The Patron Saint of Drum Corps music

[donincardona]

hy was a great man. anecellent arrainger. i can't think of a book he wrote that i didn't like. the man had so much class. even though i was with rochester i miss him. he helped make drum corps what it was.

[NYSkyliner]

Speaking of Nostalgia, Mike, (I know.....poor segue) I have a video my wife shot at DCA in, I believe, 1994 or therabouts when the TBIRDS did there first tribute to Sky for minicorps'. (ya.....we won that one too.) We were in the infamous parking lot at Scranton after finals playing our show for the crowd when a bunch of SKY members joined in. The best part? Konga also joined in to direct and we were playing directly at and for "Butch Anderson" who was, at that time, wheel chair bound. One of my proudest moments. That was the last time I saw him.

Pardon me getting off topic here, BUT....I remember that concert you guys performed for Butch VERY well,....you see I was the one who pushed him around while he was wheelchair bound that weekend. 5 days later, as Liz said, he passed away when he succumbed to brain cancer.

Edited June 14, 2007 by NYSkyliner

[NYSkyliner]

Think the interview was also printed in the 1976 DCA Finals program. Will have to check my copy in the cellar but think a write up was done on the caption winners for the year before. Hy (Sky took High Horns) , John Flowers (Yankee Rebels took drums) and (I think) Jim Costello (Cabs took M&M). Funny thing is when the Bb proposal came up the first thing I remembered was the "six valves.... keep it in G" quote but I forgot it was Hy Dreitzer who said it.

One of the great interviews, thanks Mike.

You're welcome Jim. And thank you too.

[CorpsBuff]

I already miss the Skyliners :(

Edited June 15, 2007 by BucsBuff

[NYSkyliner]

Edited by me.

Edited June 16, 2007 by NYSkyliner

[NYSkyliner]

Great read, and Hy was a GREAT man.

This post has been edited by BucsBuff

Thank you for demonstrating decency in this matter Andrew. My faith your integrity as a member of the Reading Buccaneers and your Alma Mater, Mansfield University as a top notch institution of higher learning have been restored. Here's wishing the Buccaneers a 3peat.

[Skydrummer9]

By far some of the most amazing arrangements I have ever heard. If I played a horn, I would die a happy man if I could pull off one of his charts.

[donincardona]

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".

this was a great post last year and i just thought that maybe it should be read again as it pertains to Bb horns and why G horns were used by drum corps in the first place. the great hy drietzer was right on spot with this . the younguns and apologist's can poo poo this all they want but it rings so very true.

thanks mike for posting this last year it was a great thread.

[elphaba01]

this was a great post last year and i just thought that maybe it should be read again as it pertains to Bb horns and why G horns were used by drum corps in the first place. the great hy drietzer was right on spot with this . the younguns and apologist's can poo poo this all they want but it rings so very true.

thanks mike for posting this last year it was a great thread.

"Hy Drietzer"

The MAN!!!! He wrote for so many corps, and quite unlike todays "Designers" he was able to create a sound that gave each corps an "Identity".

Elphaba

WWW

[Puppet]

this was a great post last year and i just thought that maybe it should be read again as it pertains to Bb horns and why G horns were used by drum corps in the first place. the great hy drietzer was right on spot with this . the younguns and apologist's can poo poo this all they want but it rings so very true.

thanks mike for posting this last year it was a great thread.

Kudos! And as a player for Hy in both St. Joseph Patron Cadets and St. Rita's Brassmen I can attest how great it was to play his charts. Unlike the corps of today, we never had more than 36 horns on the field but because of his ability to arrange and especially his knowledge of inner voicing, we sounded like a much larger horn line.

On a personal level, I don't think there was any one who knew how to impart what music can be to the youngsters from every economic strata! The man was amazing!

Respectfully,

Puppet