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Time to Say Goodbye, after 15 years


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1 hour ago, Continental said:

According to the comments in the video, they are not going to GNs.

Texas has had a rule about how many years a band can travel out of state and BOA had a custom of rotating corps at GN to give a chance to as many schools as possible. As a result sometimes the best units get to stay home and play spectator, go to actual classes and do homework, say hi to the family and community, etc.

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1 minute ago, N.E. Brigand said:

...their visual and general effect scores held them to 27th place overall ... ironically, they featured less drill this year than in previous seasons ... and they had a big prop: a sixty-foot long, four-foot tall stage with multiple ramps extending from it, placed right behind the pit.

So maybe a tide is turning, and this particular musically-adept band, dipping their toe into the BOA world, zigged when everyone else had started to zag?

Anyway, as I have long said (for a decade now), in drum corps I would find woodwinds less objectionable than amplification.

Bring on the shawms!

 

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20 minutes ago, greg_orangecounty said:

Wow. In 2019 I had no idea high school marching bands could be this good. No wonder many here think adding WW to Drum Corps is no big deal, as bands look like Drum Corps now.

I may have to re-think my position on “Bandos”

Surprised me, too. Now I'll believe my poker-buddy/band director when he says just try watching sometime, you'll enjoy it. 

I have to think rehearsal time for these units is somewhat limited. It's not like they're out on tour for weeks and months at a time. How much time do these bands put in? 

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53 minutes ago, greg_orangecounty said:

Wow. In 2019 I had no idea high school marching bands could be this good. No wonder many here think adding WW to Drum Corps is no big deal, as bands look like Drum Corps now.

I may have to re-think my position on “Bandos”

Saw them in person at UIL Region.  Absolutely blew me away.  Amazing (and gigantic) guard was able to do some astounding things, and those kids made the dances look effortless.

Mike

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37 minutes ago, OldSnareDrummer said:

Surprised me, too. Now I'll believe my poker-buddy/band director when he says just try watching sometime, you'll enjoy it. 

I have to think rehearsal time for these units is somewhat limited. It's not like they're out on tour for weeks and months at a time. How much time do these bands put in? 

I believe the Texas UIL had very strict daily and weekly limit on practice hours for many years.  Given heat and weather factors, school work, and other co-curricular activities (including sports) I remember hearing 2 hours a day, no more than 10 hours for the week. But my memory is old...

Upshot of the restriction was that the instructors/faculty/responsibles had to be VERY prepared, coordinated, and specific in instructions, aims, processes, even lesson plans. DCI corps often benefited from doing more with less after hiring Texas educators as instructors.

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15 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

and as a co author of the petition, and seeing the lack of action...and the drop and subsequent rise in attendace, i think we know how it worked out. and to be honest, a good chunk of those opposed have come around and at worst begrudgingly accept it. i mean if they keep paying to see it, then it can't be a deal breaker

No, it would be incorrect to assume anybody "knows how it worked out".

All we "know" is that A&E caused a uniquely visible negative reaction from among the fan base.  Some fans left, never to return.  Some fans never left, and never said they were going to.  No one knows the number of fans at either extreme... we can only speculate.  Guessing at how many fans were somewhere in between is even more speculative.  And surveying the customer base a decade after the fact as DCI has, with all the built-in confirmation biases that must contain, is even worse because they probably think they DO "know".

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1 hour ago, cixelsyd said:

No, it would be incorrect to assume anybody "knows how it worked out".

All we "know" is that A&E caused a uniquely visible negative reaction from among the fan base.  Some fans left, never to return.  Some fans never left, and never said they were going to.  No one knows the number of fans at either extreme... we can only speculate.  Guessing at how many fans were somewhere in between is even more speculative.  And surveying the customer base a decade after the fact as DCI has, with all the built-in confirmation biases that must contain, is even worse because they probably think they DO "know".

But is the reverse also true? While I'm sure that no one became a fan specifically because they learned that drum corps was now incorporating A&E, are there people in the current audience who would find the shows less enjoyable if they did not use those elements? I'm thinking of all the modern drum corps fans who look at "old" videos of drum corps and complain that the shows are so dated (and that all those old corps look and sound the same).

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2 hours ago, xandandl said:

I believe the Texas UIL had very strict daily and weekly limit on practice hours for many years.  Given heat and weather factors, school work, and other co-curricular activities (including sports) I remember hearing 2 hours a day, no more than 10 hours for the week. But my memory is old...

Upshot of the restriction was that the instructors/faculty/responsibles had to be VERY prepared, coordinated, and specific in instructions, aims, processes, even lesson plans. DCI corps often benefited from doing more with less after hiring Texas educators as instructors.

Omg you mean they actually let the students have time to be students? 😈

Our band never competed as director thought it was more important to build up the kids with low self esteem than “win trophies that will gather dust”. Next director had band compete but no emphasis on winning (some band parents had other ideas but...)

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4 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

No, it would be incorrect to assume anybody "knows how it worked out".

All we "know" is that A&E caused a uniquely visible negative reaction from among the fan base.  Some fans left, never to return.  Some fans never left, and never said they were going to.  No one knows the number of fans at either extreme... we can only speculate.  Guessing at how many fans were somewhere in between is even more speculative.  And surveying the customer base a decade after the fact as DCI has, with all the built-in confirmation biases that must contain, is even worse because they probably think they DO "know".

it's very easy to see how it worked out....like many predicted. allowing amplification led to synthesizers, laptops, boom mics, wireless mics and everything else you see on the field today or hear coming through the speakers. And after the high of attendance in 2007, then there was a drop for a few years, and now attendance is back up, pretty much holding steady the last few years. So yes, it is pretty easy to see how it worked out. As myself and several other predicted in December 2002 when the vote was taken to start use in 2004. Yes fans left. we've seen the angst filled posts here and elsewhere, and we all know people that left that never came here. We've also seen LOS go from maybe 12k in 2010 to the first side basically filled to the endzones, with several regionals breaking attendance records along the way.

 

If it were going to be all the doom and gloom many predicted back in 2002, DCI would be dead by now. It's not.

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and speaking of goodbyes, apparently Spirit cut their cymbal line

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