Drum Corps Media
If you’re my age (24) or younger and follow drum corps, consider yourself really damn lucky. There were days not long ago when dudes had to trade videos and cassette tapes of drumlines with their friends if they wanted to hear lot clips or street beats or book. Chances are the recordings were from well after the season or even worse, if you didn’t have any friends with recordings, you had nothing to listen to at all.
Then came youtube. Now we can sit for hours on end and watch countless videos great lines only days after it was filmed live. We can in essence follow a line’s progress throughout the season.
And NOW we have corps like the Cavaliers that are embracing the social media shift and posting audio clips MINUTES after they were recorded. Seriously, how cool is that??
And yet despite having such amazing access to all this FREE content that you don’t have to do a DAMN thing to get while getting it almost INSTANTLY, people use it as an opportunity to bash and call out groups.
So before you go and publicly crown yourself “internet douchebag,” realize how lucky we are.
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You bring up a really good point. I really hate it that people can’t just enjoy these amazing shows, and who cares if there’s some small mistakes, honestly if you are looking to find every mistake, then you are the real idiot. I for one, am glad to have access to all of these videos to WATCH, and ENJOY, rather than to bash, and critique. Thanks for bringing this up and reminding us just how lucky we are to be able to watch these videos, and listen to these corps.
I was marching as far back as 1964 when drum corps played Real music
Twitter is absolutely game-changing for drum corps, and for pageantry arts as a whole. Corps tend to attract more die-hard fans, camping out on dci.org waiting for scores late into the night (guilty) who get HUGE value out of the depth and nuance Twitter affords the summer tour.
You are dead-on correct, we are the luckiest generation in drum corps history when you consider the quality and low access threshold we enjoy. We are incredibly unlucky that the number of groups has dwindled due to the high cost of being competitive.
And “real” music? You’re telling me that Ginastera, Corigliano, Mackey, Copland, Barber, Bernstein, and Debussy didn’t write “real” music? I disagree. Sorry.
I agree!!! (with Cory) its EXTREMELY valuable for me as an instructor to have all this great material to show my students and have them strive to be like. I’ve always thought that if any of my students were able to march a Div I drum corps I would be happy, and now I want ALL of my students to do just that because they literally have ALL the resources to make those groups!
I also agree with cory’s statement about REAL music……WTF were you trying to accomplish by posting that anyway Ranoule???
@Cory – I agree, Twitter is absolutely game-changing for drum corps (as well as for a lot of other things). It is unfortunate the more groups have disappeared in our generation, but in the end, we’re still able to consume exponentially more. So at least the groups that are still around are getting the visibility they deserve.
I’m really, really interested to see what lines look like in a couple years comprised of what I call the “Youtube” generation of drummers. These are the kids who had unlimited amounts of online media to watch and listen to as they developed their skills. It will be interesting to see what, if any, impact it had . . .
Unfortunately I don’t think that lines are exponentially better or that the writing is exponentially better because of the available media. They should be, but I don’t think it is happening. (Let me be clear that individual talent has definitely improved as a result of the vast amount of available media, but that is different than improved full line talent.)
As long as drum judges continue to be primarily made up of former snare drummers, who also happen to be all buddy buddy with the arrangers, things won’t change as much as they should.
@Fetus – Just for clarification, I meant we’re able to consume, or watch exponentially more. I wasn’t speaking in terms of quality.
@NIK – right with you, youtube/vimeo are great resources for students to check out all consumable aspects of the activity – lets them see that those “gods” in the line are just goofy kids who drum better than they do (or not!) – one would hope that it would help lower their entry barrier and increase interest in the activity.
@Chris – I think the people who marched in the mid-90s are just now starting to move and shake within the activity as major designers and staff members, so *they* will be the ones to really harness the quantity of mass-media and utilize the “YouTube” generation
@Fetus, I think you’ll see the quality hit an up-tick as the old guard moves on and the new guard takes over – think the early 90s vs. mid 80s in terms of quality and creativity. I think a shift is coming, for the better!
I know. I was just commenting/ranting that this extra media to consume should be improving and furthering the marching percussion activity a lot more than it is.
+1 for Chris