Drum corps percussion history question

[MikeD]

8 hours ago, ironlips said:

Yes, and if I recall, you provided a good deal of the "cannon blasts" required for that Christmas Eve/ Battle of Trenton production. George Tuttle was Garfield's Jerry Shellmer. Both of those cats were 'way ahead of the curve.

 

I recall some of the judges used to tick the cannon shot, as George had the biggest bass play the BOOM with the small rudi doing the smaller boom as an echo. They would hit it for "Not Playing Together". George was waaay ahead of his time, for sure, as was Jerry of course. The original drum book for the 71 America, the Brave show was amazing for its day.

[Jeff Ream]

12 hours ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

SoA had some bass drum runs in 79 or 80 that would still be effective today.  Bayonne was also a leader.  I suppose that it is no accident that Tom Float & Dennis DeLucia (respectively) were the caption heads. 

those 2 are the lines i remember first hearing bass runs. 79 SCV too at least in the drum solo

[denverjohn]

13 hours ago, MikeD said:

I recall some of the judges used to tick the cannon shot, as George had the biggest bass play the BOOM with the small rudi doing the smaller boom as an echo. They would hit it for "Not Playing Together". George was waaay ahead of his time, for sure, as was Jerry of course. The original drum book for the 71 America, the Brave show was amazing for its day.

Yes, Mike. Bob & I did a sort of late "open flam" to Froggy's 1/2 note triplet the judges would tick until he changed it later in the season to unison after giving up on explaining to the judges. The marching timpani book is what stands out most to me right now. I believe the Shriners show was our best performance and audio recording that season. I remember that a lot of the book got "hosed" for nationals.

[KVG_DC]

See this right here is what’s awesome about the activity. 
 

You can remember a particular lick or move and then the very person who performed it can chime on years later. 

[ironlips]

3 hours ago, denverjohn said:

Yes, Mike. Bob & I did a sort of late "open flam" to Froggy's 1/2 note triplet the judges would tick until he changed it later in the season to unison after giving up on explaining to the judges. The marching timpani book is what stands out most to me right now. I believe the Shriners show was our best performance and audio recording that season. I remember that a lot of the book got "hosed" for nationals.

Ah, yes. Every arranger's nightmare: the Great Hosing Down of the Charts. In this case, it was all for naught and probably cost the corps a couple of placements at Nationals because the GE score stalled when the exposures were removed.

In my naivete (this was my first book for a corps of this caliber), I objected so strongly that I was summarily dismissed from the staff. It was clear to me that Tuthill's creative use of percussion, particularly tuned basses and tympani, was the element that allowed the show to make musical sense.

In hindsight, this is the downside of being innovative in corps design. It takes a while for the appreciation to kick in, and the ultimate reason why the tick had to die for things to progress.

Bobby Hoffman (no stranger to innovation) once told me, "You can't just DO IT. You gotta SELL IT."

 

[MikeD]

12 hours ago, denverjohn said:

Yes, Mike. Bob & I did a sort of late "open flam" to Froggy's 1/2 note triplet the judges would tick until he changed it later in the season to unison after giving up on explaining to the judges. The marching timpani book is what stands out most to me right now. I believe the Shriners show was our best performance and audio recording that season. I remember that a lot of the book got "hosed" for nationals.

The Shriners was a great show for us. A bunch of us were graduating from HS the day the corps drove to Toronto. The corps left early on a Friday to go from Garfield to Toronto. Those of us who had HS graduations met at Garfield HS around 9:00 PM. Must have been 10-12 of us. Corps adults had cars ready to go to drive us to Toronto all night. Must been 3 or 4 carloads of us. We got in early Saturday morning. 

As for the recording, I have the LP, and you are right. The quality is wonderful. I met Ironlips for dinner a long time ago when I was on a business trip to the San Fran area. He told me that the company that made the recording used a much different approach than Fleetwood, who did most of the recording at the time. 

Yes, George hosed the drum book by Nats. The original tri-tom part was amazing when we learned it. But, we made a bunch of revisions by Nats, and it was a shell of what it was.

One of the big changes was when the Brits were playing a 3/4 minuet at the same time the American were playing a 2/4 hoedown, complete with dances. Originally, the drumline split in half to support both sets of music. We actually had different drills that separated us on the field. I was in the half that supported the British, so my drill was to be near them. The other half marched with the Americans doing the hoedown. Drum judges had no idea how to judge the two simultaneous parts, and they gave us little credit for what we did. By midseason George gave up, and we ended up doing a time-keeping part in mid-field.

 

[MikeD]

8 hours ago, ironlips said:

Ah, yes. Every arranger's nightmare: the Great Hosing Down of the Charts. In this case, it was all for naught and probably cost the corps a couple of placements at Nationals because the GE score stalled when the exposures were removed.

In my naivete (this was my first book for a corps of this caliber), I objected so strongly that I was summarily dismissed from the staff. It was clear to me that Tuthill's creative use of percussion, particularly tuned basses and tympani, was the element that allowed the show to make musical sense.

 

 

I think one of the big changes was the end of the show. Our closer was "Profiles in Courage" with a reprise of "Yankee Doodle" as we marched into the sunset and left the field. No standard big finale. We eventually had a standstill big finale added of a bit of "America, the Beautiful" to close the show in a more standard manner. Being just a kid in the corps, I don't really know all of went on behind the scenes. I kind of liked just marching off, but the finale is decent too on the video I have of the World Open. 

[Weaklefthand4ever]

On 2/21/2023 at 2:34 PM, keystone3ply said:

That picture can't be from 1971  

I was about to say that look like 12 lug Slingerland TDR's. I marched those exact tenors in HS but converted them to quints in like 1985 or so. Ludwigs in DCI and Corders (barf) in college until we got Pearls.

[Jeff Ream]

On 2/22/2023 at 1:27 PM, ironlips said:

Ah, yes. Every arranger's nightmare: the Great Hosing Down of the Charts. In this case, it was all for naught and probably cost the corps a couple of placements at Nationals because the GE score stalled when the exposures were removed.

In my naivete (this was my first book for a corps of this caliber), I objected so strongly that I was summarily dismissed from the staff. It was clear to me that Tuthill's creative use of percussion, particularly tuned basses and tympani, was the element that allowed the show to make musical sense.

In hindsight, this is the downside of being innovative in corps design. It takes a while for the appreciation to kick in, and the ultimate reason why the tick had to die for things to progress.

Bobby Hoffman (no stranger to innovation) once told me, "You can't just DO IT. You gotta SELL IT."

 

"remember that part you used to play there?"

[musicteacher]

This reminds m of the great brass pedagogue Frank Williams' classic line, "Trumpets, this is your new part here." Then...silence.