Percussion integration

[perc2100]

On 2/3/2026 at 12:03 AM, arabica said:

Agreed. As a brass player, I would feel a bit slighted these days by how little playing time I had. And even so many of the brass moments are often small ensemble and soloists these days.

The musicianship today is out of this world and I still find the current state to be mostly entertaining, but brass books and the music design overall has become very “vertical” rather than “horizontal”. I’m grateful some corps still buck the trend.

and I wonder how non-mic'ed brass players feel: like, if someone was say a third year age-out in the mello line but a few of your other colleagues were solo mic'ed up but not them.  As a snare drummer I'd never have to worry about that

[perc2100]

8 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

I remember years ago on the ESPN feed Cavies discussing having to add musical counts because of a visual idea....and that there is a reason why music design in general doesn't always flow like it used to.

Right, and I remember a specific music guy who wanted to argue against that concept (ie against Michael Gaines during the 00-06 era Cavaliers) and it...didn't go great for that music guy.

But of course the best DCI shows are also the ones that feel seamless musically & visually, and part of the nature of the activity is some designers excel but many do go to not-so-great/don't quite excel.  The fun and bane of DCI is its ever-changing nature & trends, it's experimentation, it's pushing the boundaries of the accepted trends, etc. which means many of the not-consistent top-placing designers miss the mark one way or another.

[KVG_DC]

57 minutes ago, perc2100 said:

and I wonder how non-mic'ed brass players feel: like, if someone was say a third year age-out in the mello line but a few of your other colleagues were solo mic'ed up but not them.  As a snare drummer I'd never have to worry about that

Except that year BK miced a snare soloist to do some pretty cool crunchy effects with the sound.  

[denverjohn]

4 hours ago, perc2100 said:

and I wonder how non-mic'ed brass players feel: like, if someone was say a third year age-out in the mello line but a few of your other colleagues were solo mic'ed up but not them.  As a snare drummer I'd never have to worry about that

 

Edited February 5 by denverjohn
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[perc2100]

23 hours ago, KVG_DC said:

Except that year BK miced a snare soloist to do some pretty cool crunchy effects with the sound.  

Ha; I almost _knew_ someone likely used a mic to mic up a snare or something at some point 😄