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Drum and Reed Corps


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These would be the quietest marching units ever...

Even in most marching bands today with both brass and woodwinds, you can barely hear the woodwinds. You can never have any sort of real PUNCH that you would get with brass.

I had never thought of this either though.

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Well, there have never been any drum and reed corps, and I do not think many here would like to see one.

However, there have been drum and fife corps. The fife, of course, was a woodwind instrument, kind of like a piccolo. In fact, the Cadets were founded as the Holy Name Fife, Drum and Bugle Corps. And, yes, that meant that they had and allowed woodwind instruments. In fact, many Fife drum and bugle corps had woodwinds, it is a very important part of the history of this country, and of drum corps.

The modern competitive corps did away with them, but the old fife, drum and bugle corps and the drum and fife corps still exist in very small circles today, usually within re-enactment groups.

It is interesting to me that if the Cadets ever used piccolos for parade or something like that, that they would be returning to their roots more than bucking modern corps philosophy.

History is very powerful, and should the scenario above ever happen, I believe the phrase "the more things change, the more they stay the same" might come into play.

For those of you bashing woodwinds, just remember that the modern activity today is only slightly representative of what it was when it first sprouted here in America. All drum corps in this country owe their heritage and patriotic background to organizations that utilized the woodwind (a Fife). It's in our history...and you can take that to the bank!

Edited by jwillis35
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And where would the drummers come from? What drummers would do reed corps over drum corps?

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For those of you bashing woodwinds, just remember that the modern activity today is only slightly representative of what it was when it first sprouted here in America. All drum corps in this country owe their heritage and patriotic background to organizations that utilized the woodwind (a Fife). It's in our history...and you can take that to the bank!

Don't care. Still don't want woodwinds (said the flautist).

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No.

Simply put, woodwinds cannot provide the intensity that brass does.

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Don't care. Still don't want woodwinds (said the flautist).

Never said I wanted them, but I am making a valid and important point.

It just strikes me funny that all these "Traditionalists" who claim that drum corps should be pure and acoustic, and all that stuff they are complaining about, forget that the most "Pure" form of the drum corps involved the use of a woodwind instrument. That we ignore the fact that the fife, bugle, and drum were the three most important elements in the early establishment of this medium speaks volumes about our purposeful blind eye towards certain historical periods that proceed whatever year we hold as the best definition of drum corps.

Hence, most people who say they are traditionalists are not. They are moderate progressives who have accepted most of the changes with the exception of anything electronic. Or perhaps they are Progressive Traditionalists who stopped accepting the changes after the 2-valve Gs were dumped. Either way, the activity since 1972 (DCI's inception) is a very modern adaption of its fore bearers.

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Yep.

Something about hearing a woodwind line trying to play "Amazing Grace" just doesn't work. :P

Well, if you were going for that traditional bagpipe sound, woodwinds would have the out of tune part covered. :P ^0^

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So, if my math is correct on the ratio of the number of woodwinds to brass to achieve the same level of volume... and it takes, oh, 72 to brass players to play the kind of LOUD we enjoy today... that means we will need... 2,692 woodwind players.

YOWZA!

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