Favorite Brass Instructor?

[MiamiSun76]

Add to that Connecticut Royal Lancers, ND-ettes, as well as the Buccaneers feeder corp the Musketters and the St. Raphael's all-girl corps the Marrionettes.  Yes, St. Raphael's had 3 corps going at one time..... Ahh the good old days...

And Joe taught about 5 corps a year, each year.... How did he ever do it.....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ballantine Brewers, too.

[The_Clav]

Tommy Swan.

He was the horn instructor for The Saints in the mid seventies. I had joined them because I was simply blown away by the wall of sound they produced when I'd seen them in Wildwood at the end of '75. That wall of sound was directly attributable to Tommy.

I was only 13 when I joined and my previous experience with a horn instructor was my middle school band teacher tapping on the podium to get us ready. His favorite phrase, when you were having problems with a part, was, "trying working on that more."

Tommy's was a different style:

"Play it, God ######!"

I can still feel the flecks of spittle hit my face as he yelled at me.

He terrified the crap out of me back then, but he got me to play it, god ######! B)

I never marched with a corps better than The Saints (19th at DCI in '75). I was never in a position that I could go off and join a finalist corps, for one reason or another. Still, Tommy's legacy lasted with me throughout the rest of my drum corps career. While just a lowly 4th baritone with The Saints Tommy had given me the tools and the confidence to later play lead in the 3 corps I marched with after them and to be offered lead in a DCI contending corps. Though, I never got to march with the later corps. Having a kid at 20 squelched that idea. :P

I had seen Gus Wilkie's name mentioned a few times previously. I had forgotten about Gus, but he'd actually worked with Tommy on a number of occassions with The Saints. He worked on cleaning up the numbers.

[Redmann]

Chris Metzger