Tuesday, August 9th “DCI Open Class World Championship FINALS” Wildcat Football Stadium at Indiana Wesleyan University Marion, INDIANA

[ironlips]

"Do WC organizations teach marching fundamentals, and how to play a brass instrument, even at the lower end of the spectrum?  "

Short answer: No

WC auditions would require strong fundamental skills from applicants. None of those corps teach "from scratch". In the old days, that kind of instruction was found in the local "neighborhood" corps. These are extinct, for all practical purposes.

Today, these basics are provided mostly by Middle School programs (where those exist), at least on the instrumental side. "Marching" (movement technique) will have to wait for High School since almost no Elementary or Jr. High programs feature that.

[KVG_DC]

And that's an issue for recruitment at this point given the amount of cuts to the arts and the cultural push to organized sports starting younger and younger.

Percussion world seems to have figured it out with indoor percussion groups creating talent to fill lines almost all the way down the spectrum of current corps.   Guard has a ton of indoor programs too, although it hasn't translated to participation all the way down the spectrum. Some folks here point out the timing and costs of doing both indoor and outdoor seasons back to back.

Brass, after you get past the top of the Open Class, is lacking numbers.

I still think DCI as an org and corps in particular could do more to bolster Open Class corps and the activity as a whole by focusing on "new musician" scholarships.