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A question for the purists: was there more that could have been done?


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20 minutes ago, AlexL said:

Key words: You believe. 

You have no facts to back up any of your assertions, other than 'i believe' statements, and 'everyone i know is saying this' (its quite possible that's true, but you're just in a bubble). Meanwhile, the only numbers we really do have, attendance numbers that show that there has been growth, say differently.  Aside from contrary evidence, that is the best indicator of 'is the activity headed in the right direction'. 

And i'm going to take major issue with your assertion that people aren't marching because of these changes. 

I spent 5-6 years fairly disconnected from the activity after 2010. I was brought back in last year when my sister marched and i spent 40 days on tour driving. 

Yes, the product has changed somewhat. But the core of the drum corps experience, the hours perfecting a product, the closeness created through the crucible of 100 degree rehearsal days and long nights on the highway.. when i watched those kids coming off the field in tears, when i watched those kids in the parking lot after finals not wanting to leave each other, i could see concretely that the core of what that summer means was no different now than it was when i marched. Drum corps at its core was providing exactly the same experience that made me love it. 

This is why i will say without hesitation, anyone who would not march (or anyone who would advise them not to march) because of the changes we've seen is utterly missing the point. 

No.  Not wanting to spend thousands of dollars in order to spend an entire summer working very hard to ultimately look and sound like a complete fool in a clown costume is NOT missing the point.

I personally know six young adults (who don't even know each other, all from different schools...they're not even my students) that possess the talent to march in any world class corps. Yet each of them say the same thing.  "I'm not really interested in paying that much money to be in a dance band" (well, one of them actually says something a little more...nuanced, but I can't repeat that here).  Granted, those six students all come from programs whose directors don't take their cues from Bands of America, directors who all marched in drum corps themselves, and who have shown their students plenty of tape of actual drum corps, old and new, not pressuring those students into making a decision one way or another, allowing them to see, hear, and make informed decisions themselves.  Yeah, it's a small sample.  Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to conduct a nation-wide survey, beyond the feedback documented and archived on this site and others, which each and every one of us has access to.  But six different students in four different counties spread out over 80 miles?  If I'm totally off base, then that sure is a pretty big coincidence, no?

Edited by Bobby L. Collins
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Just now, Bobby L. Collins said:

No.  Not wanting to spend thousands of dollars in order to spend an entire summer working very hard to ultimately look and sound like a complete fool in a clown costume is NOT missing the point.

"clown costume".

Man, in the real world most people would consider the typical marching band uniform just as 'clown costume' as anything else being worn now. 

Id wager the cost is a much bigger % of that concern. 

Everything else you provide is purely anecdotal. The fact is, even in the best of situations, 99% of people who watch drum corps in high school aren't going to march for a million different reasons, the time commitment and the cost being the biggest ones. The fact that you've been able to identify a few of those doesn't really mean anything.

 

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3 minutes ago, AlexL said:

 

"clown costume".

Man, in the real world most people would consider the typical marching band uniform just as 'clown costume' as anything else being worn now. 

Id wager the cost is a much bigger % of that concern. 

Everything else you provide is purely anecdotal. The fact is, even in the best of situations, 99% of people who watch drum corps in high school aren't going to march for a million different reasons, the time commitment and the cost being the biggest ones. The fact that you've been able to identify a few of those doesn't really mean anything.

 

Well all you've really been able to do is tell me I'm wrong.  At least I was able to provide some examples.  All you've provided is what you want me (and others) to believe, and cited a source that is working very hard to make everyone think that they're not inches away from Chapter 11.

Like I said, I don't have the resources to commission a long-term research project here.  All I have are my convictions, my instincts, and my eyes and ears.

And my convictions, my insincts, my eyes and my ears all tell me that drum corps simply cannot continue on in this direction it has been forced to take.

Edited by Bobby L. Collins
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1 minute ago, Bobby L. Collins said:

Well all you've really been able to do is tell me I'm wrong.  At least I was able to provide some examples.  All you've provided is what you want me (and others) to believe, and cited a source that is working very hard to make everyone think that they're not inches away from Chapter 11.

Get over yourself. I also see you mentioned "your students". So I gather you are a teacher. Given the clown costume, fools comments. I am glad you are not my kids teacher. Grow up.

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3 minutes ago, Bobby L. Collins said:

Well all you've really been able to do is tell me I'm wrong.  At least I was able to provide some examples.  All you've provided is what you want me (and others) to believe, and cited a source that is working very hard to make everyone think that they're not inches away from Chapter 11.

I cited the only source that has hard numbers.

You provided anecdotal examples. I can provide plenty of other examples of people who obviously did decide to march.

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Just now, AlexL said:

I cited the only source that has hard numbers.

You provided anecdotal examples. I can provide plenty of other examples of people who obviously did decide to march.

Ok, then do so.  Please.  By all means, provide them.  I would absolutely love to hear the viewpoints of current and recent participants (beyond the ones I have already spoken with). I have so many questions to ask them.  I would definitely value their insight.  So I eagerly await you delivering on this grand assertion.

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Just now, Bobby L. Collins said:

Ok, then do so.  Please.  By all means, provide them.  I would absolutely love to hear the viewpoints of current and recent participants (beyond the ones I have already spoken with). I have so many questions to ask them.  I would definitely value their insight.  So I eagerly await you delivering on this grand assertion.

As i already noted, the vast majority of them are completely fine with where things are right now. The vast majority of them also steer far clear of DCP because it has a massively poor reputation within the activity as being full of old people who just ##### that drum corps isnt the exact same as when they marched. 

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6 minutes ago, Bobby L. Collins said:

Ok, then do so.  Please.  By all means, provide them.  I would absolutely love to hear the viewpoints of current and recent participants (beyond the ones I have already spoken with). I have so many questions to ask them.  I would definitely value their insight.  So I eagerly await you delivering on this grand assertion.

LOL six kids. HMMMMMMMMMMMM how many kids are marching DCI, World or Open.  I think that your basis is a bit skewed.

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3 minutes ago, AlexL said:

As i already noted, the vast majority of them are completely fine with where things are right now. The vast majority of them also steer far clear of DCP because it has a massively poor reputation within the activity as being full of old people who just ##### that drum corps isnt the exact same as when they marched. 

Yet.......here you are, a part of the discourse.  On DCP.  Massively poor reputation and all....

Let me make this crystal clear.  It's not about the activity not being the exact same as when I marched (and I'll touch more on that below).  It's about the activity being transformed into something that already exists and already has a venue and an audience (BOA and WGI), and about disenfranchising everyone who isn't comfortable with that.

I can't help but notice your tenure as an active member coincides with the first wave of Hopkins' changes.  I see that a lot.  05 vets and beyond, why, it's all you know.  It's what you were indoctrinated into considering to be the norm, the status quo.  I understand you feel like you need to defend and validate your tenure and your contributions to the activity, and that activity's relevance at the time you particpated, but honestly (and I really do mean this), you don't have to do that.  Not with me, and not with anyone else. 

I marched in a first-year division III corps in 1997.  We had no money, no plan, and very few members (maybe 20 total?).  We inherited Suncoast Sound's uniforms and equipment, and we pushed through despite near-zero support from music educators in east Tennessee, and even less support from the community. I still don't know how we even managed to be approved to participate in DCI, but we did.  We even made it to prelims in Orlando, and placed 20th out of 33 corps.  The very fact that we didn't come in dead last meant more to us than any score or any medal.  It wasn't always fun and games, though.  Half the horn line were saxophone switchovers, and we lost two or three instructors while on tour.  On paper, we should have folded back in March of that year.  Yet somehow, we made it.  Somehow, we fielded a corps.

The point is this.  The night before prelims, I said the following to the entire corps, "In the years to come, a lot of ignorant people will try to trivialize what we've achieved.  Don't let them.  Be proud of this, and never forget it".  And I still hold to that.  So please know I am NOT trying to trivialize your time in drum corps, nor anyone else's.  Not even the ones participating today.  I know you're proud of it, just as I am proud of my corps, such as it was.  But that said, I'm not going to allow you to try to lump me in to a group of imaginary people that exist only inside your head.  I've never met anyone who has ever said that they don't like drum corps anymore because it isn't exactly the same as when they marched. That's what you and others WANT us to be, and that's not what we are.

We are not opposed to change, if the change is sound, if the change is reasonable, if the change has merit, if the change possesses even a shred of common sense.  Let me type this in bold, capital letters, WE ARE NOT OPPOSED TO CHANGE.  However, we ARE opposed to change for no good reason other than to placate the whims of a handful of corps directors and board members.  And more importantly, we are opposed to sweeping changes that strip the activity of its entire identity and historical legacy, changes that have transformed (and continue to transform) the activity into something else entirely...something that already exists, and something that we didn't sign up for.  THAT is what is happening today.  And that is what we oppose.

What you want is for me to be a person who thinks that the late 90s were the only good era of drum corps, and that everything that came before it and after it was lame.  No.  That's not me.  I was watching finals on PBS while M.A.S.H. was still on the air.  That's how far back me and drum corps go.  I saw a lot of great productions before I even learned how to blow a note on a cornet.  Then when I joined the band in high school, I got to see a lot of great productions live.  Troopers 91, Blue Devils 92, Phantom 93 in Sevierville (thunder and lightning during the Death Hunt, and a sheet of rain pouring over the stadium on their horns down), Crossmen 94, Cadets 95, Madison 96.  Then when I marched in 97, I got to see all kinds of terrific productions (St. Johns, Patriots and Golden Lancers all spring to mind).  After that, I got my hands on VHS tapes of corps from the 1970s (including 1976 finals), and I was totally blown away with that piston-rotor sound.  Beyond that, I still enjoyed going to competitions (1999 Murfreesboro was a great couple of nights), right up until corps started marching band instruments.  Even then, I still went to a handful of events, and it wasn't until (and I'm very, very sorry) 2005 that I, and everyone in the theater around me, said "What?  Who's talking?  I can't hear the brass.  Do they have speakers and microphones in the pit??"  Since then, it's just been a snowball rolling down a mountain, getting more and more ridiculous every single year.

So let me be clear on this.  I dig drum corps all the way through the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and a hanful of shows from the early 21st century.  My love for the activity does not revolve around the late 90s.  I enjoy the front ensembles of the 80s and 90s right alongside the marching xyolophones, glockenspiels and timpani of the 70s.  I enjoy listening to lines of three valve bugles right alongside those of two valves and piston/rotors.  I love watching guards in sequins twirling flags right alongside those in corps uniforms and skirts spinning rifles.  I love crab step and zip pulls just as much as I love high-step and circle drill.  I even enjoy finding old video recordings of corps playing at halftime at professional football games in the 60s (yeah, drum corps used to be THAT relevant).  The point is that despite the changes in equipment, regalia and rules of drum corps throughout the 20th century, it was still fundamentally the same thing; brass instruments (and I won't even say bugles) and drums playing music while marching and executing drill, while auxiliary spun rifles and twirled flags.  Sure, there was some dancing.  Sure, there were some props.  Sure, there was some esoteric, high concept preachiness.  But those things didn't define drum corps, neither individually nor as a horrifying gestalt.  They were isolated affairs, used in moderation, and almost never to the detriment of the enjoyment of the fans.

But that's not the case today.  Today, "drum corps" is nothing BUT esoteric, high concept preachiness, rolled up in interpretive dance performed on rickety, dangerous props that take up a quarter of the field, all wired up to sound systems dialed up to 11 belting out synthesized bass and piano, choir aahs, and ambient white noise while 2 or 3 people hop on microphones to explain to the audience what's going on.  Oh, and somewhere behind all that crap there are brass instruments and drums playing music some of the time, marching some of the time, playing and marching some of the time, and auxillary spinning rifles some of the time, and twirling flags some of the time, all when they're not too busy laying their equipment down on the field and dancing or rolling on the ground pretending like they're 3 years old.  What it genuinely feels like to us today is that the only reason the brass, percussion and color guard are even on the field is so that DCI can still call it "drum corps".  Otherwise, they're not doing a dang thing out there that a dance team and a MIDI keyboard couldn't do, at a fraction of the expense.

Am I getting through to you at all?  Because I'm trying really, REALLY hard.  It's not because it isn't the same activity it was in the 90s, or the 80s, or the 70s, or even the bloody 1840s.  It's because it's not the same activity.......AT.  ALL.

There is still some good music being played on the field, and there's still some good drill being executed.  But it's buried.  It's buried under a bunch of self indulgent crap.  And a lot of us are no longer willing to fast forward through clips on YouTube to find the nuggets of competent riffs and drill buried beneath six meters of community theater and jock jams, much less pay to have our senses and sensibilities violated in order to support an organization in which we no longer have any confidence.

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Good post--and this is coming from someone who loved what they just saw at prelims. I loved what I saw *because* there is enough in these performances that was characteristic of previous eras. The artform can only *improve* by emphasizing those even more, by rolling back some more recent rule changes that have allowed for distracting cruft that detracts from the performances. 

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