GTP Alternative Cool Wall: 1972-present DCI (Drum Corps International) Drum and Bugle Corps

1972-present DCI (Drum Corps International) Drum and Bugle Corps as a Competitive Activity

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Roger the Horse

Roger the Horse

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Nominated by @Driving Park

DCI (Drum Corps International) Drum and Bugle Corps as a Competitive Activity​

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Timeframe: 1972-present
Description: Every summer, DCI corps embark on a season much like a sports season; for most of the summer months they are rehearsing all day and then going on tour, competing against other corps at football stadiums across the United States with a show nearly every night, culminating in the DCI Finals, held every year at Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium.
Members: A typical DCI World Class corps consists of members aged 13-22 who audition and pay thousands of dollars for the opportunity. A world class corps is comprised of brass instrumentalists playing bell front marching instruments (and formerly specialized G bugles), a front "pit" consisting of orchestral percussion, a "drumline" or marching battery percussion, a color guard, and one or multiple drum majors.
Purpose: Each corps prepares a show 8-12 minutes in length that consists of music, marching and choreography that is rigorously evaluated by the on-field and press box judges in a number of categories, for a total score out of 100.
Further Information:
Pictures really don't do drum and bugle corps any sort of justice. Here are some videos:
- 1988 Madison Scouts full show
- 1996 Phantom Regiment show ending
- 2013 Carolina Crown show excerpt
- 2013 Carolina Crown hornline show excerpts​
 
I find this stuff cool. That might be my bias since I was a marching band member when I was in high school, but this is pretty cool nonetheless.
 
For them to tour the United States for so long and still play the drum and bugle so well, I give them massive props. They work hard for what they do and it pays off.

Sub-zero.
 
Amusing in the way that toddler beauty pageants and dancing dogs are.

Seriously uncool.
 
axletramp
Amusing in the way that toddler beauty pageants and dancing dogs are.

Seriously uncool.
Click to expand...

If you went to a show, you would think differently. People marching around is one thing, but doing that while melting your face with sound is an experience not really attainable anywhere else, and it's a very awesome one at that. You don't fill a football stadium with people and have them scream their lungs out like in the end of the first video clip in spectacles as pithy as beauty pageants.

Keep in mind that I'm not disagreeing with your vote, as for anyone other than those who know about it (families of its members and other musicians, mostly) it's hard to call it cool. Anything that you have to do a lot of explaining for it to be cool...isn't cool. You could watch a show without any explanation and be totally floored by it, but a lengthy explanation (or a bribe...) would have to occur to get you to a show in the first place.
 
As someone in High School marching band, it is very difficult and requires lots of hard work. That's at the high school level, I can't imagine what it is like for them.

We really do have a huge effect on the crowd. Our band is the largest high school marching band in the country, that alone makes people cheer.

DCI does sub-zero things, but being marching band does unfortunately knock you down. I give it a cool, but there really is nothing like it.
 
I might be a little biased towards Sub-Zero, manly because i've been to 3 different DCI shows (I loved all three)... And am in our schools Marching Band

Here's what Marching can look like (Not my MB):

 
DRIFT3R_X7
I might be a little biased towards Sub-Zero, manly because i've been to 3 different DCI shows (I loved all three)... And am in our schools Marching Band
Click to expand...

Standing in the middle of a hornline warming up in the lot is one of the coolest things ever.

I stood in the middle of this:

And it was one of the coolest things I've ever experienced. Computer speakers can't really do any sort of justice to what it's like in real life. It's so loud that it shakes your bones, and that's without any microphones.

Also...DCI is a lot closer to a sport than most people think.

Exhibit A:



Of course, anyone who hasn't done it can't understand how difficult it is to do something like that, while playing loud, playing musically, not letting the tone waver at every step, maintaining your interval with the guys on either side of you, staying perfectly in the line as you run across yard lines, and of course stopping dead on one.

Hardly a beauty pageant (those shirtless marchers sure don't look pretty).

(And no, I didn't vote Sub-Zero :P )
 
As a former Marching Band member in high school, I have seen a few of these. I've even met a director of the Glassmen from Toledo. Put it this way, its something else. Sub-zero for me, no doubts.
 
While I'm sure it would be an awesome experience, it screams seriously uncool. Playing a guitar is cool, playing in a marching band is not, in my opinion.
 

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