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Music City 2018


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7 hours ago, MikeRapp said:

They felt as though Legends were sort of their rival. But the near collapse of that corps mid tour has to put a chill on any talk of moving up. I don't know what their financials are, they may be better off than I think, but Nashville is a unique city and music is not really something that is easy to get corporations to rally around. Music is literally everywhere in this town. Having a world class corps just isn't as unique and important as it would be in Akron, Allentown or Charlotte.

I would guess, honestly, that most nashvillians don't even know Music City exists.

Drum corps is just a hard sell in Tennessee.  At least Nashville has some pretty good feeder schools.

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7 hours ago, MikeRapp said:

I would guess, honestly, that most Nashvillians don't even know Music City exists.

I saw nothing in the Cleveland print or television media last year or this year about the Blueocats. Sure, Canton is an hour south of here, but it's still in northeast Ohio and Cleveland TV stations describe it as being in their "viewing area". And you can bet that if a Canton high school won the state football title or something like that, it would get at least some notice in the local press. A couple weeks ago, I wrote to every reporter at our local major daily who had written anything about marching bands in the past two years (a dozen or so people, if you can believe it), letting them know about the upcoming Massillon show and about Bluecoats' national championship last year. No response, and as I far as I could tell, no stories either.

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15 hours ago, MikeRapp said:

I would guess, honestly, that most nashvillians don't even know Music City exists.

I travel a lot. When chatting with people at airports and find out if they are from Santa Clara, Canton, Rockford, Concord, Boston, Denver, San Antonio, etc... I ask if they have ever heard of their home corps. While a few are familiar with the corps, and some think they have heard the name on TV or something, by far the top two responses are 'no' and 'who'.  It has been that way since I started asking folks back in the '80s.

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8 hours ago, Bobby L. Collins said:

Drum corps is just a hard sell in Tennessee.  At least Nashville has some pretty good feeder schools.

Music, in Nashville, means free form live performance. There are so many talented kids here who, in Toledo, would march for Bluecoats. Here, their dad plays guitar for Keith Urban and so he has a band with $50k in gear.

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 My hometown has a school for the performing arts with all kinds of performing groups. They put on at least one show a year for the public for free as a way to gibpve back to the community. It's fairly well attended and people think they are "good." How good are they? They have won national awards. Many who participated have gone to the best conservatories or colleges with fine music programs, a good number arecprofessionals today, and the program itself is considered a model with people from all over the country visiting it to brings home ideas for their programs. For most people in the town, it's the dancing school above the old news store. Very few in the town know of the drama program, the instrument instruction, or the variety of dance taught. People involved in the arts know, very few others do.

That Music City may not be known in the larger Nashville community is not unique and it is not something that is true for drum corps alone. What would be key is a director who gets established in the community, goes to Chamber of Commerce meetings, and gets the corps involved in the community and builds partnerships. Connecting with area high schools and colleges would also be critical. 

Often in drum corps it seems that if a corps wants to move up, examples of corps who have failed are called to mind. We rarely if ever hear that's what Surf did, or Pacific Crest, or Oregon Crusaders, or Mandarins, or Academy. For this to happen, you need a full time director. I would think for a young person with drive, this could be a great opportunity, and with Keith Hall as a mentor, it's full of possibilities. 

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33 minutes ago, MikeRapp said:

Music, in Nashville, means free form live performance. There are so many talented kids here who, in Toledo, would march for Bluecoats. Here, their dad plays guitar for Keith Urban and so he has a band with $50k in gear.

Heh... why pay to play music in a drum corps when you can be paid to play music.  LOL

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Once director is hired, they should take a look at the business and promotional model San Fransisco Renegades used - like it or not, it made everyone curious to see the product.  Also recall the SFR were named San Francisco's official music ambassadors (or something like that).  It built community support, and although they no longer compete in DCA, they still do local performances.

Edited by IllianaLancerContra
bad speling
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In m opinion, the way to go here is to get as many Nashville-area dci world class alums on the board as possible. There are many. We have some big, powerful high schools here, especially in Williamson County. The band directors here work their kids almost as hard as a world class corps. Having a true world class corps here would be a huge benefit for area schools, which are always struggling to keep music relevant in education.

I had asked this earlier and no one answered: If Music City does move to world class, do they own the Nashville show as other world class corps do? It would be pretty difficult for them to make it financially without a true home town event.

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