Just curious

[keith]

I started when I was 10 with the 27th Lancer Cadets with no experience. Both of my brothers joined the Lancers for the 1978 season never marched or played before and made a top 12 DCI. I don't think that would be possible to do in todays Drum Corp.

My oldest brother went on to teach the corp after he aged out in 82 and my other brother was Drum Major in 84. Not bad for coming off the streets.

[84BDsop]

Impulse had a sop on 02 who had never marched before...her school had no marching band program.

[2000Cadet]

Started drum corps with no prior marching band experiece. I was just talking about the same subject with one of my friends yesterday.

[palmeister]

I had played clarinet in my high school's concert band; but we never had a marching band, the marching band had died in the '90s at my school, and is just now resurrecting. Last summer I marched mellophone at Esperanza, where they taught me how to march and play brass, and this summer I'm marching baritone at the Colts. Also, I switched my primary instrument at school to french horn.

[kevingamin]

just wondering if it is ever done. After watching the Brass Roots video, it seemed like back in the 60's and 70's alot of kids in some of the corps, were just kids looking for something to do, with no musical background. These days, I don't see how corps would exist without the presence of marching bands. My brother was in marching band, and that is how he discovered corps. One of the band directors told him about it, otherwise I am not sure he would have known about it. i havne't met anyone either that hadn't marched in hs band.

So did any of you, or members of your corps, come into it with absolutely no prior band experience?

I would like to say that, despite the fact I did march in my high school's marching band, I would have marched corps regardless. I was listening to records, watching videos, and going to shows since I was three years old. What's more, my marching band was Big 10 style, marching with a chair step and in squads and playing cheesy arrangements of music from Hal Leonard. Given a choice, I would have skipped out of marching band and started corps earlier hands down.

[OboeBrad]

I had never played brass nor marched prior to SCVC :)

[euponitone]

We had a trumpet that marched Cadets with no experience...05 of all years

[sla1977]

I had one year of college marching band (which is a pretty far cry from marching around at 200bpm) and no high school under my belt before I marched BD. I was in way over my head for the first half of the season, but finally things kind of clicked. The next year I was DM and eventually I was on marching staff there.

I am about as uncoordinated as they come, so if someone like me can do it than I think anyone can.

[perc2100]

I would guess most Canadian corps had members who had never done any marching/music thing before drum corps. I know when I marched Kiwanis Kavaliers in 97 and 98 there were a TON of local kids in the corps who had never done anything before marching drum corps. The reason being there are no high school music programs, let alone marching bands. I got the impression that it was similar with Canadian colleges, and there were no marching bands for them either. A lot of Canadian kids saw drum corps as their 'introduction' to music, and I know several people who went to music colleges from Kiwanis who had never had music before drum corps.

[ambassadorhorn]

I would guess most Canadian corps had members who had never done any marching/music thing before drum corps. I know when I marched Kiwanis Kavaliers in 97 and 98 there were a TON of local kids in the corps who had never done anything before marching drum corps. The reason being there are no high school music programs, let alone marching bands. I got the impression that it was similar with Canadian colleges, and there were no marching bands for them either. A lot of Canadian kids saw drum corps as their 'introduction' to music, and I know several people who went to music colleges from Kiwanis who had never had music before drum corps.

That was my experience. The Ambassadors were my introduction to marching music. There was a high school music program at my high school in Aurora, Ontario at that time. I think there are still high school music programs in Canada but smaller school boards can't afford to have them in every school so these programs suffer. THis might be the case in the Kithener-Waterloo area where the KK were originally based. It's true that there is not as much of a tradition of marching band in Canada. I saw some old marching percussion instruments at my high school that seemd to indicate that there was a marching band there at one time, perhaps in the '50s.

Something else that hasn't been mentioned yet: in Canada there is a certain amount of distrustfulness or animosity among music teachers shown towards drum and bugle corps. This was the case when I marched in the early '80s as the local high school music teachers had no time for our corps. It didn't do to brag about being in a corps in music class. Neither the kids or the teacher had much sympathy. I don't know if this is still the case as most music teachers now would never have heard of drum corps other than DCI. It wasn't a subject I brought up when I was studying music at University of Toronto although I didn't hide my drum corps background either.

Universities in Canada don't seem to have any tradition of marching music although they all have football teams (which seems to be related to marching bands in the US as far as I can understand). There is generally a "pep" style band usually put together by the engineers but these groups are pretty informal; they produce something that can only loosely be called music and they don't do field shows.

B)