Cause and Effect?

[Daave]

Joe Walsh may have lost more than a few brain cells over the years, but this take on music and performances (though a bit off topic) kinda ring true the discussion about the "old" acts and maybe even DCI today.

I dunno...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8bZsglsLLs

[garfield]

Joe Walsh may have lost more than a few brain cells over the years, but this take on music and performances (though a bit off topic) kinda ring true the discussion about the "old" acts and maybe even DCI today.

I dunno...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8bZsglsLLs

Wow, I loved a lot of his music BITD, and I can really relate to his viewpoint.

He does sound an awful lot like much of the discussion on DCP, but he has much more fatalism (or reality) in his voice.

I wonder about today's kids, though, who are the target market - would they care about Walsh's passion?

Probably not.

[Daave]

Wow, I loved a lot of his music BITD, and I can really relate to his viewpoint.

He does sound an awful lot like much of the discussion on DCP, but he has much more fatalism (or reality) in his voice.

I wonder about today's kids, though, who are the target market - would they care about Walsh's passion?

Probably not.

I would imagine, he would be called a Dinosaur and and be told to not let the door hit him in the ### on the way out.

[quietcity]

But the question is: Why, after 30 - 40 years, can they still get it? What appeal do they have which brings those who have seen them many times to continue to pay the outrageous prices for tickets, to bring in new fans to pay the outrageous prices, and to sell out pro sports stadiums all across the nation, and world-wide, each and every tour?

Another reason: The Stones and other old-man bands are non-renewable resources. When Jagger checks out, the Stones will instantly cease to be. And the community that gathers at each concert will cease along with it. Ask any Dead Head what it was like when Jerry Garcia died, and you will get the idea.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Since we're all trying on theories, how's this one, still only half baked:

Someone mentioned the early '80s, exemplified by '83 Garfield, as an era when innovation in the expression of drum and bugle corps was plain to see and hear, and was enthusiastically received by the mass audience. For purposes of this theory, I'll push back that era to the late '70s, when SCV introduced assymetrical design. Trophies were raining down on Vanguard in those days, and crowds leaned forward whenever they stepped on the field. They did the same with Garfield, whose brass technique, show design and approach to marching pointed the entire activity in a new direction.

My hypothesis: The innovation of the late '70s and early '80s accelerated drum and bugle corps participants -- the kids on the field -- toward the limits of what a human body can do in the service of performing as a musical ensemble in motion on a football field. We have reached those limits, and further innovation in drum and bugle corps necessarily involves elements of art that are less tangible and much more open to interpretation, thus debate, thus ambivalence among the audience.

That's the theory. The evidence:

Tempos are up. Santa Clara stepped off the line at finals in 1981 at about 138 beats per minute. Later, in the same show, they cranked it up to 160 and briefly touched about 182 -- while parked in a concert set. In 1983, Garfield charged off the line and through the "Z-pull" at about 182, and DCI has had the foot on the accelerator ever since. Thirty years ago, the boundary used to be the far reaches of allegro. Today corps spend much of their time, on the move, at presto.

From the start, you could see some of the effect on the drill. It became more follow-me, less dress-and-cover. More about individual responsibility, less about relationship to the form. And you could hear it in the music, especially in the battery. The Blue Devils in 1982 roared to the end of their opener at 132 bpm. The snare line was spitting fire, all 32nd-note rolls and what us dinos call "singles," or 24th-note sextuplets. The battery music was thick, thick, thick with notes -- and boy howdy it was c-l-e-a-n. Spirit's drum line of that era was the same; it seemed to be a contest which line could cram more notes into each measure. It was the stuff that made wannabe DCI drummers like me swoon.

In 2014, you'll listen long and hard before you hear an honest-to-God single coming from a snare line. It was hard enough to get clean when you were marching 12 snares elbow-to-elbow in a straight line at 132. At today's tempos, with snare drums (usually only 8 or 9) scattered across the field, it's #### near impossible. Today's battery music is much more duple-based. Rolls, conversely, are much more likely to be 24th-note vs. the 32nd-note rolls of the older, slower, era. Today's battery music is less dense, but much faster, with much more drill demand.

The change in the approach to brass has been even more dramatic. The early '80s introduced Donnie Van Doren's "breathe-dah" approach to playing on the field, and of course the instruments themselves have changed. It all improved tonality, balance and the overall quality of the brass sound in the activity, though perhaps at the expense of volume.

According to my half-baked theory, for much of the past 30 years audience response to these changes has been generally enthusiastic. Why? Because fans saw the same activity -- bang drums, blow horns, spin flags -- but they saw it at faster tempos and with more complex, stimulating design. Company fronts formed out of nowhere (cool!) and then dissolved (even more cool!). The music was still largely familiar and accessible, but the activity was pushing the frontier of what a performer could achieve in terms of musicality, demand, expression. We could all relate to what the performers were doing -- pushing themselves to the upper reaches of their capability. We could cheer that, just as we cheer a sprinter who sets a world record in the most ancient and familiar of contests, the 100-meter dash. It's the same activity, performed to a superlative degree. One of the reaons why baseball was so cherished by so many for so long was that so many of its fans grew up playing the game. They could relate to the major-leaguers on some level because they were running the same bases and swinging the same bats. In a similar way (the theory goes), as long as innovation in drum corps resided in the realm of the physical, fans could relate to it.

But there comes a limt to how fast you can move and play a horn with quality, to say nothing of having any air at all to supply to the instrument. There's a limit to lung capacity and aerobic demand, and the increased emphasis in modern drum corps on physical fitness is one piece of evidence that innovation during the past 30 years has come from maximizing the physical capability of the performers. Still, there's a limit to how fast the hands can throw down the sticks and maintain a cohesive ensemble sound that projects clarity and musicality across a large distance -- from the field to the press box. No other ensemble musical form demands so much projection of music across so great a distance. We've already passed the boundary where the body, if it is to cover as much ground as quickly as today's drill demands, must abandon military bearing and adopt dance technique.

My theory says drum corps has moved closer to those limits during the past 30 years than it did during from its inception to 1980. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but really, how much faster than 184 or 200 bpm can a human march? How much faster than 184 or 208 does a listener want to hear? The upper limit of musicality, according to most metronomes, is 208. Today's drum corps spend much of their time on the field in close proximity to that limit.

(Of course, today's corps play plenty of music at adante and adagio tempos, and indeed, some of the most beautiful and memorable brass moments come during ballads. But the theory, I think, still holds, if the activity has reached the physical limits of what can be achieved by 80 horns on a field. Perhaps there are advancements in technique or music education that will squeeze mo' betta' out of horn lines at these slower tempos, and possibly faster tempos, but as far as I'm aware, the "breathe-dah" approach to marching brass first mastered by Garfield in the early 80s remains the fundamental principle).

So, where will innovation come from? As innovation leaves the realm of the physical, it enters the realm of the intellectual. It has left the realm of tempo, drill, and musical technique, and has entered the realm of design, theme, and meaning. There isn't much left to squeeze out of 80 horns spread across a football field already zooming around at 184, so innovation comes from new rules, new instruments, new themes and concepts. The programming moves from the familiar and accessible to the esoteric.

From the fan's perspective, this is no longer innovation within a familiar form, but an entirely new form. It's no longer new kids doing the same thing only better; it's new kids doing different things.

No wonder a lot of fans sit on their hands.

[Fred Windish]

Nothing half-baked about your theories, friend. And, even if you're drinking too much coffee, I'd like some of that, too! I enjoy the continual analysis of this progression. One that has almost completely changed the way audiences respond. Changed, but NOT in a good way in my view. This change has made it far less likely other families in your typical neighborhood will go away as easily enthused about getting more of our product, as they once would have.

All it would take is for someone to sit in the stands with a legal pad to record cause and effect relationships. To me, audiences are still relatively random assemblies. Certain design choices always generated, and continue to generate the same positive responses from the audience. Some are quite basic and apply no matter which corps. From a marketing standpoint, certain elements, like these, must be maintained, probably included a little more often.

I agree, the football field, as stage, now inhibits where the creativity wants to go. Thus, my belief more of 'drum corps' will move inside. Inside where lighting effects, image projections, mics, dependable weather and comfort, etc. are consistently available. Blasphemy, I know.

Edited March 9, 2014 by Fred Windish

[BigW]

Fred, Japan's indoor for many good reasons, and the Japanese consistently create very well-designed and incredibly well-performed programs that are very entertaining. You want me to guide you to the wonderful goodness that is the marching art in Japan, PM me.

Depending on the end of the activity- you have the Japanese cultural politeness kind of dimming reactions there though, seriously. The Inspires tend to have way more of a raucous audience.

[corpsband]

Pretty funny how we try to throw drum corps in with (for example) Rush.

Rush is the SAME BAND playing the SAME MUSIC. In a very real sense -- they're still same thing they were when they first became popular.

Drum corps is literally new performers every season. Playing new shows every season. There's really no basis for comparison at all.

We imagine that the Blue Devils are the same corps they were in the 80's. But nothing could be further from the truth. It's a new corps every season. Corps design shows not just for audiences but for those performers. It should really be no surprise that drum corps (the activity) changes as quickly as it does.

[Stu]

We imagine that the Blue Devils are the same corps they were in the 80's. But nothing could be further from the truth. It's a new corps every season. Corps design shows not just for audiences but for those performers. It should really be no surprise that drum corps (the activity) changes as quickly as it does.

Hmmmm... I guess this would also hold true then: We imagine that the Blue Devils are the same team they were in the 80's. But nothing could be further from the truth. It's a new team every season. Teams design their playbooks not for audiences but for those players. It should really be no surprise that the NCAA (the activity) changes as quickly as it does.

[N.E. Brigand]

There was a time when corps regularly repeated tunes from one year to the next, and were not necessarily any less popular thereby. Would it have been OK in 1989 to make a comparison of drum corps to enduringly popular rock bands, when SCV was performing Phantom of the Opera for the second year in a row, and Suncoast had brought back the Florida Suite just four years after it debuted?