Who do you think makes up the majority of attendees

[glory]

You're basing this on something a DCI official said over a decade ago? To me that doesn't make any sense.....

I still don't think it's your "average joe" that goes to these shows.

I think it's pretty common sense that DCI fans are alumni, bands, and the kids parents who come to see their kid march. That's just common sense.

At least to me....

Why not base it on research DCI did years ago? Does anyone have any reason to think the composition of the audience has changed that much in a decade? As a matter of fact, if anything, I'd expect many of those who post here to argue that the number of alumni would have dropped over the past decade. Aren't they supposed to have been disenfranchised by Bb and amplification, among other things? Does anyone think the number of alums has risen since the mid-90s?

One reason to doubt rising alumni number is the same reason to doubt rising parent numbers. Fewer corps mean fewer alums and parents both.

I'm not arguing the research is current. It is what I said it is - 10 or more years old. That doesn't mean it's not relevant. And for anyone who actually believes that because DCI might have done the research it can't be valid, I have nothing to say. But that's not because such malarchy is at all persuasive.

My own experience backs up the research even today. At finals in recent years, though I sat in some of the most sought-after seats, I met plenty of people who didn't march, who didn't have kids marching and even some who were attending their first show! Move out past the 30s and the number rises exponentially.

Having said all that, I never said that everyone in the stands is Joe football. I'm just saying alums and parents aren't the majority.

HH

Edited March 14, 2006 by glory

[Lancerlady]

Well HH, I'm sure with all the surveys DCI conducts these days we could have a more recent statistic then something that happened 10 years ago...and I choose to disagree with your last statement.

Yes, I believe it has changed drastically there are more and more alumni corps participating in performances who become spectators. There are more and more parents who want to see their kids performing and alot more bands get reduced prices on tickets when they buy in large groups. It's just really not feasible to depend on research conducted 10 years ago by some nameless person at DCI. I ain't buying it...We are talking about the final number of fans in the stands...at the end of the day. Another survey could be conducted since they are always out conducting them at shows...

This poll should be redefined...what are you looking for in this poll? It is broad and covers alot of shows.

I still stand by my statement. It's just my opinion.

Why does it matter? They should just be glad people are going to shows..no matter who it is.

[RobH]

I know that about 30 years ago, there were LOTS of "average Joes" in the stands - and from what I've read, SOMETHING changed all that - to get where we are now, which is stands filled with drum corps "enthusiasts" and participants, parents, and band kids.

I'd be interested to hear WHEN the big shift away from the "average Joe" actually started - it might be worth researching!

[Morgoth Bauglir]

I have a hypothesis. I don't know a particular time, but I can think of a reason/catalyst. The longer corps has been around, the more it matures. At least in it's own eyes. Quite simply put, the people in charge, the fans, the staff, and the members are not staisfied with what worked last year. Every season is an attempt to one-up the previous in pratically every way. Shows got more complex, more intergrated, more thought out. Average Joe fans are not regualrs, so they do not need to stay satisfied. But the corps themselves and the fans were and are not content with simply doing the same thing over and over to appease the fans who are not regualrs. So somewhere in this process of changing to stay satisfied with itself, the people who don't care about the change got left behind.

[Jeff Ream]

the breakdown varies region by region. my guess is more and more, alumni and band kids dominate....and the leader there depends on the location.

[jwillis35]

I know that about 30 years ago, there were LOTS of "average Joes" in the stands - and from what I've read, SOMETHING changed all that - to get where we are now, which is stands filled with drum corps "enthusiasts" and participants, parents, and band kids.

I'd be interested to hear WHEN the big shift away from the "average Joe" actually started - it might be worth researching!

The question you ask is good, although I am not so sure people today prefer to be regular joes, or average joes. This is most likely the problem.

When the modern drum and bugle corps started to sprout up in this country, public music education was nowhere near what it is today. In fact, in the 1920s and 1930s, many schools did not have music education, band, orchestra, or choir. Now days, with the exception of some city school programs, many of this country's public and private schools have very strong music programs. This is what we want, and should want. We want our kids to push further than we did, to learn more, to be better educated, to develop better skills...to have an understanding and appreciation for true artistry. Well, scholastic and collegiate music education has done that, and today's drum corps are taking advantage of this. It was bound to happen because most young people today are exposed to general music classes in their public schools that try to teach these very things. Band and choir kids are better trained, and they are performing literature of all types, demands, and styles.

But all of a sudden we have people who are saying, in a sense (certainly not literally), that we have taught them too much. The average joe is saying that he/she can't understand the product, the skill, the artistry, and in some way it's as if we are suggesting that education take a step back or simply go away for the sake of entertainment...that is, entertainment as defined by the average joe.

Now, consider this: there are those who say music education has no merrit in drum and bugle corps, or at least that it should not be the focus. I am not going to fight this at the moment, although I believe drum corps is about education, experience, performance, competition, and entertainment; but consider that in the early days there was more of a need to teach than there is today. In the early days of drum corps, kids were literally pulled off the streets. They were receiving little, or no, music education in school. So the churches, Scout organiztions, the CYO, and other groups took it upon themselves to provide this. Today, the need to pull kids off the street is significantly less due to public school's rise in standards and success in music education. But with that comes different needs...mainly on the part of the kids themselves.

Those who join drum corps today have vastly different tastes than we did when we were young, and certainly more so than someone who marched in the 50s or 60s. Although popular culture floods the lives they lead at an alarming rate, the best band students have learned to appreciate a very diverse and challenging repertoire. This music and its artistry have helped to make them better musicians, better thinkers, better dreamers, and their connection between music and life has been more fulfilled because it is more diverse and challenging. Students today learn that it isn't all about the hootin' and hollerin', the wild applause, the grooves and funky beats (which popular culture has tried to destroy their creativity and sensibility with), but that music also offers a higher calling, an artistic fulfillment that the best students fancy just as much as they enjoy a good popular tune.

Well, it's the best and hardest-working students who are joining drum corps today, and they desire all kinds of musical styles, challenges, etc. The worst thing we can do is to lower the bar in order to meet our needs for entertainment. What would be so wrong with the average joe wanting to learn a bit more about music? It's always the audience that feels it has no responsibility to learning or understanding. Many in the audience just want the corps to show up and entertain them, and if you can't do that then to heck with that corps. We assume the corps is doing it wrong when our needs are not met. "Hey, it's my day off and I paid $20 for this ticket, so someone better entertain me." Well, there is nothing wrong with this. Frankly, I think this way sometimes when I go to shows. But my appreciation for all kinds of music and true artistry has made it possible for me to love so much of what is taking place today in drum corps.

I don't have the answers here. Perhaps we all need to raise the bar in terms of how we appreicate the arts, and work to develop a better understanding of the arts. This way, as they grow [the students], so do we. Musical taste is a subjective thing, but at some point if one is unwilling to develop new tastes, to further one's education, to move in new directions and draw on more resources, it then becomes impossible to accept the new standards. It becomes difficult to adjust to someone else's dreams when your vision for this activity has truly passed. Your definition of entertainment is no longer theirs, but make no mistake about it, they are entertained [the students], or they would not be performing as well as they are. And whether that is a bad thing or not remains only part of the issue. More importantly, the issue is that, like all kinds of music, styles and traditions fade, change, and sometimes cycle back over a period of decades. As education in this country improves, and as students continually learn more and push further and farther then we ever did, it is safe to say that their tastes, their desires, their challenges, and their ability to entertain themselves will be vastly different than the generations before them.

Adapting to this is difficult and I understand this. I, myself, just can't adapt to much of the popular music today, and I see, on a daily basis, that it has devastated my students abilities to reason, to appreciate high art, and to better draw connections between music, entertainment, artistic endeavor, and life. The best of my students, many who have marched drum corps, are the most diverse and accepting of high art along with popular music. And once they are better rooted in the artistic traditions of music education, they develop a greater need for its beauty, and they desire the challenges and performance values that make this music so much fun to perform. They will always have their popular music, just like we do, but they have been given something more profound and endearing to the heart, and something that is unique and highly skilled, and they like it. To go backwards would be a mistake, even though many of the people they perform for will likely not understand all that they do (see the demise of the American symphony orchestra for more on this). But the answer is NOT to become less intelligent, to teach less, to care less about what we play, to define entertainment as only those things that are easy to understand.

Hopefully there will be something for everyone at a DCI or DCA show. I believe there still is, regardless of what types of fans come to the shows.

Jonathan Willis

[Morgoth Bauglir]

The question you ask is good, although I am not so sure people today prefer to be regular joes, or average joes. This is most likely the problem.

When the modern drum and bugle corps started to sprout up in this country...

... to define entertainment as only those things that are easy to understand.

Hopefully there will be something for everyone at a DCI or DCA show. I believe there still is, regardless of what types of fans come to the shows.

Jonathan Willis

[footform]

DCM's "A drum corps show in your city" used to be true and that meant local fans (average and outstanding joes) who would come out year after year. I have told members of corps I have taught not to dismiss "little shows in little towns," because "this town (be it McHenry, Kenosha, Gurnee, or hundreds of others) used to have its own corps and supported it for decades. The people in the stands will know what you are doing and appreciate it in a unique way, not because they necessarily know music or have been "taught" what drum corps is, but because they have seen it and its impact on the young (and no longer young) in their (your) city. The farther we get from them, the less real impact drum corps really has.

No show in DeKalb this year, or Woodstock, or Charleston. Sorry local people.

[shawn craig]

I know that about 30 years ago, there were LOTS of "average Joes" in the stands - and from what I've read, SOMETHING changed all that - to get where we are now, which is stands filled with drum corps "enthusiasts" and participants, parents, and band kids.

I'd be interested to hear WHEN the big shift away from the "average Joe" actually started - it might be worth researching!

Possibly part of the loss of the general public is due to the fact that most corps are not local organizations anymore. The members, their families/freinds, staff, and alumni are scattered all over the country. Corps are not seen, or rarely seen in local parades and community events. The "average Joe" isn't exposed to the activity in such ways any more and therefore, not drawn or informed about shows.

[shawn craig]

The question you ask is good, although I am not so sure people today prefer to be regular joes, or average joes. This is most likely the problem.

When the modern drum and bugle corps started to sprout up in this country, public music education was nowhere near what it is today. In fact, in the 1920s and 1930s, many schools did not have music education, band, orchestra, or choir. Now days, with the exception of some city school programs, many of this country's public and private schools have very strong music programs. This is what we want, and should want. We want our kids to push further than we did, to learn more, to be better educated, to develop better skills...to have an understanding and appreciation for true artistry. Well, scholastic and collegiate music education has done that, and today's drum corps are taking advantage of this. It was bound to happen because most young people today are exposed to general music classes in their public schools that try to teach these very things. Band and choir kids are better trained, and they are performing literature of all types, demands, and styles.

But all of a sudden we have people who are saying, in a sense (certainly not literally), that we have taught them too much. The average joe is saying that he/she can't understand the product, the skill, the artistry, and in some way it's as if we are suggesting that education take a step back or simply go away for the sake of entertainment...that is, entertainment as defined by the average joe.

Now, consider this: there are those who say music education has no merrit in drum and bugle corps, or at least that it should not be the focus. I am not going to fight this at the moment, although I believe drum corps is about education, experience, performance, competition, and entertainment; but consider that in the early days there was more of a need to teach than there is today. In the early days of drum corps, kids were literally pulled off the streets. They were receiving little, or no, music education in school. So the churches, Scout organiztions, the CYO, and other groups took it upon themselves to provide this. Today, the need to pull kids off the street is significantly less due to public school's rise in standards and success in music education. But with that comes different needs...mainly on the part of the kids themselves.

Those who join drum corps today have vastly different tastes than we did when we were young, and certainly more so than someone who marched in the 50s or 60s. Although popular culture floods the lives they lead at an alarming rate, the best band students have learned to appreciate a very diverse and challenging repertoire. This music and its artistry have helped to make them better musicians, better thinkers, better dreamers, and their connection between music and life has been more fulfilled because it is more diverse and challenging. Students today learn that it isn't all about the hootin' and hollerin', the wild applause, the grooves and funky beats (which popular culture has tried to destroy their creativity and sensibility with), but that music also offers a higher calling, an artistic fulfillment that the best students fancy just as much as they enjoy a good popular tune.

Well, it's the best and hardest-working students who are joining drum corps today, and they desire all kinds of musical styles, challenges, etc. The worst thing we can do is to lower the bar in order to meet our needs for entertainment. What would be so wrong with the average joe wanting to learn a bit more about music? It's always the audience that feels it has no responsibility to learning or understanding. Many in the audience just want the corps to show up and entertain them, and if you can't do that then to heck with that corps. We assume the corps is doing it wrong when our needs are not met. "Hey, it's my day off and I paid $20 for this ticket, so someone better entertain me." Well, there is nothing wrong with this. Frankly, I think this way sometimes when I go to shows. But my appreciation for all kinds of music and true artistry has made it possible for me to love so much of what is taking place today in drum corps.

I don't have the answers here. Perhaps we all need to raise the bar in terms of how we appreicate the arts, and work to develop a better understanding of the arts. This way, as they grow [the students], so do we. Musical taste is a subjective thing, but at some point if one is unwilling to develop new tastes, to further one's education, to move in new directions and draw on more resources, it then becomes impossible to accept the new standards. It becomes difficult to adjust to someone else's dreams when your vision for this activity has truly passed. Your definition of entertainment is no longer theirs, but make no mistake about it, they are entertained [the students], or they would not be performing as well as they are. And whether that is a bad thing or not remains only part of the issue. More importantly, the issue is that, like all kinds of music, styles and traditions fade, change, and sometimes cycle back over a period of decades. As education in this country improves, and as students continually learn more and push further and farther then we ever did, it is safe to say that their tastes, their desires, their challenges, and their ability to entertain themselves will be vastly different than the generations before them.

Adapting to this is difficult and I understand this. I, myself, just can't adapt to much of the popular music today, and I see, on a daily basis, that it has devastated my students abilities to reason, to appreciate high art, and to better draw connections between music, entertainment, artistic endeavor, and life. The best of my students, many who have marched drum corps, are the most diverse and accepting of high art along with popular music. And once they are better rooted in the artistic traditions of music education, they develop a greater need for its beauty, and they desire the challenges and performance values that make this music so much fun to perform. They will always have their popular music, just like we do, but they have been given something more profound and endearing to the heart, and something that is unique and highly skilled, and they like it. To go backwards would be a mistake, even though many of the people they perform for will likely not understand all that they do (see the demise of the American symphony orchestra for more on this). But the answer is NOT to become less intelligent, to teach less, to care less about what we play, to define entertainment as only those things that are easy to understand.

Hopefully there will be something for everyone at a DCI or DCA show. I believe there still is, regardless of what types of fans come to the shows.

Jonathan Willis

Very interesting and a lot of truth.

It's interesting that California has the most corps. Yes, it has the largest population, but I think it's more than that.

Several years ago when proposition 13 passed (I think that's the one) many school districts had severe cuts in funding forcing them to make huge cut backs in educational services. As usual art and music programs were hit very hard. Perhaps part of the reason corps are thriving in California is because they are filling a need the some public schools in that state are not able to do.

Edited March 17, 2006 by shawn craig