Crowns Audish?

[Dash Fieldpaint]

lol...not laughing at you that just so sounds like Donnie. Let me rephrase things a little bit. Donnie cut people and sent "reject" letters but there were some people who said "screw that" and came back anyways. Some of those people ended up making it. That's why I say "if you want to make it, you'll make it." There were "cuts" but it seemed the majority of people cut themselves. I think this is why we found ourselves short at the beginning of the summer of '92.

Donnie had a way of "scaring" people out more than he did by actually cutting. I hope your experience was a positive one in spite of how hard Donnie might have been on you. Seriously, we could've used you in '92...we were very short on baris/euphs. Fortunately, when I played for him, I didn't know who he was. I thought he was just some random low ranking brass tech so I wasn't intimidated by him at all. He asked me how high I could play on my concert baritone and when I hit double high F, he said "ok you're on lead...go to the other room." ...of course, I didn't stay on lead for too long though...

I didn't think he was too hard on me. I mean, I could tell he was the type that WOULD be eventually. To be honest I felt like THE MAN for a minute or so when I got to pick up my horn and stand and carry it out of the room with all the 'rejects' watching me leave. I didn't know who VanDoren was either. Being a 16 year old kid who had never auditioned for any drum corps ever I was very intimidated by the whole experience. He was kind of a scary dude to me back then. This was after all 3 months after they had won the DCI world championship. All in all it was a great experience for me. It's something I remember vividly 15 years later.

I don't know if there was any way I could have come back for the other camps. I really wished I could have. I couldn't afford airfare and my ride up there wrecked his car just before the December camp. Besides, the 15 hour drive from Virginia Beach to Bloomington was just ridiculous. How much was the tour fee back then? A whole $250?

Edited September 14, 2006 by Dash Fieldpaint

[tplaya1]

dude whatever anytime anything is brought up on crown you say something smart### or try to make a slam aginst thier program or "brass technique" you do , I've only heard nothing but high praises of the education that the members get and it shows on the field ,JARED get over it dude ,since 03 every year the hornline has gotten stronger and more talented this year they had the visual demand and hornbook demand everybody said WASN"T there, whatever "technique" Mr.Harloff and the brass staff uses it's working cause they sound frecking amazing, get over it JARED go practice.

I know the name (JARED) is sometimes spelled differently on rare ocassions my mastake

<**> <**> <**> <**>

[MarchingXylo]

dude whatever anytime anything is brought up on crown you say something smart### or try to make a slam aginst thier program or "brass technique" you do , I've only heard nothing but high praises of the education that the members get and it shows on the field ,JARED get over it dude ,since 03 every year the hornline has gotten stronger and more talented this year they had the visual demand and hornbook demand everybody said WASN"T there, whatever "technique" Mr.Harloff and the brass staff uses it's working cause they sound frecking amazing, get over it JARED go practice.

I know the name (JARED) is sometimes spelled differently on rare ocassions my mastake

Whoa. Don't get out of hand here... just a little discussion about brass technique... doesn't need to turn into an inquisition against infidels.

[randomguy1127]

Which I have issues with, because then people get strung along who think they're going to march there until the last camp and then they can't really go anywhere that's similar in levels of excellence-achievement. I've seen it happen before . . . kids that get cut from Phantom at camps in March or February, when its really too late to go somewhere else.

Or they get made an alternate at the last camp . . . that sucks, too.

try getting made an alternate when you move in. i was told i had a spot all through camps until the first day of rehearsal.

[Medeabrass]

I didn't think he was too hard on me. I mean, I could tell he was the type that WOULD be eventually. To be honest I felt like THE MAN for a minute or so when I got to pick up my horn and stand and carry it out of the room with all the 'rejects' watching me leave. I didn't know who VanDoren was either. Being a 16 year old kid who had never auditioned for any drum corps ever I was very intimidated by the whole experience. He was kind of a scary dude to me back then. This was after all 3 months after they had won the DCI world championship. All in all it was a great experience for me. It's something I remember vividly 15 years later.

I don't know if there was any way I could have come back for the other camps. I really wished I could have. I couldn't afford airfare and my ride up there wrecked his car just before the December camp. Besides, the 15 hour drive from Virginia Beach to Bloomington was just ridiculous. How much was the tour fee back then? A whole $250?

yeah it was $250 and you could work it off for Bill Cook after tour if that was too much.

Seriously, (and this is why I tell people not to give up) you could've showed up at move in in '92 and made the bari line. I was saying goodbye to a friend of mine the day before I went to move in and I told him that we had bari spots. He came up 2 days later and made the line. Granted, he seriously struggled all summer given that he'd never played bari or read treble clef before move in...he was definitely "that rookie" for the summer...long story short, the guy ended up being in Blast eventually.

To anyone who wants to march somewhere and you can't afford to go to camps, I say call around to all the corps you're interested in about a month before move in to see if they have any spots. You never know what can happen.

[Medeabrass]

try getting made an alternate when you move in. i was told i had a spot all through camps until the first day of rehearsal.

I bet given today's drill, being an alternate isn't too bad. There's bound to be someone in the line who's going to get injured at some point...it would still suck though

[idontwan2know]

Jumping into this thread late, but I have a few thoughts to add. In no particular order:

1) After talking with members and observing a ton of hornlines over the past ten years, the one constant is that the real "talent level" of any corps is never what it's rumored to be by fans and members of other groups. This is nearly universal, but is especially true of the Blue Devils.

2) The biggest factors in the success of hornlines is the development of a systematic approach to playing, the ability of the staff to communicate that approach and the willingness of the members to submerse themselves in that approach(this is one area where talent can actually work against you). What the approach actually consists of is far less important than people generally think. Just cruise on over to the Trumpet Herald forums and peruse all the different "schools" and the fights between their proponents if you don't believe it. There's a lot of different ways to play a brass instrument well...or at least a lot of different ways to describe it.

3) The particular pedagogy of Garfield, Star, Crown, etc. is not all that unique, but I will guess from the sound they produce that they play with probably the most open aperture setting of any line you'll find. I suspect this is also why you don't hear a lot of extreme range playing from these groups, as an open setting is not particularly conducive to the upper range of the trumpet. It's actually refreshing to hear a line that is not trained to all play like trumpet players.

4) I like Mexican food.

[Dave]

I continue to be amazed by how much of a science fair drum corps people turn brass playing into. It's breathing and blowing, creating vibrations. Donnie VanDoren and all the other brass teachers may have tagged their own terms onto it, but they haven't broken any new ground that Arnold Jacobs didn't break a long time ago. I'm not ripping any teaching style, but I am saying that what he and other modern teachers have really done is import what the rest of the brass playing world was already doing, replacing the older models of playing, which was a great deal less pedagogical.

The biggest factors in the success of hornlines is the development of a systematic approach to playing, the ability of the staff to communicate that approach and the willingness of the members to submerse themselves in that approach

Exactly.

[Medeabrass]

Jumping into this thread late, but I have a few thoughts to add. In no particular order:

1) After talking with members and observing a ton of hornlines over the past ten years, the one constant is that the real "talent level" of any corps is never what it's rumored to be by fans and members of other groups. This is nearly universal, but is especially true of the Blue Devils.

2) The biggest factors in the success of hornlines is the development of a systematic approach to playing, the ability of the staff to communicate that approach and the willingness of the members to submerse themselves in that approach(this is one area where talent can actually work against you). What the approach actually consists of is far less important than people generally think. Just cruise on over to the Trumpet Herald forums and peruse all the different "schools" and the fights between their proponents if you don't believe it. There's a lot of different ways to play a brass instrument well...or at least a lot of different ways to describe it.

3) The particular pedagogy of Garfield, Star, Crown, etc. is not all that unique, but I will guess from the sound they produce that they play with probably the most open aperture setting of any line you'll find. I suspect this is also why you don't hear a lot of extreme range playing from these groups, as an open setting is not particularly conducive to the upper range of the trumpet. It's actually refreshing to hear a line that is not trained to all play like trumpet players.

4) I like Mexican food.

I couldn't have said it better myself...that's what I meant to say :) ...oh, and I like Mexican food too (clarification: as long as I'm not any further north than Dallas).

[mellodramatic]

I continue to be amazed by how much of a science fair drum corps people turn brass playing into. It's breathing and blowing, creating vibrations. Donnie VanDoren and all the other brass teachers may have tagged their own terms onto it, but they haven't broken any new ground that Arnold Jacobs didn't break a long time ago. I'm not ripping any teaching style, but I am saying that what he and other modern teachers have really done is import what the rest of the brass playing world was already doing, replacing the older models of playing, which was a great deal less pedagogical.

Exactly.

It's nothing new really, it's just how well the staff can teach it and the members can learn it so everyone does the exact same thing. DVD and crew might not have "discovered" anything new, but they obviously reinforce some of the old stuff to the point that it just MIGHT make a difference in the way one hornline sounds over another. Nothing brand new or anything, just great teaching of a uniform playing style.