Skippy

You didn't come off as offensive

Thanks.

I agree that you shouldn't judge an entire organization by an isolated incident. But when literally every single encounter I have had with an organization could be defended as an "isolated incident", it leads me to believe that such events are not really so isolated.

I actually think it's ingenious, and I find it to be very intriguing. Silence has always fascinated me, because it doesn't exist (outside of a vacuum). Even right now on your computer, you think it's pretty quiet, until you stop and actually listen, there's a heck of a lot of noise. The more you listen, the harder it is to ignore and the louder it gets. The whole point of the piece is making people aware of their surroundings. The music is the sounds that people never would have noticed had they not been made aware of them. I've pondered having it done by a marching band, but I don't think it would work just because of the venues that marching band takes place at. I think it'd be more effective in a concert hall type setting. Also, the typical audience of band parents and high school kids would be pretty unreceptive and not care enough to understand it.

and on top of that, they're all "cowgirling" it.

No, there's definitely a chance of something like that hurting you. Coming from a guy who's a 3rd year music student at UNT that still can't play high... every all-region etude or piece of music or drum corps mellophone parts that went high only made me worse. The stuff was beyond my ability at the moment, but I didn't think I had any choice but to hit the notes, so I had to result to forceful behaviors that have turned into bad habits. I am now in the process of going through a 4-month embouchure overhaul to fix everything that I've got going wrong, and it's the most frustrating thing in the world because I am literally playing like a middle school student right now. Although there is a lot of truth to the statement, "The only way to get good at playing high, is by playing high." I was just caution you to always be aware of what you are physically doing to achieve those notes, and hopefully you have a lesson teacher or a smart band director that can help you out. It's one thing to play a few high notes when your range is developing. It's another when it's balls out high the whole time.

...wow

Yeah, it's like 32 high C's in one movement or something like that. I'd have to have a 1st chair all-state horn player to be playing something like that, I wouldn't want to mess up my kids' face for the sake of some cool music.

I'd say it's 96% of the fun.

Of course you are entitled to an opinion. However, your opinion is that every corps has class. There are actual actions that take place from several corps that are consistently classess, rude, and offensive. Your opinion doesn't change the fact that these events take place. Unless you think that body-checking members of other corps into buses, flipping off members of other hornlines, making fun of corps in encore when they beat them in a show, purposely playing all the wrong notes in encore (as loud as possible), elbow checking members of other corps while in uniform is still classy.

Have you tried asking the band director if you could borrow one? (ours is always cool with it for drum corps auditions) Have you tried checking one out from the school?

March drum corps a few years (or even once), then start talking like you know how things roll. You are so wrong it's laughable.

They seriously still do that? The whole Boston arc did it to our horn Sergeant in 2006 leaving encore. He brought it to the Boston director's attention, and people got reamed. I just assumed that kind of childish behavior would've stopped after something like that. Yeah, stuff like that needs to be brought up with corps directors, and stopped.

Yeah, no kidding

Ah yes, I remember the good old days. We never really cared about UIL marching band after that.

At SFA we didn't use anything to mark our sets. We were just given coordinate sheets, and then we memorized our dots. Then to check, we'd step it off to the nearest hash or visible 4-step tick (we had pavement). Kids can handle it, you just have to teach them how, and start slow. They use another system under the new director though.

Agreeing with Zach, I think it comes down to a matter of opinion. There isn't a "right" way of doing outdoor music. I prefer the "concert band" approach, but I'm not discounting the "drum corps" approach. Excellence is obvious either way. Do I like the way the Phantom Regiment brass sounds? Not in the least. But I can acknowledge the fact that they are very good at what they choose to do, and that they do it better than anyone else.

UIL = music

To go along with that, I once had a chat with someone on the inside, and they said their biggest complaint was that when they do bring in judges from other places (which I think COULD be ok), is that the only training any of the judges have is looking over the sheets at dinner the night before the contest. I mean, no wonder great band directors from other places are at odds with Texas directors that understand the system. (For example, Alfred Watkins of Lassiter, obviously a smart person, was the one who gave SFA the 3 in music that someone mentioned earlier, but he found himself at odds with those from other places).

I've only seen the video of BOA Houston for Bell, I am dying to see Music for Prague live. I can't even see what's going on on my computer screen, and it makes my jaw drop.

Truth.

I think there should be a band contest judged by 9 moms. As an insight to how moms think: my mom always notices when someone falls, when a line isn't straight, and when there are cool uniforms.

Dean Westman arranged SCV 99.

I think DCI is more dependent on BOA for creating a consistent fanbase, rather than making actual marching members. You'd be surprised at how many members of The Cavaliers come from podunk schools in the middle of nowhere where their band was never any good. A lot more than those people that come from BOA competing bands (although there are some). Also, most of the members of the top corps are college-aged anyways, and conflicting schedules wouldn't be much of a problem.

Also, I doubt that BOA will ever have much effect at all on how UIL runs their contests. The people that decide the rules for UIL value different things than what BOA values. i.e. UIL doesn't put nearly as much of an emphasis on show design, and for good reasons. Schools shouldn't be expected to pour money into performing state-of-the-art shows, although they can if they want to, it's about the musical education a student is receiving.