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Go For Your Dream Or Face Reality and Give it Up?


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Not going to write  a lot of soothing words... the answer to your question is “move on” . 

Open and World Class corps have techs that ARE education majors, have YEARS of marching experience, and have dedicated their whole existence to teaching the activity. 

You didn’t. So the answer to your original question is “move on”. 

All that said, finding a volunteer role in a high school band shouldn’t be difficult at all. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by PopcornEater1963
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If you have the talent go for it.  You might have to earn some street credit by teaching marching band and possibly some smaller corps.  I think you can assure a spot on a smaller corps staff by offering to work for free and paying your own travel.  I would not waste my time getting a music degree just to teach corps.  A few seasons of making connections and showing what you have might get you a shot, you never know.

 

You might even be a more valuable asset at 40 than 22.  You might also consider not teaching, but using your business experience to help some corps get their front office in order, that is were most corps need help anyway.

 

Edited by jonnyboy
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11 hours ago, garfield said:

Yes, you should face reality and give up now.

Take your creative desires and learn how to sail, or crochet, or fly sailplanes or shoot skeet because music, and most particularly, today's drum and bugle corps, will suck the very life from the marrow of your bones and leave you a heaping carcass in some roadside rest stop; you'll never be able to give enough and every good deed will be met with thanks and expectations for more good deeds.  If you take my advice and bail now, your bank account will thank you, your family will thank you, your time to fish or drive or sail will thank you.  EVERYTHING about your life will be better...

...except your soul.

 

The kids LOVE great teachers - find a way.

This is all good.

But I have to say... shooting skeet is a LOT of fun.

...So there's that.

Get involved in a local HS group.  Then work your way in with a DCA group (if one is near you).  Start there... your resume includes a year as a DCI marching member.  That's enough to get you involved in either or both of those 2 options (assuming that you have a good, magnetic personality, an even temperament, and a solid pedagogical philosophy... with the vocabulary to effect change for the better).  That's a tall order, but the good news is that being involved with those other groups can help you get there.  You need to see good people at work in order to become one (that's what music school actually does for good music educators).

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11 hours ago, Tim K said:

“Drum Line” to get the adrenaline going

Tim,

I know that you know that If you're a drummer, this movie is as horrible as Howard the Duck and as depressing as the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan....lol. 

That being said, I agree with everything here. I went to school to be a music educator and ended up working in the corporate world as an instructional designer. It's been lucrative, but not my dream. 

As a wise man once said...."Just do the #### thing!"

 

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2 hours ago, jonnyboy said:

If you have the talent go for it.  You might have to earn some street credit by teaching marching band and possibly some smaller corps.  I think you can assure a spot on a smaller corps staff by offering to work for free and paying your own travel.  I would not waste my time getting a music degree just to teach corps.  A few seasons of making connections and showing what you have might get you a shot, you never know.

 

You might even be a more valuable asset at 40 than 22.  You might also consider not teaching, but using your business experience to help some corps get their front office in order, that is were most corps need help anyway.

 

This ^^

Also, consider the talent you're NOT sharing while you go back to school.  Business talent is ALWAYS in high demand in almost every drum corps and, if you can demonstrate talent in management, development, oversight, or governance I would suggest you volunteer for a corps board position.  Especially if you have no other connection to a corps, which makes your oversight almost bias-free. 

The DCI Board Consortium is open to all corps board members, and meets twice per year (at the Janual and at Indy).  If you're able to pay your own way, it's likely that your corps will allow you to attend to broaden your horizons and share your corps' experience in the activity.   Help a corps buy a food truck or creatively finance an equipment trailer, then watch the little kiddies' faces as they eat "new" food or retrieve their safely-stored instruments.  Oh, and don't forget how happy you'll make the kitchen staff and other volunteers.

One nice thing about contributing this way is that you have to have zero love for the direction of the activity to still enjoy and make an impact on it.

             

Edited by garfield
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I think those that are suggesting starting with a HS Band are right on the money. Even a non-competitive band would probably welcome assistance. 

Of course, you would (hopefully) need to go through the normal district screening process. So...I would start investigating the scholastic option now rather than later. It might take a month or two for the process to complete.

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1 hour ago, cfirwin3 said:

This is all good.

But I have to say... shooting skeet is a LOT of fun.

...So there's that.

Get involved in a local HS group.  Then work your way in with a DCA group (if one is near you).  Start there... your resume includes a year as a DCI marching member.  That's enough to get you involved in either or both of those 2 options (assuming that you have a good, magnetic personality, an even temperament, and a solid pedagogical philosophy... with the vocabulary to effect change for the better).  That's a tall order, but the good news is that being involved with those other groups can help you get there.  You need to see good people at work in order to become one (that's what music school actually does for good music educators).

The_Kid, my son, the once burgeoning snare drumming drum corps nut has moved on and is now a championship clay target shooter.  Trap, Skeet, Sporting clays, super sporting, Bunker, and FITASC.  He's shoots for the Hillsdale shotgun team and is, as of this week, the Ohio Junior clays leader.  If he holds that position, he'll qualify for the State team and has a shot to be placed into the Olympic training schedule for the 2024 games.  He credits the discipline he learned during practice and auditions for drum corps for his team shooting success so far (and the soon-to-be Olympic training facility at Hillsdale).

Sporting Clays is like golf with shotguns and is crazy-fun.  I encourage everyone to give it (ba-dum bum) a shot.

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I am gonna give you a bit of my life experience. 

I love music beyond anything and when I attempted to push it out of my life.... NOPE! It lead me to life of actual misery. Not going into details, but it was awful. I would rather be broke and happy other than having a possibility of being a millionaire and being absolutely miserable (note* I am not rich!!! Lol). 

Follow your heart. It is good to be wise, but finding balance between your knowledge and passions is absolutely key to happiness in life

Go Cavies!

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If it's a life long dream then try, you should just try. Find the place where you passion is needed and jump in. HS, small corp, hell a drum and baton corp, find the place that needs you talent. As was mentioned above, your real world experiences could also be valuable

Worth mentioning that a friend of mine marched with the caption head of a perennial top 3 horn line. He has the education and credentials to fill that role brilliantly. But, says she, "outside of drum corps/music he is sort of dumb."

Use your talents, find your niche and go.

 

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