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The "Music Corps Should Do" thread


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3 minutes ago, lindap said:

Vangelis - Cosmos always keeps me grounded. 

 

Hate to break it to ya, but I heard that Vangelis doesn't allow (no longer allows?) his music to be arranged in the marching arts. It's too bad, because there's a lot of his pieces that would really work well on the field. In particular, I really want to hear an arrangement of his "Hymne."

 

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Speaking of Edward "Don't Call Me Garth" Elgar, I've always wondered what an arranger could do with the end of his first symphony. The periodic brass hits that start around 9:25 would add some of the difficulty that DCI judges are looking for (and that corps manufacture regardless).

 

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I really like the Bryan Ferry "Jazz Age" album, and I think there's some great stuff in there for drum corps. But more broadly, I'd like to see a "Jazz Age" show by BD. It might be difficult to portray "Gatsby," but definitely costuming and music from the era. 

 

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Alright...I'll play in this thread a bit.

The interwebs led me to Bluecoats doing The Boxer at an encore recently and it led me to go back to listening to some what Paul Simon does with the color of chords, phrases of melody, and incorporating various styles of music.  I think there's some interesting stuff to explore there that might translate well.  One of the reason The Boxer as done by Bluecoats is so powerful is that the low brass brings out that dark color in the sound that the source music has so well.  

I went to corpsreps to see what else has been covered and it's largely Sound of Silence and Bridge Over Troubled Waters.  A few have touched on America and American Tune.  Mandarins did Rhythm of the Saints and I'd love to see how that turned out!

Here's some other bits I think would work.

Rene and Georgette Magritte with their Dog After the War would make a nice ballad.  They lyrical nature of the melody phrases (no singing in this ballad please) would translate well to the field I think.  Arranged well and placed in context in a show, I think it could be used to evoke nostalgia and calm. 

 

Simon's forays into South African and Afro-Brazilian sounds and syncopations are also intriguing.  While Mandarins did Rhythm of the Saints, I think The Obvious Child from that album has a lot of potential too.  Imagine the drum break at 3:11 arranged and layered until its hair-raising then the horns hitting the re-entry at FFFFFFFF with screamers carrying the melody over it.

 

I enjoy a variety of African styles of music on a number of levels and have always wondered how they might translate to the field.  I'm not sure it wouldn't lose something vital in translation but it might be a fun experiment.  Simon had fun with a number of songs on Graceland, Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes stands out for me with Ladysmith Black Mambazo carrying the backing.  I'm imaging sending the tune to a percussion/brass soli at some point and having the remainder of the corps do the dancing.

 

Aside from the Simon bits, I'm wondering how some of the harmonics, syncopation, and rhythmic lines in other African artists and Afro-pop might go.

Hallelujah Chicken Run Band has all kinds of interesting stuff going on (not sure how it'd translate to Drum Corps though...but that name!)

 

Another style of rhythm and brass would be something more Afro-pop like what Brenda Fassie was doing.

 

or if you want to get really wild, throw some Fela out there!  The aggressiveness that could be done with this sort of sound would be fun!

 

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On 1/31/2017 at 3:57 PM, KVG_DC said:

Alright...I'll play in this thread a bit.

The interwebs led me to Bluecoats doing The Boxer at an encore recently and it led me to go back to listening to some what Paul Simon does with the color of chords, phrases of melody, and incorporating various styles of music.  I think there's some interesting stuff to explore there that might translate well.  One of the reason The Boxer as done by Bluecoats is so powerful is that the low brass brings out that dark color in the sound that the source music has so well.  

I went to corpsreps to see what else has been covered and it's largely Sound of Silence and Bridge Over Troubled Waters.  A few have touched on America and American Tune.  Mandarins did Rhythm of the Saints and I'd love to see how that turned out!

Here's some other bits I think would work.

Rene and Georgette Magritte with their Dog After the War would make a nice ballad.  They lyrical nature of the melody phrases (no singing in this ballad please) would translate well to the field I think.  Arranged well and placed in context in a show, I think it could be used to evoke nostalgia and calm. 

 

Simon's forays into South African and Afro-Brazilian sounds and syncopations are also intriguing.  While Mandarins did Rhythm of the Saints, I think The Obvious Child from that album has a lot of potential too.  Imagine the drum break at 3:11 arranged and layered until its hair-raising then the horns hitting the re-entry at FFFFFFFF with screamers carrying the melody over it.

 

I enjoy a variety of African styles of music on a number of levels and have always wondered how they might translate to the field.  I'm not sure it wouldn't lose something vital in translation but it might be a fun experiment.  Simon had fun with a number of songs on Graceland, Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes stands out for me with Ladysmith Black Mambazo carrying the backing.  I'm imaging sending the tune to a percussion/brass soli at some point and having the remainder of the corps do the dancing.

 

Aside from the Simon bits, I'm wondering how some of the harmonics, syncopation, and rhythmic lines in other African artists and Afro-pop might go.

Hallelujah Chicken Run Band has all kinds of interesting stuff going on (not sure how it'd translate to Drum Corps though...but that name!)

 

Another style of rhythm and brass would be something more Afro-pop like what Brenda Fassie was doing.

 

or if you want to get really wild, throw some Fela out there!  The aggressiveness that could be done with this sort of sound would be fun!

 

There's some very high quality videos of some very high quality playing of Bridge Over Troubled Waters from the Cadets this past summer. They did it so exquisitely and I would love to hear that integrated into a field program. 

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