Daily Dose 5/4

Many have tried to make drum and bugle corps an enticing source of entertainment to audiences nationwide and many have failed. I look to join those many (in the trying not the failing) with my attempts to link quotes from the movie The 40 Year Virgin (unsuitable for audience with common decency) with the crazy world of marching and music that drum corps represents.

Today's Quote:
I should pull up the hardwood to see if there's carpet underneath. No. That's never the case. -Andy Stitzer

What does this have to do with drum corps?:
With every drum corps show you are going to have a lot going on. The musicians will be pounding out incredible music while trying to move with the skill and precision of dancers as the color guard has to actually dance with many props, flags, and other pieces of equipment. The judges will be either walking on the field or up in the stands watching the most minute details and carefully calculating the score. The audience will be cheering the performance and pushing the corps to take it to that next level while also hypnotized by the sheer artistic wonder.
With all this going on an important factor in drum corps performance can be easy to overlook even though its right in front of your eyes the whole time: the field itself. Just as sports teams have to adapt their game plans to the type of surface they plan on or the conditions of that surface, so to do drum corps have to deal with all kinds of challenges originating under the soles of their shoes. Whether its grass, mud, Astroturf, or gravel each surface has unique and special properties that the marchers must respond to. If they don't add a little more effort when marching through mud they'll fall behind and ruin the show. If they don't take care on wet 'turf they could seriously injure themselves. The whole idea of marching music is to take music out of the concert halls, clubs, and dance halls and move it out into the elements. Give music room to move and stretch and it becomes exponentially powerful. Ask performers to continue playing symphony level music while they haul their gear back and forth in all sorts of weather and their job becomes exponentially more difficult. A drum corps has to be mindful of all the little tricks a field can play on their feet. If they go out expecting grass and find dirt their whole show could go wrong. So it certainly pays to consider what happens underfoot.