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DCI Drum corps show tonight


wvu80

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I'm headed to Massilon, OH for the first big Drum Corps show of the season for me.

 

This is my genre and my passion.  It is THE reason I wanted Klipsch speakers, to reproduce the sound of 90 brass instruments and about 45 percussion.  It takes horn speakers to reproduce brass instruments, and it has to be able to play LOUD.

 

The corps consist of 150 young people all under the age of 21 and it is some of the finest brass and percussion playing you will hear on the planet, just world class.  It is a playing and marching ensemble on a football field, sort of like marching band on steroids.  The sound of these world class brass lines will melt your face, which is BTW, the reason we go.  B)

 

Here is a taste of the defending DCI World Champion Bluecoats from Canton, Ohio.  I will hear them tonight.

 

 

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Sounds like not only a good time but that it indeed, would sound good (fantastic) on some large Klipsch.

 

I once went with my father to an Ohio State game (neither of us went there, both went to Miami of Ohio)

 

Ohio State happened to be playing......  Miami of Ohio!

 

It was also band homecoming game or something like that where prior band players could come back and play.

 

We went to their practice session prior to the game.  You had OSU band, Miami's band and enough Alumni band members to maybe make another 2 bands in there.  The place was just packed with horns & drums.

 

They absolutely tore that place apart, it was fantastic.  Even let Miami get in on some of the songs so all players were playing.

 

At halftime, they did their script Ohio.  As I recall, well...I don't recall.  They either had two script Ohio's moving, one facing each side of the field or, they had like four script Ohio's going, facing each side of the field.

 

Though I can't remember, it really was a memorable event.  We did of course, leave at halftime after the show and OSU pretty much stomped Miami into the ground, 50-0 if I recall correctly.

 

Hey...  if they have a CD/DVD while you are there, I'll buy one & pay you for your efforts to ship it to me!  (I'll buy one of each if there is an option)

 

How's that for some blind faith.

 

No pressure of course, I realize you are not going there for shopping purposes.

 

 

 

 

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I've been to a couple of DCI competitions. Truly amazing. The precision, power, and dedication are incredible. My high school band instructor was one of the percussion instructors for Phantom Regiment in the 80's. 

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I just got back from the Massilon show about 1:00am after a two hour drive.  It was freaking UN-believable!

 

The power of the hornlines, the precision of the percussion, the incredible creativity of the shows.  Just wow!

 

It is the live! standard I use when I am "tuning" my Klipsch setups.  If Klipsch can create that giant soundstage (and it can) then the Klipsch are doing something truly special that no other speakers I know of can reproduce.

 

Life is good.  :emotion-21:

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I was in marching bands all through HS and college. Our 100-piece college band had a 28-person drum section — 4 precision (tight) snares, 8 loose snares, 10 tenors, 2 cymbals, 4 basses — that marched directly in front of a marching electric bass player (the amp was a custom-made Cerwin-Vega folded-horn w/18" driver and a 500-watt amp, pushed by another guy) and a marching electronic organ (Vox Continental on top of another custom Cerwin-Vega amplifier/speaker combo, pulled by yet another guy). We played arrangements that were written specifically for the band by the professor who taught jazz arrangement (Don Nelligan) — no Mickey-Mouse stock marching band arrangements.

 

We would march one complete circuit around the football field with the drum section playing cadences and when we got in front of the grandstand we stopped, stood still and played to the crowd (our band director HATED the idea of the band "spelling words and drawing pictures", as he put it). It was more like a huge concert rock band as opposed to a typical 1970-vintage marching band, and believe me when I tell you that we kicked complete and total ASSS when we played. All the horn players from the jazz band were the section leaders, and the drum section worked out its parts to sound like Ginger Baker or John Bonham drum parts. It was a whole world away from the kind of precision you get in DCI, but man was it fun to be part of something that powerful. (When we played home games my mom could clearly hear the band at our home, which was well over a mile away from the stadium.)

 

BTW, I've yet to hear a recording of any marching band or drum corps that accurately captures the power and intensity of witnessing a performance in person. My experience making recordings is that as the physical size of what you're trying to record increases, the difficulty of accurately capturing the listening experience increases proportionally. ESPECIALLY when the ensemble is out of doors, away from the friendly reinforcement of a concert hall's reflective surfaces.

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My oldest friend who is now a Superior Court Judge used to be a DCI Judge. At the time he was the Band Director at Clovis High School in California. We had both been in Band in school from like third grade through senior year. He went on to receive his Masters in music education from UOP in Stockton before getting his law degree.

 

He would spend most of his summer vacation when he was a Band Director traveling the country judging DCI shows. He took me to one in Ogden, Utah(rode our Harley's there)in 1993.

 

Point is, I sat there the whole damn time with my mouth hanging wide open absolutely awestruck, chills up and down my spine. Had never seen OR heard anything like it before or since. I dare say it would leave a lasting impression on ANYONE.

 

Only other time I felt similar as a spectator was when I saw Richard Burton in Camelot live in SF. Hoooly Shite! And I wasn't even into plays.

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  • 2 weeks later...

See if this doesn't give you goosebumps. 

 

Carolina Crown has one of the top brass ensembles in the world.  Listen to how perfectly in-tune they are with the vocal ensemble, Liberty Voices.  THAT is an ending!

 

 

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