Questions For Drum Corps Know-It-Alls

[chris7997]

My friend who is somewhat of a drum corps newbie was asking me the following questions, which I should have known the answer for, but did not. Please feel free to pick any one or more of the following to answer.

1. Who is the person(s) who has complete say and makes the final decision on what type of show the corps will be doing in the coming year? Do all of the Caption heads meet in a room to listen to music and vote on which music they like the best? How is that process play itself out? How are new show decisions decided? When do they begin? In September?

2. How many Caption Heads of the Top 12 corps are working full time for the corps? Do most have other jobs? Like band teachers, etc.?

3. What is the main responsibility of a "corps director"? What is the main responsibility of a corps' executive director?

4. Why is it called a "Caption?" Like Caption Head? Kind of a strange word.

5. How much does it cost an individual to play in any of the TOP 12 corps (total expense...winter rehearsals and travel, spring, summer)...does the corps pay for airfare? What if a music prodigy kid cannot afford it? Do corps offer scholarships? Does DCI offer scholarships for low-income families?

6. What does an Open Class corps have to do to become a World Class corps? Is there a membership requirement? Do you have to present your case to DCI to jump to World Class?

7. How often, if at all, do corps recruit specific people? E.G. Johnny Trumpet playing Triple G's...plays for Blue Devils...would the Bluecoats or Crown ever recruit Johnny to come play for them?

8. Is drum corps a relatively "clean" activity? Or is there still drug and alcohol problems? If someone is caught doing drugs in any of the corps, will they be immediately sent home?

9. Does the winning corps get anything? Like a new set of drum equipment from Vic Firth or a money prize from DCI?

10. Has anyone ever been injured during a show...like broken a leg? What happened? If that ever happens, will the corps get marked down? Will they stop the show?

Edited August 17, 2016 by chris7997

[barigirl78]

10. Has anyone ever been injured during a show...like broken a leg? What happened? If that ever happens, will the corps get marked down? Will they stop the show?

I'm not a "know-it-all", but I do know that the Crossmen had a member of the guard break her leg during a performance a few years ago. It happened near the back of the field. Most of the corps didn't know what happened. The performance continued, but someone--maybe the rear drum major?--did come on the field to carry her off and to medical attention.

Season ending injuries occur often during practice.

[tesmusic]

My friend who is somewhat of a drum corps newbie was asking me the following questions, which I should have known the answer for, but did not. Please feel free to pick any one or more of the following to answer.

1. Who is the person(s) who has complete say and makes the final decision on what type of show the corps will be doing in the coming year? Do all of the Caption heads meet in a room to listen to music and vote on which music they like the best? How is that process play itself out? How are new show decisions decided? When do they begin? In September?

2. How many Caption Heads of the Top 12 corps are working full time for the corps? Do most have other jobs? Like band teachers, etc.?

3. What is the main responsibility of a "corps director"? What is the main responsibility of a corps' executive director?

4. Why is it called a "Caption?" Like Caption Head? Kind of a strange word.

5. How much does it cost an individual to play in any of the TOP 12 corps (total expense...winter rehearsals and travel, spring, summer)...does the corps pay for airfare? What if a music prodigy kid cannot afford it? Do corps offer scholarships? Does DCI offer scholarships for low-income families?

6. What does an Open Class corps have to do to become a World Class corps? Is there a membership requirement? Do you have to present your case to DCI to jump to World Class?

7. How often, if at all, do corps recruit specific people? E.G. Johnny Trumpet playing Triple G's...plays for Blue Devils...would the Blue Coats or Crown ever recruit Johnny to come play for them?

8. Is drum corps a relatively "clean" activity? Or is there still drug and alcohol problems? If someone is caught doing drugs in any of the corps, will they be immediately sent home?

9. Does the winning corps get anything? Like a new set of drum equipment from Vic Firth or a money prize from DCI?

10. Has anyone ever been injured during a show...like broken a leg? What happened? If that ever happens, will the corps get marked down? Will they stop the show?

You've asked a lot of questions that probably don't have a definitive answer. That being said, here goes.

1. Show design is done by a lot of people and in a lot of ways. Some have program coordinators that have the ultimate final decision, and get info from others. Others have a team that works to design the concept. In all cases, there are multiple people that do the actual creating-writing drill, music, guard work, choreography, etc.

2. I seriously doubt there's a single corps out there that has a caption head that is full time at a corps. There are organizations with directors, executive director, and various other office jobs that are full time, but not on the teaching staff.

3. Admin positions are vastly different from corps to corps. Some run day to day operations, some design, some work on the money side, every corps is different.

4. The various chunks-guard, brass, percussion, front ensemble, etc. are referred to as captions. So the caption head is the top of the chain of staff.

5. Corps fees are different for every corps. Those fees cover everything for some corps, and others are set-up so members have additional fees. There are kids that get sponsorships and do individual fundraising, and there are some corps that do offer scholarships, but not usually.

6. Look at DCI for more info, but you cannot simply join DCI as a world class corps.

7. There is some recruiting, but not a lot, and it's not something that corps will publicize.

8. Is drum corps clean, no. There are members that use drugs and alcohol. If a member is caught violating corps policy on drugs and alcohol, they might be sent home. My friend who went by the name Butch was the top bass drum for BD in 2000, let's just say Dave Gibbs wasn't pleased and it made for an interesting entrance to the field on finals night for him.

9. They get a trophy and flag.

10. Injuries have happened, stopping a show, I won't say it's NEVER happened in the history of DCI, but I've only seen shows stopped due to safety issues of all members.

[cixelsyd]

6. What does an Open Class corps have to do to become a World Class corps? Is there a membership requirement? Do you have to present your case to DCI to jump to World Class?

There is a procedure in place for interested corps to petition for promotion from open class to world class. A committee evaluates the corps on a number of financial, organizational and program quality parameters. The bottom line, though, is that the member corps vote on whether to accept the recommendation of that committee.

If you look back over the past 15 or so years where this procedure has been in place, you will notice that the number of world class corps has stayed around 22. When there are more than 22, petitioning corps tend to get turned down no matter what. When there are less than 22, even corps not yet petitioning have been talked into moving up.

[hughesmr]

10. Two injury situations I recall:

[1] 1984 Cadets at DCI Midwest @Whitewater. Massive backwards high-speed marching pileup at end of show. Broken bones occured, if I recall. And a 10.0 in marching, if I recall .

[2] 2010 Crown at DCI Finals -- brass player suffered a compound fracture in the final push of the show. Gruesome -- helped to sideline, IIRC. Near end of show, so show finished as usual.

Edited August 17, 2016 by hughesmr

[njthundrrd]

10. Two injury situations I recall:

[1] 1984 Cadets at DCI Midwest @Whitewater. Massive backwards high-speed marching pileup at end of show. Broken bones occured, if I recall. And a 10.0 in marching, if I recall .

[2] 2010 Crown at DCI Finals -- brass player suffered a compound fracture in the final push of the show. Gruesome -- helped to sideline, IIRC. Near end of show, so show finished as usual.

[1] No broken bones in 1984. I marched it. I was there. A couple of broken horns and a few bruised egos though.

[hughesmr]

[1] No broken bones in 1984. I marched it. I was there. A couple of broken horns and a few bruised egos though.

I was there too (in the stands). I never in my life heard an audience go from outright pandemonium to a collective <OOHHHH!!!> to silence so fast.

[Eleran]

IIRC, Boston Crusaders had a tuba go down fairly early in their 2014 Prelims or Semis show - a knee injury or something. Crawled off the backside of the field, with a little assistance from a judge I believe. Show never skipped a beat.

[ShortAndFast]

8. Is drum corps clean, no. There are members that use drugs and alcohol. If a member is caught violating corps policy on drugs and alcohol, they might be sent home. My friend who went by the name Butch was the top bass drum for BD in 2000, let's just say Dave Gibbs wasn't pleased and it made for an interesting entrance to the field on finals night for him.

It was a very memorable entrance! I know how "Butch" got into trouble, but I've always wanted to know a bit more abound finals night. How did he get his equipment and uniform? Did the other BD guys know that he was going to show up?

[BRASSO]

My friend who is somewhat of a drum corps newbie was asking me the following questions, which I should have known the answer for, but did not. Please feel free to pick any one or more of the following to answer.

1. Who is the person(s) who has complete say and makes the final decision on what type of show the corps will be doing in the coming year? Do all of the Caption heads meet in a room to listen to music and vote on which music they like the best? How is that process play itself out? How are new show decisions decided? When do they begin? In September?

2. How many Caption Heads of the Top 12 corps are working full time for the corps? Do most have other jobs? Like band teachers, etc.?

3. What is the main responsibility of a "corps director"? What is the main responsibility of a corps' executive director?

4. Why is it called a "Caption?" Like Caption Head? Kind of a strange word.

5. How much does it cost an individual to play in any of the TOP 12 corps (total expense...winter rehearsals and travel, spring, summer)...does the corps pay for airfare? What if a music prodigy kid cannot afford it? Do corps offer scholarships? Does DCI offer scholarships for low-income families?

6. What does an Open Class corps have to do to become a World Class corps? Is there a membership requirement? Do you have to present your case to DCI to jump to World Class?

7. How often, if at all, do corps recruit specific people? E.G. Johnny Trumpet playing Triple G's...plays for Blue Devils...would the Bluecoats or Crown ever recruit Johnny to come play for them?

8. Is drum corps a relatively "clean" activity? Or is there still drug and alcohol problems? If someone is caught doing drugs in any of the corps, will they be immediately sent home?

9. Does the winning corps get anything? Like a new set of drum equipment from Vic Firth or a money prize from DCI?

10. Has anyone ever been injured during a show...like broken a leg? What happened? If that ever happens, will the corps get marked down? Will they stop the show?

I counted 32 questions here that you asked of us. I'll ask you one question. Why did you not ask us these questions, one or two at a time, over a period of a few days, weeks ? This format of 32 questions in one full swoop is way more than my tiny brain can handle at the moment..... opps... just noticed you gave us the option to answer any ones we wanted... fair enough

5) Yes, some, if not all, Corps do have scholarships available to help defray the costs of marching.

Edited August 17, 2016 by BRASSO