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Will DCA be around in 5 years?


Will DCA be around in 5 years?  

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  1. 1. Will DCA be around in 5 years?

    • Yes
      33
    • No
      66


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1 hour ago, Jeff Ream said:

well.....no. Bucs would do well no matter where finals is held, because of their off season preparation and planning. In fact, 16 was theirs to lose, but off the field activities finals weekend distracted them, and while they tended to that, C2 was rehearsing their ### off. Bucs traditionally since the run started have come out full, pretty close to done, and while others are adding bodies and figuring out if they have to rewrite stuff, they've already planned the changes and additions yet to come.The same core design staff has been in place for a majority of the run, and if they had to change those folks, people from within were groomed to take over. if they know in September they have to go to MN, they'd have their #### prepared and ready for just such a scenario.

All of this.  The groups in the top box have fri 7pm -10pm, sat 9-9, and sun 9-6 rehearsals.  They have full or nearly full corps by feb or march. They have the show storyboarded and fully designed by   April.  And aren’t teaching in August, but are refining and changing show chunks as needed. 

It’s a pretty grueling schedule when you think about how the 3-day rehearsals happen from May to Sept. no wonder 25+ year olds don’t come out like they used to, that’s an incredible time suck. 

Edited by C.Holland
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2 hours ago, VOReason said:

Bucs could have booked a world cruise on the QE2 to get to finals in the years you have mentioned, and MBI...or anyone else for that matter....would STILL have not won.

Come on. Bucs were BEHIND after Prelims in one of those years. And I don't believe they're rolling in dough.

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2 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

well.....no. Bucs would do well no matter where finals is held, because of their off season preparation and planning. In fact, 16 was theirs to lose, but off the field activities finals weekend distracted them, and while they tended to that, C2 was rehearsing their ### off. Bucs traditionally since the run started have come out full, pretty close to done, and while others are adding bodies and figuring out if they have to rewrite stuff, they've already planned the changes and additions yet to come.The same core design staff has been in place for a majority of the run, and if they had to change those folks, people from within were groomed to take over. if they know in September they have to go to MN, they'd have their #### prepared and ready for just such a scenario.

Bucs would do well, always, but I'm not convinced they would do as well if they had to shoulder the costs that MBI has. That might mean cutting a staff member or two, and that loss in teaching could be enough to drop them a place.

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1 hour ago, C.Holland said:

All of this.  The groups in the top box have fri 7pm -10pm, sat 9-9, and sun 9-6 rehearsals.  They have full or nearly full corps by feb or march. They have the show storyboarded and fully designed by   April.  And aren’t teaching in August, but are refining and changing show chunks as needed. 

It’s a pretty grueling schedule when you think about how the 3-day rehearsals happen from May to Sept. no wonder 25+ year olds don’t come out like they used to, that’s an incredible time suck. 

Yes, yes, yes, they're very good. But like every other corps, they have to make choices about how to spend their money.

Now imagine a world in which some of that choice is taken away from them: they have to charter a bunch of buses -- which means using the money they would have spent on a couple techs. And they have to give up some late season rehearsal time to travel to, say, Madison or somewhere else west of Lake Michigan.

They're only human. That additional burden will take some toll. I say it costs them a championship or two over the past decade.

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On 8/20/2019 at 12:48 PM, lcarlton said:

3.) HS Marching programs have grown in skill and variety. Many schools now have competitive marching band, winterguard, and indoor drumlines; so the draw to march drum corps is less and less along with the overall available time. Often directors won't release their students for even DCA drum corps rehearsals, and not even Finals so you're stuck. Many of these directors are DCI Alumni, but their view of DCA is based on the past; without a modern narrative to really counter it.

I don't know Robert Davis, but if you want me to say a few words to Meg Beavers about the virtues of DCA... well,  I'm sure that would make absolutely no difference either.

But seriously, after last year's show, Cincinnati Tradition has staked a claim for being stronger than any high school band in Ohio, and any band director ought to be proud to have a student participate in CT. The Saints had a long way to go (though I haven't seen this year's show yet), but maybe they can ride CT's coattails for now.

Do corps find any difference between members whose experience comes from competition bands and members whose experience comes from show bands? Should the Saints be making their presence known at Johnstown or Gahanna Lincoln or Olentangy Orange or (insert other large Columbus-area show band here)? I was struck last fall when attending a (northeast Ohio) band festival that the host band, a competing group, had more drill than the other ten bands in the show combined. However, at that early (September) event, some of the festival bands had a stronger sound than the competition band (which was about as big as the biggest of them). Are the directors of show bands more or less likely than the directors of competing bands to be friendly towards corps?

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13 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

You're talking about the Kidsgrove Scouts, right? They've been to DCA four times over the past 15 years. Why shouldn't they try something different next time?

Many different all-age groups have participated in DCI and/or DCA through the years. A British group came to DCA just last year.

Cadence came in, had a great time, worked hard, made finals. Now, they've gone the indoor winds route in the UK/Europe and are doing well over there.

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1 hour ago, N.E. Brigand said:

But seriously, after last year's show, Cincinnati Tradition has staked a claim for being stronger than any high school band in Ohio,

How about Centerville Jazz?  I'd argue that one. William Mason? BoA Grand National Finalist last year. Mason's Granger show from 2017 was pretty daggone impressive.

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9 hours ago, Galen said:

There's a third aspect that I'm surprised hasn't been brought up so far from what I've seen- the perception that there is no competitive parity among the corps in the circuit. With 2 exceptions, the same corps has won for more than a decade (and the other 2 corps that won during that time period have either folded or haven't come out to DCA for the last few years and may not be coming back anytime soon). If there's a presumption that there's nobody else that can compete with the perpetual champions, I figure that has to be driving down interest both among fans and potential members of other corps as well.

That's possible. I go to see shows that engage me, and since I have no dog in the fight, I really have not a lot of interest in scores. out of the corps that appeared last year, there were only 3 that really left me cold out of the lot of them. I think that's a decent batting average.

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8 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

I don't know Robert Davis, but if you want me to say a few words to Meg Beavers about the virtues of DCA... well,  I'm sure that would make absolutely no difference either.

But seriously, after last year's show, Cincinnati Tradition has staked a claim for being stronger than any high school band in Ohio, and any band director ought to be proud to have a student participate in CT. The Saints had a long way to go (though I haven't seen this year's show yet), but maybe they can ride CT's coattails for now.

Do corps find any difference between members whose experience comes from competition bands and members whose experience comes from show bands? Should the Saints be making their presence known at Johnstown or Gahanna Lincoln or Olentangy Orange or (insert other large Columbus-area show band here)? I was struck last fall when attending a (northeast Ohio) band festival that the host band, a competing group, had more drill than the other ten bands in the show combined. However, at that early (September) event, some of the festival bands had a stronger sound than the competition band (which was about as big as the biggest of them). Are the directors of show bands more or less likely than the directors of competing bands to be friendly towards corps?

We've have / had members from those schools and those directors are well aware of our program; Mr Davis at Gahanna Lincoln offered to let us use their drums after our trailer got stolen so we could march in a local parade. Craig Dunn is well known here and one of our staff members is on staff at Orange currently. With both of those schools there are already scheduling conflicts due to band camp; and since the first game happens the Friday of DCA, all of our HS members aren't allowed to miss the game so we can't leave till 1130PM for Saturday prelims.

We do often pick up kids from Show Bands; but a lot of those kids aren't interested in drum corps , indoor, or color guard instead focusing on marching at OSU or OU. Gahanna Lincoln and Orange have pretty consistent pipeline into OSU and OU Bands for a very very long time. Our drum major went to Orange too, and he also marched OU and OSU; his interest in drum corps came after he graduated and since then he's done WGI Winds too. We try to target rural students from show style of non-competing corps style bands as the impact the members can have on their program after marching is huge. We don't have ANY students from Columbus City Schools; and even then we only had 1 or 2 a year with most of them struggling due to challenges in the our local school programs. We've started providing staff at little to no cost for band camps for city schools and I'm happy to say one of our original Saints from 2003 just took a job as a CCS Director. About 50% of our members are from Cincinnati; the rest are from Akron/Kent, Athens, and outside Columbus.

Some of our issues come from our legacy as an HBCU styled program for 11 years; we were larger; traveled more; and performed more often in that style before we switched to drum corps, which has been a slow path of rebuilding. So for a lot of people when you say "The Saints" they think of those kids performing with slings, and dancing; or they think of a small drum corps of like 40 people that plays g bugles which a lot of directors absolutely hate (and refuse to let their kids participate).

I love Tradition; being an alumni myself, but there are bands in Ohio that exceed their ability. Central Crossing comes to mind, along with a few others. Regardless, none of that matters because the first OMEA competition is labor day weekend which directly conflicts with DCA Championships so for a lot of schools it's a no-go because the members would miss the game and competition. 

Edited by lcarlton
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