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Why don't corps compose their own music?


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Bluecoats had some original music in last year's championship show.  Doug Thrower wrote the very cool trombone octet "Down Slide Up"...with some awesome bass drum accompaniment from Tom Rarick.

I feel that the use of the term "arranger" sometimes sells short the end product of the corps music writers.  I really love it when I hear something that is NOT an original composition, but in the hands of a great "arranger" really becomes something NEW and something BETTER. 

How many times have you heard a corps perform something and you think "this is what the COMPOSER should have done!"
And I'm not just talking about the fact that I may prefer the drum and bugle corps idiom...it's that the "arranger" made it totally new and totally different.  It's one of the things I look forward to discovering every year.

 

 

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On 5/15/2017 at 1:51 AM, oldbandguy said:

Bluecoats had some original music in last year's championship show.  Doug Thrower wrote the very cool trombone octet "Down Slide Up"...with some awesome bass drum accompaniment from Tom Rarick.

I feel that the use of the term "arranger" sometimes sells short the end product of the corps music writers.  I really love it when I hear something that is NOT an original composition, but in the hands of a great "arranger" really becomes something NEW and something BETTER. 

How many times have you heard a corps perform something and you think "this is what the COMPOSER should have done!"
And I'm not just talking about the fact that I may prefer the drum and bugle corps idiom...it's that the "arranger" made it totally new and totally different.  It's one of the things I look forward to discovering every year.

Good points, but I'd say more times than not that I find drum corps arrangers butcher good music more than they enhance it. Some of that butchering is necessary in order to fit the music to the visual ideas and the field idiom.  No doubt we've had some excellent moments where arrangers have add their own material for a show (a short composition). In some cases it's been very good, as was the trombone octet in Bluecoats show last year.  Typically when arrangers are allowed to compose a little for a field show it's often something loosely based on another work, such as what has been discussed with the Saucedo writing for Cavaliers.  At least to this point that is typically what I hear in shows. 

As an aside, I will add that there is a BIG difference between being a composer and arranger and an orchestration expert.  Composing is a difficult profession (in the band, orchestra, jazz, choral world). I realize most of these drum corps arrangers claim to be composer and arrangers, but only a few of them have published works out there, and even then it is up to the listener to determine whether they are of quality or not.  Jay Bocook was certainly composing and arranging, but most of his published works for band are arrangements of someone else's composed works, usually with someone else arranging the percussion.  I do not consider him to be a master composer in the same sense I see Bernstein or Copland, etc.  That is not a cut down, just a fact of the business.

Some folks can write good melodies, but can't orchestrate them very well.  Some can arrange but do not come up with original music very well.  Some folks are fantastic orchestration experts and they can take a composition or arrangement and set it to any ensemble in any style and do so masterfully.  Alan Menken did not orchestrate all of his compositions. Often once the melodies were composed they were sent to master orchestration guys who brought his compositions to life.  Below is a good example of this. It's an interview with a master orchestrator in Hollywood who is working on an Alan Menken project for an animated film. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myQaX03GF4E 

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On 5/12/2017 at 10:25 PM, jjeffeory said:

Corps do compose music for themselves here and there, but it's easier to go with proven works that are known to be effective on the field.

 

A Florida Suite & Related Excerpts - Robert Smith et al. ( Suncoast Sound -'85 - '89, Madison Scouts -2011)

Four Corners, Spin Cycle, Frameworks, Parts of Niagra Falls - Saucedo et al. ( Cavaliers early 2k)

Images Diabolique - Tom Grant ( Cavaliers '89)

The Blue Stars - Saucedo, George Ryan ( 2012, 2014, 2015)

Boston Crusaders - George, Ryan; Hampton Ellis (2015)

Madison Scouts - O2, Hope & Despair ( Boerma, Pourcho, Sparling)

Pouland for SCV C

BD B and Meehan

...there's a ton of original music; too much to list.

 

May I also add Cavies 06 and 08 were also original compositions.

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19 minutes ago, Hook'emCavies said:

May I also add Cavies 06 and 08 were also original compositions.

Go listen to Hans Zimmer's score for the 2003 film The Last Samurai and then tell me 2008 was "original".

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I recall Bocock and Saucedo acknowledging and crediting their compositions as ‘inspired by. At least that’s how I recall it, almost of  Cadets 2005 is inspired by something else.

For the most part, original compositions in drum corps don’t do much for me if it’s beyond the drum solo or a transition part, few exceptions noted.

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I'm not a musician, not a composer, not an educator, can barely sing in church. Just a dino drummer, though still very much interested and involved in the activity. So my response to this question is not grounded in experience in, or knowledge of, the music biz per se. But I do think there is something to this idea, and in particular, I think for some corps there may be something especially attractive about it.

For corps whose identities are captive to their histories, their uniform, or some other ball and chain, original music may be a way to innovate their way to a new space, one that doesn't abandon their DNA but at the same time moves the corps forward.

There are corps that don't carry this kind of identity baggage, and they are more free to go in just about any musical direction. And there are corps who embrace their musical past and do quite well reprising it -- Cadets/Bernstein being an example this year.

The Troopers are close to my heart, and I'd put them in the first category: captive to an identity where they are criticized as heretics if they break with their tradition, and criticized as boring if they don't. For them, original music -- and heck, Robert W. Smith is their arranger; he has done this -- might give them a musical way forward that still "sounds Troopers" yet gives them a more secure foothold in 21st-century drum corps.

The unsolved problem for Troops is: Where the music and program ideas go, the uniform must follow. That's just the way it is in 2017 DCI. So, at some point, a corps that innovates with music eventually also must innovate visually.

And, of course, with original music, there is the huge risk that it flops. I liked Crossmen's show fine last year; can't say that I can hum a line of it today. Well-known music has value: Half the fun of SCV's "Simple Gifts" push was that you knew it was coming, and what it would sound like. And when it hit, the reality confirming the imaginary was hugely satisfying.

So, if you're going to write your own music, it has to be good.

Other corps that I think are in the same boat at Troopers, more or less, and could benefit from exploring original music: Cavaliers; BAC; Phantom; Spirit.

Toward the other end of the scale, where it seems to me that corps have greatest freedom to mix and match original and already published music, are: SCV; Crown; Crossmen; Colts; and the "blues" -- Coats, Stars, Knights, Devils.

Somewhere between those two ends: Madison; Cadets; Academy; Mandarins; and the rest of World Class.

Your mileage may vary.

Anyway, the point is that original music might be considered not only a way to break free of licensing problems, but as an organizational strategy.

Edited by 2muchcoffeeman
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great post. Robert freaking Smith. Oh how I like the sound he comes up with. 

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