Allentown news

[Herbel]

Thats not quite true, I just graduated from Souderton High School which is a neighbor of Quakertown, and everyone in our marching program knows about drum corps and has watched finals dvd's at least once.  Reason being is that our director was a member of the cadets for a few years and still currently works for DCI, plus about five of the members for our marching band marched with a corps for at least two years or so.

So i guess what im saying is that most the time if at least three or so people from a marching band marched with a corps word would spread a little more.

beats me, just offering my opinion

Shane

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm glad you said that, because maybe it's just that my director (fantastic as he is) just doesn't emphasize drum corps much. We have had very few student corps members (most recently from Jersey Surf and Buccaneers), yet half of our staff has corps experience (Cadets, Black Watch). I'm the only hardcore, show-going drum corps fan in the entire program.

It's been my experience that a lot of band kids aren't very familiar with drum corps in this area. However, I know there are quite a few exceptions, like Souderton (do you guys have an indoor line?), and Nazareth High School. Additionally, I don't want to sound like it's a good or bad thing whether the kids are big corps fans or not; I'm not trying to say any schools are lower quality than others.

[Senagod]

I'm really surprised that Quakertown kids wouldn't know about drum corps. Quakertown is one of the top TOB bands and their staff has been around for quite a while. Maybe there's a lot of freshmen in the band this year and they're new, period.

I have my high school band director to thank for learning about drum corps. I grew up in north-central PA, where there's basically nothing. Bucs are the closest corps, and that's at least a 2 hour drive. Junior corps is at least a 4 hour drive, if not a lot more these days.

My high school band director loved drum corps. At my high school, we had most of our clubs (Key Club, Pep Club, etc.) once a month during class time (yes, weird I know). His last year at my school, he formed a DCI club, and we all hung out in the band room and watched old DCI videos. This was in the late '80s. One of our members marched Crossmen one year. I don't think anybody else did. We were all much too poor to do such a thing.

[MikeD]

I think many high school band students don't know about DCI....I know I didn't.  I wish some corps would do more recruiting in more places than they do now....or figure out some ways to communicate what DCI is to the thousands of kids out there who have no idea it exists that would love to be a part of it if they did.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Except for our two DM's who had been to the Vivace/George Parks camp and therefore the West Chester show, Saturday was the first time the other dozen or so kids that signed up had ever seen a live drum corps show. Our guard captains went to the first Music is Cool event at Giant's stadium and watched that show...also their first. I've been pushing for years to have the band attend a show..this is the first time we ever did it (new director), so I'm happy. Hopefully more will attend next time (we're small). A few mentioned going to North Brunswick for quarter finals, so the word is getting out.

Outside of me, our visual desginer/guard instructor also marched corps...a bit later than me...the late 70's...in the Kilties. He's a WGI movement judge as well, so he too has wanted to get us to a show.

Just some old fogies,

Mike

[Jeff Ream]

actually I would say Eastern PA...from Harrisburg east...knows about drum corps because of all of the directors who have experience or staff that have experience in the many senior corps and junior corps over the years in this region.

elsewhere, I can agree it';s quite a different story

[xrifle]

Yup, and that's been going on since my era in the 70s. My band dir got very upset when he lost one (just one!) of us to a corps.

It was the same for us over at Crystal Lake Central (the old Marching Tiger Band, '77). My brother and I were the only two corps kids in the band and we were actually shunned by some of the kids. We came to our high school straight from out of state. We were just excited that our school had a great marching band. Lots of good marching bands at the time in Northern Illinois.

[xrifle]

Ooops. Anyway, the point I was going to make is that at the show in Murfreesboro, TN, the bands came by the bus loads. The announcer took time between each performance to welcome each band. They were from Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. I don't know what kind of outreach has been done in this area, but it seems to have worked.

[yabetterbelieveit]

Local HS Band director around here always refers to drum corps, having marched Gaurdsmen in the late 70's. I have heard him telling the drum line during a solo peice to "act more like the Blue Devils, remember I showed you the tape?? Act like the BD drumline acts when they are warming up, loose and relaxed..." And by that statement It's obvious he has made an effort to show some videos.

[wayne6]

I have a friend who's from Durham,NC who majors in music with a university in virginia. She knows about drum corps plus plays mello in the schools band. When I talk about drum corps live to her, she think it's so difficult at auditions that she doesn't even try attending. She's a 19 year old music major who's been playing in school bands since 15 and knows about Carolina Crown but never herd about Carolina Gold. I told her to check out both corps especially, Crown before she ages out. I told mention, " your probably better than you think ........so don't give up without trying." Good thing about the All Age corps, they don't turn back members, like the top 12 corps do. Hopefully, CC or Gold she'll give it a try for 2006. I hope a lot of band members who may think about doing corps, don't think like the way my friend does. The Drum Corps World would love to have you.

[bmvztx]

There are a very select few of us that actually know about the drum corps activity. 4 graduates from our high school are currently marching Bluecoats since their try-outs are so close.

We beleive that our newest director marched baritone in Madison Scouts around 1996, however we never get a straight answer out of him. He is always dropping corps names and we are always batting ideas back and forth about what we can do to enhance our show by taking ideas from corps. We always watch the finals from the previous year during our band "exam" and not many people are very interested.

[crowncontra]

My high school band director seemed very anti-DCI because he felt that when kids came back from corps to join the high school ranks, they became elitist and always felt like they were the best ones in the band and were not listening to the directors and staff and basically became dead weight to the band.