Vanguard CEO resigns

[keystone3ply]

With the discovery of "counterportation" through the creation of transversal wormholes, maybe SCV shouldn't limit their recruiting areas to the planet earth... 🤔🤷‍♂️  

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/scientists-figured-create-wormholes-transportation-193000684.html

 

Hopping through the wormhole would allow people to effectively teleport from one side of space to another. But the team of researchers, led by Hatim Salih, a quantum physicist and honorary research fellow at the university, don’t call this method of travel “teleportation.” Instead, it’s known as “counterportation,” as Vice explains:

“The fundamental concept behind the new study is ‘counterportation,’ which is a portmanteau that Salih coined from the words ‘counterfactual’ and ‘transportation.’ While the transportation part is fairly straightforward, the counterfactual component is derived from a concept called counterfactual communication, which is a way to send messages between two points without exchanging any particles.

“By way of a simple real-world example, consider a dormant car engine light. It’s not emitting anything, but it still signals information: that your engine is fine. That’s counterfactual communication.”

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by keystone3ply
cx

[IllianaLancerContra]

28 minutes ago, keystone3ply said:

With the discovery of "counterportation" through the creation of transversal wormholes, maybe SCV shouldn't limit their recruiting areas to the planet earth... 🤔🤷‍♂️  

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/scientists-figured-create-wormholes-transportation-193000684.html

 

Hopping through the wormhole would allow people to effectively teleport from one side of space to another. But the team of researchers, led by Hatim Salih, a quantum physicist and honorary research fellow at the university, don’t call this method of travel “teleportation.” Instead, it’s known as “counterportation,” as Vice explains:

“The fundamental concept behind the new study is ‘counterportation,’ which is a portmanteau that Salih coined from the words ‘counterfactual’ and ‘transportation.’ While the transportation part is fairly straightforward, the counterfactual component is derived from a concept called counterfactual communication, which is a way to send messages between two points without exchanging any particles.

“By way of a simple real-world example, consider a dormant car engine light. It’s not emitting anything, but it still signals information: that your engine is fine. That’s counterfactual communication.”

 

I’ll set the scene:

DCI finals.  Field is empty. 

Crocker: “On the field, presenting their show Counterportatiom, Drum Corps International is proud to present The Mars Vanguard.”

Corps suddenly appears on field….

[jjeffeory]

On 3/21/2023 at 8:19 PM, 2muchcoffeeman said:

Stipulated: DCI membership in any given corps is more national today than ever. But California is the single largest "back yard" of talent in the USA. There is no other state with a potential membership pool within such close proximity as it is to any corps anywhere in Cali, let alone the uber-populated region from the Central Valley to the Bay Area. Why farm Texas when you're sitting smack in the middle of the world's 5th-largest economy? Why sweat the Midwest when your own state has as many people as multiple Midwestern states put together?

There's something fundamentally broken about the idea that a 150-member ensemble situated amid one of the richest pools of human talent on the planet would, as a matter of survival, need to set up a recruiting booth two time zones away, at the Iowa Music Educators Assocation conference.

Because it's too administratively expensive to be there?

I've lived in California more than any other state in the last 20 years, but there are some interesting things to consider about California:

There are numbers in California, but their bands, as good as they are, don't seem to fare that well at Grand Nationals.  Other than Ayala, I don't recall seeing a finalist from California. Buchanan never goes. James Logan never goes. Vista Murrietta hasn't made Grand National finals. Nor has Chino Hills, Chino, Mission Viejo, Upland, Hart, or even Arcadia.  All that "talent" that doesn't ever get compared to the other regions of the country directly.

Texas, on the other hand, compares very well to the Midwest bands.

 

....so there's a difference.

[MikeN]

In 2016, DCI posted "18 percent of all World Class corps members call the great state of Texas home.  California, Florida and Arizona also respectively lead the way for pumping out drum corps members on an annual basis."

Mike

[Chief Guns]

15 minutes ago, jjeffeory said:

Because it's too administratively expensive to be there?

I've lived in California more than any other state in the last 20 years, but there are some interesting things to consider about California:

There are numbers in California, but their bands, as good as they are, don't seem to fare that well at Grand Nationals.  Other than Ayala, I don't recall seeing a finalist from California. Buchanan never goes. James Logan never goes. Vista Murrietta hasn't made Grand National finals. Nor has Chino Hills, Chino, Mission Viejo, Upland, Hart, or even Arcadia.  All that "talent" that doesn't ever get compared to the other regions of the country directly.

Texas, on the other hand, compares very well to the Midwest bands.

 

....so there's a difference.

You are 100% correct. I live in Murrieta and my both my kids went to Vista Murrieta, my son was in the band all four years and is class of 2022. 

I have to ask my son, but I believe Vista Murrieta was supposed to Grand Nationals in 2020, but Covid hit. 

My son's sophomore year in 2019, Vista did go to San Antonio and did quite well. I believe they finished 17th out of 80+ bands. I heard the Texas crowd showed them lots of love and they were a crowd favorite. What's interesting about 2019 as well was that Ayala went to Grand Nationals and I remember hearing they did very well. Vista and Ayala duked it out multiple times during that season out here, and they traded wins by tenths of a point, so i wonder how Vista would have done had they went to GN that year too. 

But in the grand scheme of things you are spot on. 

[Chief Guns]

4 minutes ago, MikeN said:

In 2016, DCI posted "18 percent of all World Class corps members call the great state of Texas home.  California, Florida and Arizona also respectively lead the way for pumping out drum corps members on an annual basis."

Mike

My Auntie was in the RCC (Riverside Community College) color guard in the late 80's early 90's. Back then I remember hearing that RCC was known as "Blue Devils South" because over half the band marched for BD in the summers, and a vast majority of them were SoCal kids who would migrate up to Concord. No idea if it's still like that today for RCC. 

[scheherazadesghost]

.

Edited March 23, 2023 by scheherazadesghost

[keystone3ply]

2 hours ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

I’ll set the scene:

DCI finals.  Field is empty. 

Crocker: “On the field, presenting their show Counterportatiom, Drum Corps International is proud to present The Mars Vanguard.”

Corps suddenly appears on field….

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

On 3/23/2023 at 8:13 AM, jjeffeory said:

There are numbers in California, but their bands, as good as they are, don't seem to fare that well at Grand Nationals.  Other than Ayala, I don't recall seeing a finalist from California. Buchanan never goes. James Logan never goes. Vista Murrietta hasn't made Grand National finals. Nor has Chino Hills, Chino, Mission Viejo, Upland, Hart, or even Arcadia.  All that "talent" that doesn't ever get compared to the other regions of the country directly.

Texas, on the other hand, compares very well to the Midwest bands.

 

....so there's a difference.

All very interesting and I will accept it as completely accurate, though it has little relevance to the challenge facing VMAPA.

The topic is how VMAPA can best position itself for revival. Insofar as that question involves recruiting from the pool of interested students in its own backyard, the competitive success of CA HS bands at BOAGN would seem to have nothing to do with the answer.

What makes an individual student eager, motivated and qualified to seek membership in SCV, and what makes a HS music program competitive at a national level among other HS bands, are considerations that are almost completely removed from each other, aside from the fact they both concern music/dance performance. Consider, for example, that one reason why CA bands don't factor into BOA more prominently is that GN is held in Indianapolis -- a hugely expensive travel and logistical proposition for a 250-member ensemble of California-based minors, and all the associated support. Even in the Midwest, just getting to BOA regionals requires total program buy-in from the principal's office and a massive, engaged booster organization that works fundraising 24/7. Whipping up support for the vision falls largely on the back of the band director, so BOA success ends up being a function of the personality and drive (and sacrifice of sleep) of one person, and the resources they can summon from the school's community. For a band director in California, the burdens are even heavier if only because of their distance from the Heartland. And all of this has just about zero influence on whether a guard member in Poway has the interest, discipline, and chops to audition for Santa Clara -- or on SCV's ability to find and recruit her. The whole question on the table here is whether VMAPA can revive its competitive stature by finding membership from California. I think the answer is emphatically yes, and that the vicissitudes of the CA HS marching band scene are nearly irrelevant to the question.

If you're going to make the argument that competitively successful DCI corps require ready and proximate access to BOA-National-caliber HS band programs, I think you've got an entirely different argument on your hands. It's an argument that's going to have to explain the legions of kids who have left places like Iowa -- or heck, places like San Diego -- to join top-level drum corps, and explain BD's 20 rings.

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by 2muchcoffeeman

[craiga]

I do not believe that the geography matters at all to prospective world class members.   I think some of us are trying to apply 1970s-1980s sensibilities to a wholly different generation.   More than 60% of BAC is from Texas, for example. Two decades ago, that 60% came from Florida, and two decades before that, 80% were from Massachusetts.   In Boston's case, as the activity evolved, so did they.  Open Class corps continue to be more locally based, which makes complete sense.   This is not necessarily as new as some here might think.  I recall that when I was alive 40 years ago, there was an article in Drum Corps News reporting that many of Blue Devils drummers had southern accents because they had come over from Spirit.  I personally know 5 members of BD this year. One is from Virginia, two are from Texas, and two from Florida. The only California kid I know is in Boston's drum line.