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But you will still find people who complain about the designated hitter rule in baseball. And don't think of it as complaining about something that happened 41 years ago: think of it as complaining about something that's still happening 41 years later. Just because someone does something wrong for a long time doesn't make it right.

National league Pitchers who hate to hit don't count

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To continue to grow and foster, the activity has to adapt to the people who aren't just buying tickets and paying registration fees now, but will buy tickets and pay dues five and ten years from now.

The thing is, I don't believe there's an audience out there that doesn't come to DCA because the corps aren't using synthesizers.

I also don't believe there are brass and percussion players who aren't joining DCA because the corps aren't using synthesizers, either.

(Except perhaps for brass players who fear that drum corps brass parts are too hard and look forward to them being watered down as synthesizers take over some of the voicing. But who is in favor of attracting players if the tradeoff is weaker music?)

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The thing is, I don't believe there's an audience out there that doesn't come to DCA because the corps aren't using synthesizers.

I also don't believe there are brass and percussion players who aren't joining DCA because the corps aren't using synthesizers, either.

(Except perhaps for brass players who fear that drum corps brass parts are too hard and look forward to them being watered down as synthesizers take over some of the voicing. But who is in favor of attracting players if the tradeoff is weaker music?)

Its not about one element. Its about the shows overall. Students tend to look at the shows of the 70's, 80s, and before as old shows that dont grab them. To be honest they laugh at them. You can say you don't want drum corps to turn into Bands of America's Summer Season, which i fully support, but we have to evolve the shows and their components. If it means adding these components to attract the younger audiences and designing them into shows well, then we gotta do it. Well designed effect don't stick out like a sore thumb. Cabs intro was great this year. The Bushwackers had some stuff that started pretty rough in the season, and then they refined it by finals time.

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The thing is, I don't believe there's an audience out there that doesn't come to DCA because the corps aren't using synthesizers.

I also don't believe there are brass and percussion players who aren't joining DCA because the corps aren't using synthesizers, either.

(Except perhaps for brass players who fear that drum corps brass parts are too hard and look forward to them being watered down as synthesizers take over some of the voicing. But who is in favor of attracting players if the tradeoff is weaker music?)

without synths, you are hamstrung in the kinds of effects you can put in your show....and kids today are used to those effects because EVERYWHERE ELSE has them.

why be the loner?

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Evolution doesn't just mean biological change over time. It also means any process of development or growth, or any product of such development. The word has several different definitions, several of which directly relate here.

Fair enough. My concern is the use of "evolved" or "evolution" as an excuse to say that any given change can't be discussed, which I've seen far too often in these discussion: your dislike for this change matters less than my like for this change because it represents the natural evolution of drum corps.

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It's not about one element. It's about the shows overall. Students tend to look at the shows of the 70s, 80s, and before as old shows that dont grab them. To be honest they laugh at them. You can say you don't want drum corps to turn into Bands of America's Summer Season, which I fully support, but we have to evolve the shows and their components. If it means adding these components to attract the younger audiences and designing them into shows well, then we gotta do it.

OK, but since we're talking about the future of DCA, can we dig a bit deeper into this subject? If it's not really about electronics but about overall design, which therefore need not include electronics, what is it really? What's missing from today's DCA shows that would make the shows more interesting to younger audiences, and why can't DCA just add that aspect without adding electronics? What do students want to see and do that they can't currently in DCA but can currently see and do in high school marching band? What hasn't "evolved" in DCA, to use that loaded word again--and again setting aside electronics, since you say that's not really the issue--since the 1980s?

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OK, but since we're talking about the future of DCA, can we dig a bit deeper into this subject? If it's not really about electronics but about overall design, which therefore need not include electronics, what is it really? What's missing from today's DCA shows that would make the shows more interesting to younger audiences, and why can't DCA just add that aspect without adding electronics? What do students want to see and do that they can't currently in DCA but can currently see and do in high school marching band? What hasn't "evolved" in DCA, to use that loaded word again--and again setting aside electronics, since you say that's not really the issue--since the 1980s?

as I stated before...kids want what they have EVERYWHERE ELSE.

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But you will still find people who complain about the designated hitter rule in baseball. And don't think of it as complaining about something that happened 41 years ago: think of it as complaining about something that's still happening 41 years later. Just because someone does something wrong for a long time doesn't make it right.

Sorry. 41 years ago I had no idea what drum corps was or that I would ever be a part of it. So that problem as you say it is not a problem to me.

That is exactly how kids feel about Bb's. The 3rd valve on a G horn. Guards that dance are completely the norm.

They don't want to know why some guy is complaining on line that there is no color pre, how adding this or that, how taking away this or that, no more tick system, that it destroyed the activity. It is so before their time that it is a fairly useless conversation to be a part of. They can't relate.

So you might not thing it is right, but frankly they they you are completely wrong. And it really is just that simple.

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Without synths, you are hamstrung in the kinds of effects you can put in your show... and kids today are used to those effects because EVERYWHERE ELSE has them.

Why be the loner?

To the last item, you might as well ask why all musical ensembles aren't the same. Why doesn't the Canadian Brass make a synth a regular part of their ensemble? Why doesn't the Cleveland Orchestra always include a rock band? Why don't all rap songs include acoustic instrumental breaks, for that matter?

But what I really want is specifics about those effects without which corps are "hamstrung". Sure, you occasionally get an effect like Bluecoats pitch bend. So fine, allow electronics. But don't require them. No judge should be telling a corps, "I'd have given you a higher score, if only you were using a synthesizer." Because the trend is that what is supposed to an option becomes an expectation, even though most of the time it does nothing. I watched about 200 marching band performances this fall. More than 80% of those groups used synthesizers. Of that number, easily 90%, in my opinion, were not not improved by their synthesizers, or were even weaker for their use. Tarpon Springs, this year's BoA champion, who were indeed very good (although I preferred Broken Arrow) would have been even more impressive if they used a live student narrator than a prerecorded adult (it's really strange that BoA has a rule preventing adults from being on the field during the show but doesn't object to using an adult's voice). So all praise to Cadets for doing the right thing in 2014, in that regard (which didn't stop most of the 15 people I took to their first drum corps show this year from finding the whole idea of Cadets narration, live or not, to be pretty cheesy). And lots of bands use synthesizer to try and fill in parts where their winds, to put it bluntly, are weak. Or to cover transitions. But look: f the winds and battery don't have to play for those six bars, they can insert a dance move! And that way they have less music to memorize or play well.

Because at bottom, there must be some definition to drum corps. There are things that are drum corps and things that aren't drum corps, and everyone on these forums would agree that some things aren't drum corps. This change by itself, no more than in DCI, will not push corps irrevocably past the point where everyone would feel they aren't really corps anymore. What I'm really after is just getting people to think about the effects these changes have. If it means the brass are playing less, is that a bad thing or not?

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Sorry. 41 years ago I had no idea what drum corps was or that I would ever be a part of it. So that problem as you say it is not a problem to me.

That is exactly how kids feel about Bb's. The 3rd valve on a G horn. Guards that dance are completely the norm.

They don't want to know why some guy is complaining on line that there is no color pre, how adding this or that, how taking away this or that, no more tick system, that it destroyed the activity. It is so before their time that it is a fairly useless conversation to be a part of. They can't relate.

So you might not thing it is right, but frankly they they you are completely wrong. And it really is just that simple.

What I dont get is how anyone didnt think it was eventually going to happen. This is how it has almost always worked DCI implements something and DCA follows 5 to 10 years later. One would think by now that most would have got their frustrations out and and would have moved on long before this..Oh well....lol

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