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

[Bobby L. Collins]

Sorry for the double posts, btw.
 

Edited August 14, 2017 by Bobby L. Collins

[Bobby L. Collins]

Clicking the "edit" button is actually causing it to "quote" instead.
 

Edited August 14, 2017 by Bobby L. Collins

[BrianL]

Bobby, I agree that things went too far this year and that it was a down year for the activity, but did you really not enjoy the Bluecoats' 2016 show?  I think that show will still be watched and listened to in 20 or 30 years.  Have you not enjoyed what Crown's brass line has been doing in recent years?  You're creating these binary categories where drum corps in the present tense is mostly or completely debased, and I think most of us on this board are OK with pulling the reins back, but it hasn't all been bad.  From the time I discovered drum corps (late '70s), I always thought it was a bit weird that drum corps had soloists playing (sometimes from the backfield) in football stadiums designed to seat 70,000 people; there is a different type of musical expression allowed when you're not having to play at FFF.  That can be good or bad, but you're not going to get many converts if you say that, e.g., miking is ALL 100% bad.  What are some recent shows that you thought were finding a reasonable balance?

[Schnitzel]

20 minutes ago, Bobby L. Collins said:

Oh I know about your group on Reddit, and what a CJ it is for amps and spandex.  I also know that not ALL of the members of corps like the direction they are being led in on the field, but their choice is to either participate in their life-long dream, or don't.  I had to make that same choice myself in my college marching band, a choice I still haven't come to terms with.  

2

Mr. Collins, you sure spend a lot of time telling us all the voluminous content of your knowledge and experience.  It's almost like you have a constant need to be impressive.  I'm sure a year with a G Soprano with "The Volunteers" and a few years marching Jim Idol's circle drills ("CJ's"?) in an orange-and-white overlay has qualified you for pageantry greatness.  Maybe you were even a legendary "Black Shirt."  It's not so much your conservative preferences that are so unattractive, it's the way you seem to dismiss anyone (or their ideas) who doesn't share your zealotry.  Philistines!

Although I'm certain you'll insist I'm incorrect in all this, I'm just curious as to your experiences that got you to this point.  Is there something going on in GreenEville I've missed lately?

[Bobby L. Collins]

35 minutes ago, BrianL said:

Bobby, I agree that things went too far this year and that it was a down year for the activity, but did you really not enjoy the Bluecoats' 2016 show?  I think that show will still be watched and listened to in 20 or 30 years.  Have you not enjoyed what Crown's brass line has been doing in recent years?  You're creating these binary categories where drum corps in the present tense is mostly or completely debased, and I think most of us on this board are OK with pulling the reins back, but it hasn't all been bad.  From the time I discovered drum corps (late '70s), I always thought it was a bit weird that drum corps had soloists playing (sometimes from the backfield) in football stadiums designed to seat 70,000 people; there is a different type of musical expression allowed when you're not having to play at FFF.  That can be good or bad, but you're not going to get many converts if you say that, e.g., miking is ALL 100% bad.  What are some recent shows that you thought were finding a reasonable balance?

Nothing really within the past few years.  I agree 100% there are still tasty licks and impressive moves in drum corps today, but those instances are either spread out between minutes (and I do mean MINUTES) of minimalist twaddle, or else buried beneath a bunch of special effects and jazz hands.  As I said the other day, it's getting to the point where it's simply easier to NOT watch a show on YouTube or elsewhere than it is to sit and fast forward trying to find something that's tolerable to the eyes and ears. 

If pressed, really hard, I would have to go back to 2011 to find a show I can even stand to watch from beginning to end.  And even then, there are large portions of the show I would simply rather not watch or hear.  Examples?  Bluecoats, Phantom, and Madison.  Creep is a spectacular opener, but I'd rather stick a pistol in my mouth than be forced to sit through the first minute of that that show; it's just a bunch of scatter drill and interpretive dance to someone holding down 5 notes on a synthesizer, and it reads more like a high school band that didn't have time to chart an on-field entrance.  Awesome brass sound, but marred in every conceivable way by the synthesized bass and the choir aahs.  Meanwhile, Phantom's 2011 show was a tour-de-force of a reasonable balance between music and motion (very reminiscent of 2003 and 1996), but much of that quality was buried beneath amplification and needless synthesized effects.  And Madison's closer from 2011 COULD have been one of the strongest hits of the modern era if it hadn't been for the amplified soloists blaring on the sideline (great chops, good sound, but knocked out of tune by the fact that it was amplified).  Multiple trumpets playing a double G have no business being amplified....AT ALL.  That just takes me right out of the moment every single time I hear it.

I personally have to go back to Phantom 08 to find a show that I feel like is the complete package, one that does not pander to taking advantage of every single rule change ALL AT THE SAME TIME like everyone else does today.  And even in that show, I roll my eyes when "ssssnickt" happens.  They could have achieved the same effect with the back end of a mallet and a suspended cymbal and saved $1,400.00.  No, I didn't like Jagged Line.  After watching that, the only thing I, a trained musician and drum corps aficionado can tell you about Jagged Line is that there was a $60,000.00 prop in the middle of the field and that the solos were ruined by a vocoder.  It's simply to the point where a lot of fans literally dread seeing and hearing a performance for the first time, and having to grit their teeth throughout to try to muscle through what they can't stand in order to try to enjoy the things they can.

I didn't just wake up one morning and decide that I hated all this crap they're artificially injecting into drum corps.  I gave concert horns a chance, and they just keep adding more and more needless instruments.  I gave amplification a chance, and they just kept adding more and more needless effects and synthesizers.  We dinos gave them an inch, and DCI took a million miles.  I for one, am fed up of self-imposed concessions and compromises simply to belong to an activity that none of the fans and vets I grew up with can even stand to talk about anymore.  It's time for DCI to start listening to the voices of those who helped, in whatever small way, to put them on the map, and to start doing a little conceding and compromising of their own.  OR, change the name of the organization to Fine Arts International, and discontinue calling itself something it stopped being years ago.

Edited August 15, 2017 by Bobby L. Collins

[StunnedMonkey]

1 hour ago, Jeff Ream said:

and pop stars sell out stadium and arenas world wide. bet you loved Led Zeppelin right? Oh wait...they used keyboards, theramins, and pedaled guitar effects.

And? Because Led Zeppelin and Taylor Swift use theramins, keyboards, and pedaled guitar effects...drum corps should too?  They also play indoor on stages with small groups. I guess drum corps should too. And Zeppelin didn't use sopranos/trumpets. Why should DCI? 

DCI used to be a particular activity. Why was it necessary to turn it into something it wasn't?  Like I said earlier, if you take over a pizza shop and start selling nothing but vegan wraps and carrot juice...it's not a pizza shop anymore, regardless of what you call it.

Drum corps hasn't evolved. It changed in to something else completely.

 

 

[Stu]

2 hours ago, Bobby L. Collins said:

Be advised Jeff, you're now on my ignore list.  I don't have time to bandy crooked words with trolling contrarians not interested in rational discourse.

 

[MikeD]

3 hours ago, StunnedMonkey said:

Why would it be a disservice? DCI existed for 30+ years without amplification and electronic trickery. I don't recall anyone ever complaining about it being a disservice.

It's band. Drums and brass. It doesn't (or shouldn't) need synths and mixers.

 

Synths and mixers are part of "band", both regular marching band and the drum corps category. Why? Because those who make the decisions think those elements improve their sound. When I marched corps could not use mallet instruments at all, and members had to carry their timpani...when I started marching there were no marching timpani, and no multi-tenors. Times thankfully change.

[Jim Schehr]

Would be very disappointed if the activity was the same as when I marched. 

[BRASSO]

2 hours ago, Schnitzel said:

Mr. Collins, you sure spend a lot of time telling us all the voluminous content of your knowledge and experience.  It's almost like you have a constant need to be impressive.  I'm sure a year with a G Soprano with "The Volunteers" and a few years marching Jim Idol's circle drills ("CJ's"?) in an orange-and-white overlay has qualified you for pageantry greatness.  Maybe you were even a legendary "Black Shirt."  It's not so much your conservative preferences that are so unattractive, it's the way you seem to dismiss anyone (or their ideas) who doesn't share your zealotry.  Philistines!

Although I'm certain you'll insist I'm incorrect in all this, I'm just curious as to your experiences that got you to this point.  Is there something going on in GreenEville I've missed lately?

 I just read your lengthy response reply here, and none of it offered us up anything of a counter point to his remarks but an attack on his posting demeanor and an assailment of his City and his experience in Drum Corps, Marching Band World. So...... at the moment at least..... you lose, imo.

Edited August 15, 2017 by BRASSO