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Most complicated brass book


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From an articulation difficulty standpoint, it is tough to top this year's Crown. Just to really go over the top, they had 80 trumpets at one point nailing a wide open sixteenth note figure !

Jump in your time machine and check out 1971 Boston Crusaders lead soprano book which spent a dizzying amount of time in the upper register.

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I recall seeing a corps do some freaking awesome pitch bends (facing backfield) in a show once but I don't remember the corps or the show.

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Based on 84BDSop’s comments

Criteria: book difficulty, staging, performance.

To name a few...

Spirit of Atlanta - 79

Star of Indiana - 90, 91, 93

Madison Scouts - 81, 84, 85, 86, 88, 99

Blue Devils - 79, 91, 93, 96, 99, 10, 14

Cavaliers - 00, 01, 06

Cadets - 87, 97

Phantom Regiment - 78, 79, 84, 94, 96, 06

Carolina Crown - 10, 12

You can add Star 92 to the list. Listen to the brass book in the middle portion ( I think it was Flag of Stars). Listen to how each section is coordinated with the same voice in the percussion section. That was really good writing. You can say the show was cheesy Americana, but that brass line was quite excellent.

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I recall seeing a corps do some freaking awesome pitch bends (facing backfield) in a show once but I don't remember the corps or the show.

Cavalier 2008 Samurai had some amazing brass pitch bends.... I'm not sure if they were facing backfield. but it was the only time I head a corps do going back to 85 ( and earlier in recordings)

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  • 2 weeks later...

If taken in the context of the era and the instruments being used, the 1985 Garfield Cadets brass book is about as ridiculous as it gets.

NO KIDDING. For its time, their versions of "Jeremiah Symphony" and "Overture to Candide" were both complicated harmonically AND melodically.

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In the vein of amazing for its time, Argonne Rebels and Fanfare For The New in 1973 was remarkable.

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Absolutely. Given these variables, that book was incomparable:

* Not written until March (SCV's book was written by the past November---well, two parts were written in late 1983)

* Written by M. Klesch, who had NEVER written a 13 minute book before

* Not even on the field until April

* Garfield was dirt-poor and had notoriously bad horns

* Two friggin' valves

* TO THIS DAY, the most demanding, exposed drill. Jeremiah is so time signature-sick that at times, they marched on the phrase. They either made the sets or they didn't. (They did.)

* The "opera buffo" ending to 'Candide' kept going and going. Louder, faster, higher. I asked then; I ask now: HOW did they maintain the energy?

* BD second in Brass GE (14.3); Garfield got a 14.8. 'Nuff said.

* SCV got a 14.1 (they forgot about Ensemble/Timing in Finals). GR Royer said, "We got done in by a brass judge." Um, ok.

Amen to all of this.

I'll never forget the first time I saw Garfield in '85, staring glassy-eyed with my mouth half open wondering "What the #### was THAT?"

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Just to be a moron, but I'd like to throw in PARTS of BD '85. In particular, the "Litreraft Earth" opening. I took me a long, long time to get my ears around that -- believe me, a LONG time. However, with many repeated listenings, it suddenly occurred to me that the opening 40 seconds were really a portend of what was to become with DC scoring and effect. The "tonic-mediant-supertonic" slide at approximately the 30-second mark...the soprano line glissando at the 40-45 second mark -- I see these as a portend of Drum Corps scoring changing from the heavily "song inspired" medium which had ruled the roost to a more "effect medium" scoring which would eventually take over the activity.

I'll even subjugate myself to those BD experts to the charges of "You don't know S*** "" which may come along. That's just the way I interpret the opening....AFTER about 250 listenings (or more;, if that's possible). For me...it's a ground-breaking moment in DCI from the musical scoring perspective.

To this date, '85 is my favorite BD show. It was an interesting new direction that i was sorry to see abandoned.

That show includes my all-time favorite moment in drum corps, when the contras come in on a pedal tone during the transition from Karn Evil 9 to the Emerson piano concerto. Great, great stuff.

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