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Best Arranged Corps


Top 6 of Last Year to narrow the selection  

343 members have voted

  1. 1. Which corps has the most talented arranger(s) for putting music on a football field??

    • The Cavaliers
      50
    • Phantom Regiment
      116
    • Blue Devils
      46
    • Bluecoats
      26
    • The Cadets
      74
    • Santa Clara Vanguard
      31


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Doug Thrower is a god.

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Overall I'm going with Cadets. LOVED their brass and percussion writing in 2005, and they have IMO the best pit arranger in the business in Neil Larivee.

I was also very much a fan of the Poulan & Casella years at SCV.

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I can't vote for one, and not just because I like more than one arranger, but more because I like each corps for their different strengths:

I like the arrangements for Cavies because of the flow and cohesiveness of the material.

I like the arrangements of Phantom because of their tradition of sticking to the classical idiom and how well Jim Wren, Klesch, and now JD Shaw portrays the original composition on a football field.

I like the arrangements of Blue Devils for their jazzy style that is unparalleled. Even over the past few years when they've departed from a strict "jazz" persona, their book has all the trademark sounds of a BD hornline.

SCV...fullness, richness, a sound all of their own. Powerful when needed and then soft and subtle the next measure. Simply beautiful.

Madison...I've traditionally loved them for their power and in your face style with very few years as exceptions. We'll see if the new crew can get that up to the Madison standard.

Expect good things from John Georgeson, he's got a lot of talented people making sure his stuff is played right, and he's got quite the resume (Madison 88 anyone?)

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Does J.D. Shaw arrange? A lot of the time sounds like he's taking the brass parts off the original score, changing the soprano parts to Trumpet. He might win best Drum Corps Transcriber.

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good point, if my ears dont fail me it does seem that JD does tends to just put the original parts into a drum corps instrumentation. Not that thats terrible or wrong, PR seems to be doing fine with it. But I have a hard time giving him more credit than Bocook or a majority of others.

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I'm surprised no one mentioned Prime. He put Cadets back on the map and I imagine he was a big influence on Klesch.

If we're talking about current folks, I really like Shaw and Klesch.

I think we'll be talking about Frank Sullivan in a few years if he keeps arranging.

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Does J.D. Shaw arrange? A lot of the time sounds like he's taking the brass parts off the original score, changing the soprano parts to Trumpet. He might win best Drum Corps Transcriber.

agreed.

The stuff that Saucedo, Bocock, and Thrower does is light years ahead of Shaw for that exact reason.

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I'm surprised no one mentioned Prime. He put Cadets back on the map and I imagine he was a big influence on Klesch.

If we're talking about current folks, I really like Shaw and Klesch.

I think we'll be talking about Frank Sullivan in a few years if he keeps arranging.

I can't believe this is the first time in this poll that Klesch and Prime were brought up... the best? Maybe... but certainly at least in the same echelon as Downey and the likes...

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