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Yes to all on original post.

The first few years of flugels/mellos. (Knickerbockers, etc. -whoop, whoop)

"Sparkle" drum finish.

"Tiger-stripe" drum finish on 12?, 15? lug snares.

"Chrome" finish drums.

Double-bass drums.

Boston teaching us what "odd meters" sounded like. 5/4, 7/8. Thanks Jerry Shelmer.

Every new timp line figures out how to play "Smoke on the Water".

2 classes:

1.Open

2.All-Girl

(all on same set of sheets)

Cat gut snares.

Dot drum heads.

Mirror heads.

Reflective sparkling tape on sticks, rifles, etc.

Cymbal racks.

Anticipating the viaduct/tunnel/bridge when we sounded "LOUD" during the parades.

Playing for the squirrels in the woods for no reason in a rural No. Jersey parade. (Thanks for signalling a "roll-off" in the middle of nowhere.)

Back-sticking, stick clicks.

Open-seating all-day, several day prelims.

Winter stand-still competitions. Quartet competitions. 4 different Bethpage colonial fife players every time the curtain opened. Repeat.

No food trucks. Fast food or no food.

Daylight closing fanfares including the obligatory fainting routine. (Long before the Bridgemen)

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There's nothing wrong with being old school. But two of the best are Jim Jones founder of the troopers and Gale Royer founder of the Santa Clara Vanguard.

Can anybody beat these two? I don't think so. Thanks, Old Dutch Boy Cadet

IMO only Truman Crawford could come close to topping Mr. Jones, or Mr. Royer. Col. Crawford worked directly with approx. 100 corps in his lifetime, and had a lasting impact on each of them.

On a side, I met Gail Royer face to face in 1978, and was awed to be in his presence. When I told him as much, he said to me, with genuine modesty, " I'm just an average guy who loves his drum corps."

They just don't make 'em like that anymore..... ^_^

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It seems to me that the season is soooo much shorter now. We had a FULL weekend of contests, parades and standstills on Memorial Day Weekend. Even before that weekend, we would perform for one group or another throughout the spring. Our season didn't end at Nationals, either. (oh, yeah, Nationals. Not the Summer Music Games!) Also, Nationals was not the 2nd Freaking weekend of August. We always did performances up untill Labor Day. Wait, no, there was also the Christmas Parade in December. I suppose that's because so few of us were Music Majors or Dance Majors, and we didn't have to rush back to college.

I remember that we were hometown kids, not imports from all over the country, so we could actually perform on our "home field". That was always a scream. We always played and spun our hearts out, 'cause we knew the stands were full of people who knew us. You all remember that, old-timers?

My additions to the name topic:

Scar of Indiana

Vanta Sara Clanguard

Fagum Ragiment

What ever happened to all the Canadian Corps? We always competed against North Star, Cardianals of Precious Blood, Ventures. Another thing, circuits? We competed in a Circuit. Don't remember if it had a name, but the shows were either in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, or Ontario. Maybe the Great Lakes Circuit. Didn't travel out of the area until we went to Nationals.

Of course, most of you guys were in a "big corps", and the Bluecoats were little back in my day.

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I remember going to the wedding of a former member of the Bandettes a few years ago, and although this is not real old school, it was apparent that all these girls in the corps back in the 70's, when my friend marched, grew up together in the corps. Their lives were shaped by the time they spent in the corps, and the corps was not just a hobby that they did on the weekends. They developed friendships that will last the rest of their lives, they experienced so many things with the other people of the corps that they truly were a family.

This experience made me think back to my first years in the activity and the one thing that I miss most is the hometown corps feeling, with people that were best friends and corps mates. We went to movies together, had corps dances (just for fun) and sweated all summer together. We did football halftime shows in the frigid cold, develivered phone books to raise money and even tried to break the worlds record for the longest parade ( we were disqualified on a technicality!).

I truly believe that those experiences have made me the person that I am today and would not trade any of them (good or bad) for anything!

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It seems to me that the season is soooo much shorter now. We had a FULL weekend of contests, parades and standstills on Memorial Day Weekend. Even before that weekend, we would perform for one group or another throughout the spring. Our season didn't end at Nationals, either. (oh, yeah, Nationals. Not the Summer Music Games!) Also, Nationals was not the 2nd Freaking weekend of August. We always did performances up untill Labor Day. Wait, no, there was also the Christmas Parade in December. I suppose that's because so few of us were Music Majors or Dance Majors, and we didn't have to rush back to college.

I remember that we were hometown kids, not imports from all over the country, so we could actually perform on our "home field". That was always a scream. We always played and spun our hearts out, 'cause we knew the stands were full of people who knew us. You all remember that, old-timers?

My additions to the name topic:

Scar of Indiana

Vanta Sara Clanguard

Fagum Ragiment

What ever happened to all the Canadian Corps? We always competed against North Star, Cardianals of Precious Blood, Ventures. Another thing, circuits? We competed in a Circuit. Don't remember if it had a name, but the shows were either in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, or Ontario. Maybe the Great Lakes Circuit. Didn't travel out of the area until we went to Nationals.

Of course, most of you guys were in a "big corps", and the Bluecoats were little back in my day.

Some of us weren't in big corps (we just sounded like it). :mmm:

It doesn't make your opinion any less valid!

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What ever happened to all the Canadian Corps? We always competed against North Star, Cardianals of Precious Blood, Ventures. Another thing, circuits? We competed in a Circuit. Don't remember if it had a name, but the shows were either in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, or Ontario. Maybe the Great Lakes Circuit. Didn't travel out of the area until we went to Nationals.

Of course, most of you guys were in a "big corps", and the Bluecoats were little back in my day.

Yeah so many great Canadian corps back then. Big and small, very classy units!

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Remember when...

There was only one yardline on the field.

You took mine....Marching when there was only a 50 yardline and the goal (start & finish) lines!

I remember doing an exhibition at a marching band show in 1972 and having to deal with lines every 5 yards...the drumline came across the field, turned and marched smartly up the 45 yardline!!

While the drills were MUCH simpler then, you had to rely entirely on interval and dress.....not yard lines and hash marks.

jim

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What ever happened to all the Canadian Corps? We always competed against North Star, Cardianals of Precious Blood, Ventures. Another thing, circuits? We competed in a Circuit. Don't remember if it had a name, but the shows were either in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, or Ontario. Maybe the Great Lakes Circuit. Didn't travel out of the area until we went to Nationals.

Of course, most of you guys were in a "big corps", and the Bluecoats were little back in my day.

Yeah so many great Canadian corps back then. Big and small, very classy units!

The major curcuits in the areas you mention were the Great Lakes Drum Corps Assoc(The Gmen's home curciut.....Champs 72-75) The Ohio-Penn Curcuit. and the fore-runner of DCM, The Illinios Drum Corps Curcuit (I THINK that was the name, we didn't compete there much)

So many corps back then........At one time, just the G.L.D.C.A. had over 50 member corps!

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