The Marching Arts

[Stu]

11 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

come on, it's too good to pass up!

Or also pass gas!

[MikeD]

1 hour ago, BRASSO said:

 I know of a very well known brass instructor that taught several Junior/ Senior Corps for years... a Hall of Famer... that walked away entirely from the activity when he saw that a few of the Corps he taught had purchased an over the shoulder brass instrument called "the Contra Bass" in that 1960- 1963 time period. He, along with quite a few others, did not consider this instrument a " Drum & Bugle Corps " instrument... but instead a " Marching Band instrument ". Less than 6 years later, just about ALL the competing Jr. and Sr. " Drum & Bugle Corps " were utilizing this " Marching Band ", instrument, so logically, I guess some might say that Stuart Rice himself did not march in a " Drum & Bugle Corps ", as few " purists" " from the 40's-50's  era considered the " Contra Bass " as a " Drum & Bugle Corps " instrument when it was 1st introduced in the early 60's in large scale to the Drum Corps activity.

There were letters to the editor in the predecessor to DCP and the internet....Drum Corps News...that bemoaned the addition of the contra. NanciD's great project to place the old issues online shows some of them.

[MikeD]

3 hours ago, HockeyDad said:

Much as we are poking fun at this YouTube video, there is a ring of truth to it. There are fewer corps now. Alarmingly so. The G bugle has been abandoned, along with its unique qualities, many of which are missed. Moments of marching and drill excellence creating their own wow moments are replaced by the “look at me” style craziness. Uniforms have been replaced by costumes. We can’t deny the truth of this. But... is this because of the “executives of DCI”?  Or would it have happened on its own over time, as every year each corps struggled to put something new and different on the field?  I don’t know. 

There are fewer drum corps today than when DCI started, for sure. However, there are waaaay more competitive marching/music units when competitive HS marching bands are factored in, along with WGI winds.

Also, most of the corps that failed through the 70's had little if anything to do with DCI. They were the small mom-and-pop local corps, a la the GSC corps, that no longer were able to attract members, raise funds in an era of huge fuel increases, new requirements for insurance, and just plain societal changes, not to mention the huge inflation of the late 70's. The churches had been pulling back long before DCI came along, and VFW/AL posts were in decline as well as WWII and Korean Vets aged. .

It was no longer enough to stand on the corner and do a tag day every now and then to fund a corps in the new world.

[JimF-LowBari]

8 minutes ago, MikeD said:

There were letters to the editor in the predecessor to DCP and the internet....Drum Corps News...that bemoaned the addition of the contra. NanciD's great project to place the old issues online shows some of them.

Have read the early 60s letters and editorials about the contras and lot of comparisons to today. In my mid 70s days it was DCN (they covered Sr corps better) letters about those “tink tink” marching bells. 

Yeah still remember “tink tink” all these decades later 😁

[MikeD]

Just now, JimF-LowBari said:

Have read the early 60s letters and editorials about the contras and lot of comparisons to today. In my mid 70s days it was DCN (they covered Sr corps better) letters about those “tink tink” marching bells. 

Yeah still remember “tink tink” all these decades later 😁

One of my memories of the 70's is the "tink tink" of marching bells. The problem is that since they were carried, and part of judging was the demand/exposure caption, they had to be played....played....and played....and overwritten to create the required demand. One of the great benefits of the pit is the ability to use mallet instruments as they are intended to be used, ESPECIALLY orchestra bells. I wrote shows that used them, and I was as guilty as anyone, out of necessity of the judging standards of the time.

I did try when possible to not overdue it. One GSC corps I wrote for did Berlioz' "March to the Scaffold" as the opener in 77. I went to the orchestral score and tried to give the bells much of the flute part and xylo the clarinet part, but I still had to doctor it up to give the players the required demand.

 

[cixelsyd]

4 hours ago, HockeyDad said:

Much as we are poking fun at this YouTube video, there is a ring of truth to it. There are fewer corps now. Alarmingly so. The G bugle has been abandoned, along with its unique qualities, many of which are missed. Moments of marching and drill excellence creating their own wow moments are replaced by the “look at me” style craziness. Uniforms have been replaced by costumes. We can’t deny the truth of this. But... is this because of the “executives of DCI”?  Or would it have happened on its own over time, as every year each corps struggled to put something new and different on the field?  I don’t know. 

If the position of DCI artistic director is an "executive", that might provide a toehold for such a claim.  But no, style has generally not been dictated by executive decisions.  In fact, a better case could be made for that in the VFW era (cue the Tony Schlecta stories).

[JimF-LowBari]

15 minutes ago, MikeD said:

One of my memories of the 70's is the "tink tink" of marching bells. The problem is that since they were carried, and part of judging was the demand/exposure caption, they had to be played....played....and played....and overwritten to create the required demand. One of the great benefits of the pit is the ability to use mallet instruments as they are intended to be used, ESPECIALLY orchestra bells. I wrote shows that used them, and I was as guilty as anyone, out of necessity of the judging standards of the time.

I did try when possible to not overdue it. One GSC corps I wrote for did Berlioz' "March to the Scaffold" as the opener in 77. I went to the orchestral score and tried to give the bells much of the flute part and xylo the clarinet part, but I still had to doctor it up to give the players the required demand.

 

And those bells REALLY came thru on the recordings. Especially with the drum line elevator drill. 

[Fran Haring]

1 hour ago, Jeff Ream said:

yes there are, but he points in many of the wrong directions why. Did some DCi decisions hurt corps staying alive? Sure. they'll never admit it, but they did. However, the style of shows and marching didn't do anything to kill corps. You had many groups like churches, and legions and vfw's stop sponsoring because drum corps money took away from their charter. too many corps tried to run out of a shoebox instead of running like a business, which caused the demise of soooo many corps, even to this day. No long range planning, no structure, no thoughts of gaining revenue. Plus life in general got more expensive. I has in high school the first time gas hit $1 a gallon. I've seen it go over $4 since then. No you need insurance. Now you can't pull the buses into McD's and let the kids eat. Yeah equipment is more expensive...what isn't. housing isn;t free anymore. driving around on decent buses isn't cheap.

 

Well said.  The local-circuit junior corps where I marched in the 1970s... our director wanted nothing to do with DCI.  But the corps was basically a shoestring operation, and was going away at some point whether DCI existed or not.

And when various critics over the years have said "DCI officials did this or that wrong, DCI officials made bad decisions"... I wonder if those critics are aware that the voting membership, not the DCI front office, makes the vast majority of the decisions regarding the direction and governance of the circuit.

Same with DCA. I lost count of the number of times I heard "Mickey Petrone (then-DCA president) did this or that... made this rule or that rule... at the last meeting"... when I was at that particular meeting, and nothing of the sort happened.  

[Lance]

the vast majority of what we colloquially called "uniforms" in DCI have been costumes.  

what was the last DCI corps to have any type of active military or scout affiliation/training going on?

unless they're doing that kind of training, they're just dressing up in costumes.  

the argument is purely about personal preference.  some people like the military-like costumes, while it's less important to others. 

[Jeff Ream]

1 hour ago, BRASSO said:

 Over time, the schools filled the void when the Veterans and Church groups no longer were willing to be the chief  sponsors for the units. The Vets groups/ Churches had already begun to cut back their sponsorships of Corps all across the country, and up into Canada in the early to mid 60's.. and on a large scale too. This all predates the formation of both DCI, DCA and WGI. I'm not defending DCI here, as they made some missteps along the way, as did individual Corps. But thankfully, the schools filled the void in their establishment of better relationships with the Drum Corps and Winter Guard activity or else they'd likely be even fewer Drum Corps and Winter Guard Units in existence today, imo.

oh I agree, some dumb decisions were made by DCI, and a few honest people will privately admit it. 

The major growth in WGI has really been in the last 10 years too. Now they are running 4 venues on finals weekend, sometimes 2 hours outside of Dayton. you can up to 5 regionals on a weekend. that's not counting the regional circuits...our circuit alone is running 58 regular season shows, plus a weekend of localized championships, then the big get together.......thats probably going to be well over 300 units again...Dance, twirlers, guards, percussion, winds and jazz bands.