In drum corps (pronounced "core"), not only are the participants playing at a high degree of ability, but they're also marching at a high degree of ability. Check out some of the following clips and links, and appreciate the amount of work they put into these performances!
Unfortunately, due to copyright laws, only snippets of shows are typically available on YouTube.
Madison Scouts - "Corps of Brothers - 75 Years of Survival" (2013)
This is a rehearsal run in 2 parts, with lots of drum cam angles since it's a Vic Firth sponsored video. (Vic Firth is a percussion company.)
Part 1:
School may be out, but that means that a whole new season is upon us: marching band season! Most people are familiar with high school and college marching bands (I'll post more about those in the future as we approach their season), but fewer people are familiar with Drum Corps International, or DCI.
What is DCI?
DCI is a nonprofit organization composed of many different drum and bugle corps (pronounced "core"), or competitive groups. (Don't call them marching bands - the participants will not be happy.) These groups are broken into two different categories, world class (higher level of competition, larger groups) and open class (lower level of competition, smaller groups).
Who participates?
Participants come from all over the world, including at least 15 countries. The average age of DCI participants is 19.4 years old, but there are some mid-teens and young adults as well. People 22 years and older cannot participate in DCI, but can participate in DCA, an all-age organization. As far as gender goes, all but two corps are co-ed, which means that boys and girls can participate. The Madison Scouts and the Cavaliers are males only.
DCI participants pay thousands of dollars to participate in this athletic arts activity. This money goes towards their equipment and/or instruments (provided by the corps so they're all the same brand and therefore most similar in sound quality across the group), uniforms, food, fuel for the buses they'll be living on during the two months of tour, and other fees required to run a drum corps.
People who participate are often in excellent physical shape, because drum corps is hard! Check out this short video on DCI athletes, in which scientists hook a percussionist from the Cavaliers up to a whole bunch of different machines to measure how hard his body works during the show. It's pretty mind-boggling. The subject's oxygen consumption (how much oxygen his body uses) was about as much as a well-trained marathon runner's...in the middle of a marathon. However, his heart rate looks more like someone who's running a far shorter distance (400 m or 800 m) at top speed.
What do they play?
Instrument-wise, there are only brass instruments (trumpet, baritone, euphonium, contrabass bugle - like a front-facing, shoulder-mounted tuba; in early 2014 it was ruled that trombones will also be allowed), percussion (including keyboard percussion, timpani, and auxiliary percussion in the front, what's called the pit), and color guard (who can use rifles, sabers, flags, and other equipment).
Music-wise, each corps pays composers and/or arrangers (as well as paying all copyright permissions fees) to create 11 1/2 minutes of music that fits their show's theme. Participants begin learning the music during weekend camps in the winter, after auditions. Corps also pay drill writers to create the forms on the field that the participants will practice during spring training (which begins in May). Drill continues to be tweaked all summer long, depending on judges' comments and show development.
There is a huge range of music performed in drum corps! I guarantee that if you attend a DCI show, you'll recognize at least one piece of music. It's not all band and orchestral arrangements, either - there's a lot of popular music as well. Corpsreps.com has a search function at the top of the page. See if any music you like has been used in drum corps!
Where can I see them around here?
Every summer, the season kicks off with the opening competition being displayed two days later in movie theaters around the country. This tour premiere will be shown on Monday, June 23, at 6:30 pm. It's a little over 2 hours long. Bay Park Cinema in Green Bay is our local movie theater that shows it. Tickets cost $15, which is a little bit cheaper than going to a live show.
The top 15 corps' performances in the preliminary round of World Championships will be broadcast live on Thursday, August 7.
There are a few shows in Wisconsin every summer. This year, those dates and locations are: Middleton (near Madison) on June 28, Cedarburg (near Milwaukee) on July 3, Whitewater on July 5, and La Crosse (hosting DCI regionals, which is a bigger deal than a "normal" show) on July 12. If you get the chance, it's a super-awesome face-melting event that's not to be missed!
The spring concert this year was an informance, in which the students informed the audience of things they learned through their performance. We started things out with our 4th and 5th grade bucket ensemble. These students worked very hard and gave up 8 lunch recesses to learn "Bucket Rock 101" by Mark Shelton (from his book Give Me a Bucket, Heritage Music Press, a division of The Lorenz Corporation; used with permission). They worked together to come up with a name, and they decided to call themselves The Big Bang.
The Big Bang
"Bucket Rock 101" by Mark Shelton (publisher information above)
K-5
"Fanga Alafia" (traditional Yoruba welcome song, from Nigeria)
Some of the 5th graders from The Big Bang volunteered to play buckets for our full school songs. They decided to call themselves The Bucket Rebels.
This year we celebrated Grandparents Day on March 21, right before spring break. This wasn't a music concert, but I was asked to teach the school two songs (an opener and a closer) for the program. Here are the songs the students sang for their special guests:
"Let's Go See Our Grandparents" (arranger unknown)
