The trouble is that contempt without prior investigation is one of [i]the[/i] eminent features of the human psyche. So, if a marching cymbal ensemble as heralded as that of - say - the Santa Clara Vanguard were to execute this seemingly pleonastic acrobatic maneuver in plain view of the stereotypical parking lot urchine, and with the variety of scroticular persuasion that only they can manufacture, would the urchine approve...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H3FHQLt-pg

Or would it still seem retarded?

Same thing with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3aOEy3-zrM

I mean, it's silly, yeah. (The instructor's [i]actually wearing[/i] formal business attire, like ";Adjunct Professor of Marching Percussion"; would be a really distinguished title, even if it existed). But all I could think when I watched it was, ";If the Blue Devils took 15 seconds out of their show to line the drums up in front of the drum major and let him conduct that same little ";wave"; trick through the line - maybe make it different at each show - maybe add some leaning/posture crap - every high school program in the country would be doing it the following year. And maybe folks would be on the internet saying how they like outside-of-the-box thinking like that - how refreshing it is to see something new on a football field. Maybe the instructor types would mention how important it is to give the kids something cute like that to hype on, in order to keep morale up. And then the fundamentalist curmudgeons would balk, ";In my day we just played the stinkin' DRUMS. We didn't do all of this ballet dancin' and two steppin'!";

And I guess my point is that it's not necessarily unwise to be keeping an eye out for the next ";great"; idea, because the next great idea's sometimes just stolen from somewhere outside of public view. Seems like every ";breakthrough"; scientific discovery eventually gets credited back to some impoverished South Lithuanian monk who thought it up 50 years before the guys at Cambridge got a hold of it.

I dunno...

Just thoughts.

Spoken like a true corpsman (corpswoman) about a bunch of bandos.

Sorry, not to be rude to anyone. Drum Corps and Marching Band are two different worlds. Either hopefully or unfortunately (pick one) the two will probably never meet.

My daughter marched with The Cadets when the movie Drumline came out. One day, when they were given time off on tour, many from the corps went to see the movie. All the other people in the theatre couldn't figure out why this bunch of rowdies was laughing hysterically all through the movie.

Warren Barnett

Warren,

Sounds like you're the devoted type, of the unafraid-to-take-a-stand variety. And I love that. But maybe I didn't explain clearly enough. Moreso in my second post, I was saying that, sometimes, (but not always, or even usually), beauty comes from the places where we're least inclined to look for it. I just wanted to join the countless millions before me who've voiced that same important truth.

[quote author=Warren Barnett link=topic=3395.msg17858#msg17858 date=1257473213]Spoken like a true corpsman (corpswoman) about a bunch of bandos.[/quote]

I have never marched drum corps.