Heat Wave - March Camp Report

[John M. Johnson]

Heat Wave March Camp Report - Alan Mundy

Photos - John M. Johnson (Sorry about the quality. My phone doesn't take the best pics)

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Sometimes being in Heat Wave is a truly unique experience. Many times it’s rewarding, sometimes frustrating, and other times it’s just plain weird. The Saturday of our March camp was one of the latter.

When I arrived at our normal rehearsal site, the parking lot was surprisingly full, and there was a minor traffic jam at the gate as several gentlemen in long tunics and sandals were greeting many of the cars and directing traffic in an extremely disorganized fashion. This in itself is not particularly unusual…there are events happening at the shrine all the time, and many of them involve strange costuming of one kind or another.

As I pulled around the corner, I got the first indication that this was not the everyday kind of event. There was a large white carriage with two white horses wandering around the backside of the building. There were also a large number of peoples descending from the Asian subcontinent in formal cultural dress. One individual seemed to be the focus of all the goings on as he’s greeting everyone loudly and carrying an ornate red and gold umbrella. When I head into the building into our normal rehearsal room, it’s literally filled with flowers and vases and I learn that there’s a Hindu wedding going on inside most of the day. This is not a big deal for the corps; we can find a far away portion of the parking lot and practice outside. It’s something we’ve needed to do for a while, anyway.

But as we convene outside, things just get stranger and stranger. Some of the “wedding party” are now pulling out odd, sparkle covered drums. A guy has a ridiculously massive speaker in the back of his SUV and is driving around the parking lot very slowly blasting out Indian techno music. The cat with the fancy umbrella is now riding in the carriage as it does figure eights around the parking lot. The SUV has stopped and a mosh pit of sorts has formed. It’s like a freaky Hindu version of Black College Reunion. As all of this is going on, the only thing I can think is, “Only in Heat Wave.”

Anyway, despite all the distractions we get started on time. Right away the tone is set for the weekend. We’ll be hitting the drill field soon and it’s time to kick up the intensity in preparation for that. UCF and Southwind alumnus Gary Hernandez has come out to work with the horns today and we had a very methodical and detailed rehearsal focusing mainly on the opener. I have to add a quick note about the drum line at this point. They’ve been struggling a bit at times with a high percentage of new members and some sections not filling in at the rate they’d like, but things are definitely starting to come together for them. There were a couple of times during horn arc when several heads turned as they did a really nice run of one of their exercises.

Towards the end of rehearsal the new parts for the closer were distributed, which really energized the hornline. The more orchestral jazz style of the Kenton tunes is a real challenge, but honestly On Fire is the tune we’ve all really been looking forward to. Thankfully, the arrangement is quality and full of drum corps moments. The dynamic markings are especially interesting. There is one measure of mezzo forte towards the end, but otherwise everything is forte and above. There are a few places marked with 8 f’s and a crescendo.

Sunday started with another extended visual block with Tim, our visual coordinator. Fortunately, it’s only the third coldest day of the year this time and positively tropical compared to our last vis block. Apparently Tim felt somewhat chastised by my last camp report and the section about asking us to run. Equally apparently, the message wasn’t received; we ran again. (Just kidding folks, it’s something we should be doing.) As Tim points out, if we can’t run from one end of the parking lot and back, we have no hope of marching a 13 minute drum corps show well.

We started the same way we start every vis block, reviewing the basics of posture, carriage, first steps, etc. I was really impressed with the way we chewed through the review. This year’s corps is really great about taking instruction. Everyone is very eager to learn and get better. In fact, it’s even disconcerted some of our staff members a bit, especially those that are used to working with a much younger group. Retention is running high at this point, which is what we have to have. In a very short time we’re moving at a pretty high level and have gone over essentially the entire “basics” package.

After a short water break, we convene in sections for a quick warm-up in preparation for putting some playing together with the feet. Frustratingly, the addition of simple lip slurs and articulation exercises seems to make the entire corps forget how to march. It takes several goadings from Tim and far too much repetition to get even basic forward and backwards movement close to the level we were displaying before the break. The only comfort I can take from this is that I now know that Tim is definitely willing to let us know when we’re not performing the way we need to. Personally, as a performer that’s exactly what I want. It doesn’t have to be excessively foul or personal, but when we’re sucking, let us know. I care about the performance level far more than I care about my ego or anybody else’s and I expect the same from my fellow members.

In hindsight, the difficulty we have with merging the two elements is somewhat understandable. We haven’t had any parades this winter to get the feet and the chops moving together. It’s certainly good that the problem was discovered…now everyone can take that with them into their personal practice so that it continues to improve in the future. Whether something is great the first time, or terrible, the key is that it continues to get better every time.

The focus of sectionals for the afternoon is getting through as much of On Fire as possible and getting it ready to ensemble it with the drums at the end of rehearsal, but before we can do that, we had a very thorough warm-up where we continued to define exactly how we as a line are going to play. This is something that was severely lacking last season due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Now that we have one consistent vision for how we are going to play and sound, the line is blossoming. We proceeded through all of On Fire up to the drum break, chunking it forwards, backwards, every which way you can chunk it before doing a few full runs before ensemble.

Ensemble was pretty quick and effective as the hornline was prepared to play the tune at or near tempo. Normally at this time of the year we’re still fighting tempo problems between the horns who have learned the music at a slower tempo to facilitate accurate pitches and articulations and the drums who, by the nature of their parts can only play at something very close to the eventual tempo. That wasn’t the case with this tune and the tempos gelled immediately, allowing us to do just a few chunks before a couple “all out” runs to cap off the rehearsal. I was a bit disappointed in the final run as the horns over hyped a bit and plowed through an accelerando in pretty rough fashion, but I’ll take over hype over a lack of intensity any day of the week.

All in all it was a very positive camp and had a really good vibe about the whole thing. Getting the new closer was both a relief and an energizer for a lot of people and it put everyone in a great frame of mind. We’re entering the part of the season where we need to be building momentum every time we meet and I really feel like that started this weekend.