The Tyranny of the Corps...

No, not the Marine Corps, although they can be pretty tyrannical. In this case I mean drum corps, specifically the 24 Division I Drum & Bugle Corps of Drum Corps International. Just about every high school band in the United States—and there are over 15,000 high schools in the U.S.—has elected to model their band on these elite drum corps. The uniforms, the composition of drum lines and the percussion “pit” at the side of the field, the style of marching: all this is driven by these 24 elite drum corps. Now don't get me wrong; I don't dislike drum & bugle corps. I was in one myself and it was a lot of fun. The problem is that this conscious aping of drum corps has produced high school bands that are appallingly homogenous. When I was in high school band [mumble mumble] years ago, there was a lot of diversity, and many bands modeled themselves after outstanding contemporary military bands; others followed the pattern of historical bands, while still others developed a distinctive style all their own. The point is that there was no one pattern! I was fortunate enough to belong to a band that had a distinctive identity, based on the British Household Division, particularly the Scots Guards. It was fun and it gave us an identity different from everyone else; we played a lot of Kenneth J. Alford, Edward Elger and Sir William Walton, as well as arrangements taken from a broad range of traditional English, Scottish and Irish folk tunes. And I played the bagpipes!

The bands we saw at the Illinois State Invitational Championship were made up of wonderfully talented kids but the homogeneity was really apparent: only two styles of headgear, black West Point-style shakos with tall plumes or fancy bush hats a la the Cavaliers or Vanguard; short jackets in modern cuts, many with metallic highlights; black pants and shoes. Drum lines had six or seven snares, three or four quad drums, and 6 various sized rudimentary bass drums. Most had no marching cymbals, exiling those to the pit. No tenor drums. No straight bass drums. No marching glockenspiels. No triple drums. No spinning sticks. No drum majors with maces or even “sissy sticks”. Hey band directors: SOMEONE NEEDS TO BUCK THE TREND! Every high school band in the U.S. should not be a drum corps clone! Not even the Division I Corps themselves are this homogenous; look at the Troopers or the Phantom Regiment. The tradition of marching bands is a long and distinguished one and can stand on it's own.; draw on that tradition and add something new to create a distinctive identity. Help stomp out drum corps clones!

Posted by Ray Trygstad | Category: Music | 02:52 AM