usually, I ignore these sort of empty arguments. But traffic is light on this forum today, so here goes. Drum corps has never "kept up with the times". What does that mean, anyway? There are two ways to interpret that reference. The one that seems germane to the discussion is instrument selection. In that sense, the premise of "keeping up with the times" is fallacious. We live in a time of advanced technology, where electronic synthesis and editing have rendered the live instrumental music performance unnecessary (or as some on this forum are fond of calling it, "irrelevant"). There was a day when the prevailing popular music was instrumental, decades in our past. Today, it is out of the spotlight. It persists largely due to tradition, and partly due to ego and a sporting interest among pockets of the population. Instrumental music is centuries old, and is not predicated on "keeping up with the times". As drum corps - and marching band, for that matter - both focus on instrumental music, they choose not to keep up with the times. They are activities predicated on the fundamental use of dated instruments. Of course, there are other ways to "keep up with the times". Playing the latest music, performing the latest visuals, developing our own trends within the activity... those are a few categories of examples. Drum corps has never remained stagnant in that regard, even when relegated to slings, leg rests and single-valve horns. So there is no reason to believe that it would ever remain stagnant on account of not making frequent equipment-related rule changes. Marching band makes no such rule changes - has it remained stagnant? MB does not have the limits on instrumentation that DCI has...so there is no need to make instrument-based rule changes. A MB can come out with a string section or a choir if it so chooses, for example. There is nothing to change in that regard. As to keepig up with the times...in the past, pre-DCI, if you looked at the pyramid of competitive marching/music from top to bottom, you had drum corps of all sizes and capabilities by the hundreds, with the best sitting at the top just like today. When I was in a parade corps and then a Garden State Circuit corps, we'd go to the class 'A' shows to see the top corps in our area like Garfield, BS, St Lucy's, Audobon, and others. The stands were full of corps jackets from the little corps close enough to the show to attend, and the kids from those corps who wanted to march at the top level moved to those top corps. Most of Garfield in my era was made up of kids from all over the tri-state area who marched in the smaller corps, and that followed through to all of the class 'A' corps. Of course, some did start and end in the single corps as well. Today...most of that pyramid is made up of the competitive HS bands that generate the marching members and a good chunk of the audience. As corps folded for all of the reasons that have been stated ad nauseum, starting pre-DCI and continuing into the DCI era, drum corps had to reach out to the area tha was filling the lower portion of the pyramid and adapt to those ensembles...the competitive MB. Staffs were moving between the two with relative ease through the 70's and beyond. Kids were recruited from their HS bands into the top corps, as there were fewer and fewer small corps left. MB circuits were formed, and corps judges added band shows to their repetoire. Corps-style bands became more and more popular. Corps continued to adopt elements from the band world in instrumentation...adding two and then three valves to horns, percussion additions like timpani, mallets, eventually the pit, all sorts of items. In many ways, drum corps was a victim of its own success, in that as more corps-experienced kids became music educators, they bought the corps-style and approach to their bands, and the popularity of smaller corps declined. I taught and judged in the GSC, and it became very tough to get members through the late 70's. Kids competed at a decent level in HS; why compete at that same level or lower in a small corps? DCI corps, and DCA too, really, have continued to adapt to the instrumentation of the band world...that is what I mean by keeping up with the times. The competitive bands are the 600 pound gorilla in the room in importance, like it or not. IMO, anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perc2100 Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 well again it comes down to if the judges say they don't sound good....what do you do? Mike you teach a band...if the judges say the equipment you have doesn't sound good and it's hurting your score...what do you do? take the hit or get what's needed? This has (sort of) happened to my band in the past. What we did was wait until we had raised money budgeted to replace instruments, replaced them, and went on. To be blunt, if a corps is going to fold dropping $5k on a sound system, they're likely going to fold w/out the sound system anyway. Poor management is poor management, and blaming electronics on poor management is splitting hairs at best, downright silly at worst. Glassmen did not go into massive debt because they bound a sound board & speakers, and the massive loss of corps from the late 70's - late 90's before any-key brass or electronics shows that bad management folds corps regardless of current design trends. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 well again it comes down to if the judges say they don't sound good....what do you do? Mike you teach a band...if the judges say the equipment you have doesn't sound good and it's hurting your score...what do you do? take the hit or get what's needed? not that I am saying the cost of equipment is killing the activity. it's minor compared to fuel, food etc. But every bit helps, and far too often the rationalizations trotted out to support the changes are riddled with holes.....and then to back it up, those pushing for more and more are the most vocal begging for funds. it does have a way to turning people off You are talking to the wrong person, actually. We used VERY old speakers, mics and amp (10-15 years old) to mic the pit and the occasional soloist (flute, english horn and cello), up until this past season when we got a nice new mixing board and speakers and added a synth. So...we took whatever hit we had to. Certainly did not spend money we did not have. The most vocal looking for $$ know that it is a 24/7/365 job, so I have no problem with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 You're correct, but if you think adding a sound system is the financial problem, you know nothing about the costs of running a corps. Did I say sound systems were "the" problem? The HS I teach at purchased a new digital soundboard this year and subwoofers, as well as new speakers last year. A few years before that we bought a new top-of-the-line sound module and midi controller. The grand total for essentially a brand new sound system = roughly $6000: or one or two members' annual corps fee (IDK how much corps fees are now). And that is without any major discount or endorser price (which I assure you is significantly less than the awesome deal we got). What you described is useless for pit amplification without microphones - certainly not a complete sound system. As for the quality, well, I am sure the salesman said it was top of the line. So the cost of electronics is WAY less than, say, gas for a drum corps convoy from the west coast to the mid-west, or feeding 200 people three meals a day. Those major costs have not changed in decades. If you want to talk about G-any key brass, corps got any key brass when they phased out their G brass. Brass is a necessity in the activity, so changing keys didn't really affect cost too much (and I know of OC corps who started BECAUSE it was cheaper to use regular band brass as opposed to having to buy a fleet of G bugles right off the bat). The expenses are largely the day-to-day expenses required of a traveling corps, and not expenses due to any new equipment I will repeat this as often as needed. People in high places say costs are a problem. Rather than question and verify their claim, I am trying to suspend my own opinion on that and be part of a forward moving discussion. Progress is very slow, however, because every cost has a constituency that will complain at the first suggestion of cutting that cost. Are you just one of those constituencies, or are you interested in solving the problem? To solve the problem, we need to consider every cost - not based on its raw amount, but on how much it can be cut. Okay, as an example, you and others keep saying that A&E is a small budget item compared to food and fuel. But a corps cannot participate in DCI without food, or without fuel - those are necessities. Their costs can only be reduced in small percentages, if at all. A&E, meanwhile, is a cost that could in theory be completely deleted from the budget of a DCI corps. So show me a bigger cost saver than that - because that is what we should be discussing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 To be blunt, if a corps is going to fold dropping $5k on a sound system, they're likely going to fold w/out the sound system anyway. Poor management is poor management, and blaming electronics on poor management is splitting hairs at best, downright silly at worst. Glassmen did not go into massive debt because they bound a sound board & speakers, and the massive loss of corps from the late 70's - late 90's before any-key brass or electronics shows that bad management folds corps regardless of current design trends. How to convey this concept? No corps folded over amps. No corps folded over synths. No corps folded over Bb/F brass. No corps folded over 14-person pits. No corps folded over marimbas. No corps folded over vibraphones. No corps folded over tympani. No corps folded over tuned bass drums. No corps folded over multi-tenor drums. No corps folded over tymp-toms. No corps folded over rudimental bass drums. No corps folded over mylar/kevlar heads. No corps folded over 3-valve horns. No corps folded over 2-valve horns. No corps folded over valve-rotor horns. No corps folded over valve-slide horns. No corps folded over 1-valve horns. No corps folded over a nationwide trip. No corps folded over a nationwide tour. No corps folded over a longer tour. No corps folded over full season touring. No corps folded over rising fuel costs. No corps folded over rising insurance costs. No corps folded over rising leasing costs. No corps folded over rising food costs. No corps folded over rising housing costs. But how many corps folded over some combination of factors from this list? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cixelsyd Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 MB does not have the limits on instrumentation that DCI has...so there is no need to make instrument-based rule changes. A MB can come out with a string section or a choir if it so chooses, for example. There is nothing to change in that regard. I know that. That is my point. All that freedom, all that creativity, and all that time - and what was the one change marching band made that was most impactful, most successful, and most relevant to any current trend? The corps-style marching band movement! As to keepig up with the times...in the past, pre-DCI, if you looked at the pyramid of competitive marching/music from top to bottom, you had drum corps of all sizes and capabilities by the hundreds, with the best sitting at the top just like today. When I was in a parade corps and then a Garden State Circuit corps, we'd go to the class 'A' shows to see the top corps in our area like Garfield, BS, St Lucy's, Audobon, and others. The stands were full of corps jackets from the little corps close enough to the show to attend, and the kids from those corps who wanted to march at the top level moved to those top corps. Most of Garfield in my era was made up of kids from all over the tri-state area who marched in the smaller corps, and that followed through to all of the class 'A' corps. Of course, some did start and end in the single corps as well. Today...most of that pyramid is made up of the competitive HS bands that generate the marching members and a good chunk of the audience. As corps folded for all of the reasons that have been stated ad nauseum, starting pre-DCI and continuing into the DCI era, drum corps had to reach out to the area tha was filling the lower portion of the pyramid and adapt to those ensembles...the competitive MB. Staffs were moving between the two with relative ease through the 70's and beyond. Kids were recruited from their HS bands into the top corps, as there were fewer and fewer small corps left. MB circuits were formed, and corps judges added band shows to their repetoire. Corps-style bands became more and more popular. Corps continued to adopt elements from the band world in instrumentation...adding two and then three valves to horns, percussion additions like timpani, mallets, eventually the pit, all sorts of items. In many ways, drum corps was a victim of its own success, in that as more corps-experienced kids became music educators, they bought the corps-style and approach to their bands, and the popularity of smaller corps declined. I taught and judged in the GSC, and it became very tough to get members through the late 70's. Kids competed at a decent level in HS; why compete at that same level or lower in a small corps? DCI corps, and DCA too, really, have continued to adapt to the instrumentation of the band world...that is what I mean by keeping up with the times. That sounds more like giving up, not keeping up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Corps make choices all the time on what they buy or don't buy, be it horns, snares, tenors, amps, unis, flags, props, etc., based on their own finances. I guess you consider a corps to be penalized if they do not buy new snares when their old ones are no longer top notch? I thought that I was done posting in this thread, but thanks for the prompt to continue. ‘We’ are not penalizing corps who fail to keep up with the Jones’s instrument choices because ‘We’ assess the quality of sounds produced by Mylar heads, G horns, and unamplified Marimbas just as qualitative as ‘We’ assess the sounds produced from Kevlar heads, Bb/F horns, and amplified Marimbas. ‘We’ certainly do hear differences in sound between the Cadets 1989 version of Les Mis and the 2013 version from SCV; but both sounds are very qualitative to our ears. Is the ‘sound’ from the Chicago Symphony an 'improvement' because they are using modern brass whereas the Academy of Ancient Music performs on period instruments? Nope; just different sounds are being produced. And quite frankly I, for one, enjoy hearing the music of Mozart and Beethoven on period instrumentation as much as I enloy hering the music performed on modern instrumentation. It is the current marching arts judging community's opinion, including you, who are the ones claiming that the Bb/F sound is an ‘improvement’ over G, or claim that an amplified Marimba sound is an ‘improvement’ over acoustic. And when the game is about pleasing the opinionated judges to get higher scores, well... only the Jones’s corps who are spending money on those changes and the corps which attempt to keep up with the spending of the Jones’s corps will get those higher scores. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 I know that. That is my point. All that freedom, all that creativity, and all that time - and what was the one change marching band made that was most impactful, most successful, and most relevant to any current trend? The corps-style marching band movement! That sounds more like giving up, not keeping up. No. It is not giving up. It is looking to survive as an activity, as always, and wanting to be better. Look at the list of items you noted...some go back before DCI. We should applaud the history of drum corps as an art form in ever-striving to create a better product in both hardware (instruments, unis, flags) and software (the programs created), to give the members and audience a great experience. For me, I loved seeing my first show in 1964, and I loved seeing my most recent in 2013, but that is just MHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 This has (sort of) happened to my band in the past. What we did was wait until we had raised money budgeted to replace instruments, replaced them, and went on. To be blunt, if a corps is going to fold dropping $5k on a sound system, they're likely going to fold w/out the sound system anyway. Poor management is poor management, and blaming electronics on poor management is splitting hairs at best, downright silly at worst. Glassmen did not go into massive debt because they bound a sound board & speakers, and the massive loss of corps from the late 70's - late 90's before any-key brass or electronics shows that bad management folds corps regardless of current design trends. agreed.....I'm not talking baout it killing a corps. i'm going after the "optional" angle. The option is get it, or scores suffer. So, is it really "optional"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 You are talking to the wrong person, actually. We used VERY old speakers, mics and amp (10-15 years old) to mic the pit and the occasional soloist (flute, english horn and cello), up until this past season when we got a nice new mixing board and speakers and added a synth. So...we took whatever hit we had to. Certainly did not spend money we did not have. The most vocal looking for $$ know that it is a 24/7/365 job, so I have no problem with that. so you're ok then if you're told your old equipment is hurting your scores, even if it's "optional"? because the option is get better stuff, or scores stay low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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