The Patron Saint of Drum Corps music

[melligene]

G horns are louder and crisper. they sound more like drum corps and thats what hy was saying. plesae you guys stay with those horns......don't ever switch.

Just my opinion but I think the G horn sound is due more to it's shape than anything else. A typical Megaphone comes to mind versus a toilet paper tube. Bb. (ya....bad analogy). While Bb may tend to be more in tune they do NOT have the ability to overlap sound due to their shape. If you listen closley to any Bb horn line you can easily pick out errors. They seem to be more exposed as their broadcast ability is not so broad. Am I making any sense here? I know what I'm trying to say. Do you?

[Jimbalaya]

we undertsand Gene.........your theory is supported by history, both musical and instrumental..........vis a vis cornet v tpt

Joe (we believe)

Just my opinion but I think the G horn sound is due more to it's shape than anything else. A typical Megaphone comes to mind versus a toilet paper tube. Bb. (ya....bad analogy). While Bb may tend to be more in tune they do NOT have the ability to overlap sound due to their shape. If you listen closley to any Bb horn line you can easily pick out errors. They seem to be more exposed as their broadcast ability is not so broad. Am I making any sense here? I know what I'm trying to say. Do you?

[donincardona]

Just my opinion but I think the G horn sound is due more to it's shape than anything else. A typical Megaphone comes to mind versus a toilet paper tube. Bb. (ya....bad analogy). While Bb may tend to be more in tune they do NOT have the ability to overlap sound due to their shape. If you listen closley to any Bb horn line you can easily pick out errors. They seem to be more exposed as their broadcast ability is not so broad. Am I making any sense here? I know what I'm trying to say. Do you?

i get it. very good analogy.

[melligene]

WHEW !!!! Thanks for understanding. Wasn't really sure if'n I esplained it well. Gotta go now. Parade and concert today in Northeast, pa. Largest fireman's parade in the state. My checklist acyronym.....CHUB

C=Cash

H=Horn

U=Unimaform(complete)

B=Beer

GOOD TO GO

[HornsUp]

Just my opinion but I think the G horn sound is due more to it's shape than anything else. A typical Megaphone comes to mind versus a toilet paper tube. Bb. (ya....bad analogy). While Bb may tend to be more in tune they do NOT have the ability to overlap sound due to their shape. If you listen closley to any Bb horn line you can easily pick out errors. They seem to be more exposed as their broadcast ability is not so broad. Am I making any sense here? I know what I'm trying to say. Do you?

Yes, its due to the shape. But not for the reasons you postulate.

G sopranos, baritones, and contras are built by adding more cylindrical tubing to the basic components of band instruments. So in a sense they are closer to your ideal toilet paper tube. Actually, a totally cylindrical horn would only resonate at the odd-numbered harmonics (i.e., a clarinet).

Building a horn in Bb does not inherently make it better "in tune". Intonation is based on the laws of physics, which existed eons before we measured or labeled them. No horn is "in tune". Manufacturers can only offer an instrument which produces a useful set of resonances. It is always ultimately up to the players in an ensemble to temper these resonances and produce musical intervals which are pure.

Overlapping sound? The only factor is the relative size of the bell. A mellophone is more directional than a soprano. A sousaphone is more directional than a smaller-belled tuba. This is probably the opposite of what you imagine.

[melligene]

Yes, its due to the shape. But not for the reasons you postulate.

G sopranos, baritones, and contras are built by adding more cylindrical tubing to the basic components of band instruments. So in a sense they are closer to your ideal toilet paper tube. Actually, a totally cylindrical horn would only resonate at the odd-numbered harmonics (i.e., a clarinet).

Building a horn in Bb does not inherently make it better "in tune". Intonation is based on the laws of physics, which existed eons before we measured or labeled them. No horn is "in tune". Manufacturers can only offer an instrument which produces a useful set of resonances. It is always ultimately up to the players in an ensemble to temper these resonances and produce musical intervals which are pure.

Overlapping sound? The only factor is the relative size of the bell. A mellophone is more directional than a soprano. A sousaphone is more directional than a smaller-belled tuba. This is probably the opposite of what you imagine.

Guess I better do my homework before posting. Thanks for the explanation.

Edited July 13, 2008 by melligene

[Hup234]

I had the honor of meeting Hy Dreitzer at the turn of the 1970s as he traveled with St. Rita's Brassmen (and what a hornline they had then, and what charts, including the 'laughing horns'). Those were the days for D&BC in many ways, but especially for D&BC having such leaders as Hy, and there were many such leaders in D&BC then -- people who didn't need to "audition" new members, or see their "resumes", or pretend the rookies were their "students". Today, those who then knew Hy and his contemporary colleagues consider them heroes. Hy always found a place for the greenest kids in all his corps, and those rookies would have the opportunity to participate and thereby keep and hold the D&BC experience for life. It was indeed the Golden Age of Drum Corps, and no one then knew that it was ending, though the beginning signs of the slow and decades-long death spiral would soon become obvious.

[morganhill]

I had the honor of meeting Hy Dreitzer at the turn of the 1970s as he traveled with St. Rita's Brassmen (and what a hornline they had then, and what charts, including the 'laughing horns'). Those were the days for D&BC in many ways, but especially for D&BC having such leaders as Hy, and there were many such leaders in D&BC then -- people who didn't need to "audition" new members, or see their "resumes", or pretend the rookies were their "students". Today, those who then knew Hy and his contemporary colleagues consider them heroes. Hy always found a place for the greenest kids in all his corps, and those rookies would have the opportunity to participate and thereby keep and hold the D&BC experience for life. It was indeed the Golden Age of Drum Corps, and no one then knew that it was ending, though the beginning signs of the slow and decades-long death spiral would soon become obvious.

AMEN!!!

[slate belt corpsman]

I had the honor of meeting Hy Dreitzer at the turn of the 1970s as he traveled with St. Rita's Brassmen (and what a hornline they had then, and what charts, including the 'laughing horns'). Those were the days for D&BC in many ways, but especially for D&BC having such leaders as Hy, and there were many such leaders in D&BC then -- people who didn't need to "audition" new members, or see their "resumes", or pretend the rookies were their "students". Today, those who then knew Hy and his contemporary colleagues consider them heroes. Hy always found a place for the greenest kids in all his corps, and those rookies would have the opportunity to participate and thereby keep and hold the D&BC experience for life. It was indeed the Golden Age of Drum Corps, and no one then knew that it was ending, though the beginning signs of the slow and decades-long death spiral would soon become obvious.

As Morgan said 'amen' - I agree a thousand times over!

[voodoo sweet]

Hy Dreitzer

The “Patron Saint” of Drum

Corps Music

Instructor of 1975 Champion horn line New York Skyliners

Hymen Dreitzer. The name conjures up an echo in the distance of time.

An echo of precise bugling in red and black uniforms, crisp, clean,

and driving. Pictures of "Manhattan Towers" and "42nd Street" appear

on the movie screen of the mind, feeling, like Times Square on New

Year's Eve, there is nothing in this world like it. The man behind

that sound is "Hy" on drum corps....

Q. What do you recall as your first experience in drum corps?

A. Well, this is funny; when I was a kid of 9 years old, well, all

kids like to build icehouses, right? Well, we built one, but we

forgot to build a fire in it and we sat there for hours and hours. I

got double pneumonia. It was nearly fatal but I pulled through. The

doctor told my mother that if you want him (me) to have normal lungs

for the rest of his life, you better have him do some kind of special

exercise, maybe take up a wind instrument or something. Well, there

was a kid on the block that was in a little local drum and bugle

corps. I joined. I don't recall the name, but I think it was a VFW

unit. But, I will tell you that I remember they were clean, even on the

old straight bugles. Then there was another corps in Brooklyn, that's

where I lived, that had *valve* horns. Well, we had to get to that!

WOW! It was not too long after that that I noticed that if you played

this note and I played that note we had harmony. I guess that's how it

all started. I was writing before I knew it! I entered the service in

1945 and afterward entered music school.

Q. What school did you attend?

A. It was the music school of the Henry Street settlement. It was a

good school then. We had some really great teachers there; our music

theory teacher was Felix Eberhardt who was a graduate of the

University of Heidelberg. I learned a lot from him...

Q. You were once a soloist with the Skyliners. When did you start with

them?

A. My first year was 1952 and I was on lead soprano. Then the next

year I dropped out because I knew I could not make the Nationals in

'53. Moreover, of course the American Legion Nationals was it. What was the

sense of competing if you could not go to Nationals? Now in '54 there

was a big shakeup. A bunch of people left the Skyliners and went over

to Hawthorne. We lost the cream of the old Garbarina corps. And

shortly thereafter, Hawthorne became big winners. But we lost about 14

or 16 guys; in those days that was a lot of people. Especially when

usually you went with about 32 horns and you were lucky if you had 3

or 4 snares. Today, we have two more people in the drum line than we

had in the whole horn line 22 years ago!

Q. What do you consider your greatest triumph in senior corps?

A. The Skyliners of course, have won just about every major title. But

the first show in 1960 - St. Pat's Preview of Champions in Jersey

City. Hawthorne had been unbeatable the year before, and we went out

and knocked them off. I was playing in the line then, too. That was a

very gratifying experience. You could talk about the three DCA

Championships we've won, you could talk about the "Dream"; winning the

"Dream" is always a great feeling. Last year's DCA Championship was a

little watered down! But it was great because we won high horns

despite the rain.

Q. You mentioned earlier the fascination you had for the first single

valve horn corps that you ever saw. How do you feel about the new

double piston valve bugles? Do you think DCA will take this path in

the future?

A. Well, if you remember the last meeting we had on it, the feeling

was the hell with the two-valve horn, let's go to three but keep it in

the key of G. I was amazed because I introduced the idea to

DCA. What we are using now is a two-valve G trumpet, with the rotary.

The horn ceased to be a bugle when we stopped using Army Regulation

bugles and added a valve.

So now, there are G trumpets. DCA said in effect, "Why be hypocritical,

let's go to the three but keep it in G because we still want that drum corps sound; we don't want that...

Bb band sound."

Personally, I do not care if we went for six valves; as long as it is in G, we still have the same sound but with more versatility. We would still have drum and bugle corps!

Hy Dreitzer is a helluva man to talk to. Had we not been both so tired

on that spring morning at 2:15am we could have talked drum corps all

night. I personally feel that this person is the patron saints of drum

corps music. I do not know that anybody could challenge that...

Mr Dreitzer, if alive today would be celebrating his 80th birthday !

He will be celebrated this year by the Buglers Hall of Fame in Conn. June 29th and 30th, 2007. His legacy is being

celebrated everyday by those of us who were instilled by him with his love of music and "love of drum and bugle corps".

P.S.: I can just hear Hy and Colonel "C" up there debating the question as to whether it should be 2 valves or 3,.......But I KNOW they both are in agreement, it should always be in the key of "G".

YEAH I remember the dream at Roosevelt stadium in Jersey City I get goose bumps just thinking about all of the shows that I saw there. I loved the venue that was always there with the junior corps going on first and then the seniors going on later that afternoon. I feel fortunate when I had the oppertunity to march on that field with the N Y Skyliners and the Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights Senior Corps. It was a sad day for me when I found out they were tearing it down!! I'll never forget the DREAM!!!!

Edited July 18, 2008 by vodoo sweet