A little Op/Ed piece, since I just had a drum corps weekend and witnessed quite a few things, both good and bad.
This particular piece of writing is going to touch on the rising trend of electronics in drum corps and, for that matter, indoor percussion ensembles.
First, let me get this off my chest in an impolite manner: I hate electronic instruments in drum corps and indoor percussion.
*ahem*
Before anyone says that I’m just an old curmudgeon that can’t stand change, let me say that that assessment would be wrong. I’m fine with change. I like evolution. But a medium is a medium because of how it is defined, and one way to define a medium is to acknowledge its boundaries.
To me, drum corps is acoustic. There are no electronics involved. When I listen to drum corps music, I want to hear horns and percussion. That’s it. I want to hear a great hornline rip my face off with a bigger-than-life sound. I want to hear a battery play creative, clean, fun beats with an attitude. I want to hear mallet percussion performed with agility and musicality. I want to hear auxiliary percussion contribute nuance and color.
What I don’t want to hear is a mandolin sound. I don’t want to hear samples of a storm or the wind blowing. I don’t want to hear a piano. And while we’re at it, I don’t want to hear an electric guitar or bass in a drum corps, marching band, or indoor percussion ensemble, either.
The full name of the drum corps activity is Drum and Bugle Corps. I don’t see the words “piano”, “synthesizer”, “violin”, or other such descriptors in the name. Any other sound is just out of place and, instead of a drum and bugle corps, you get a musical ensemble that is basically comparable to any mixed ensemble: a big band, an orchestra, a pop band. Without these boundaries, the medium becomes something other than drum and bugle corps. Same thing with marching band (all wind instruments and percussion) and indoor percussion.
And let me get in a quick word about indoor percussion. An indoor percussion ensemble should be a percussion ensemble, right? A synthesizer and an electric guitar or bass are NOT percussion instruments. So why are they allowed in a percussion ensemble? That’s like saying it’s okay to have strings in a wind ensemble, or brass in a woodwind sextet.
The great thing about any medium’s boundaries is that they force practitioners to be creative within those boundaries. In drum corps, you don’t get to use a piano, you have to use a marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, or other some such keyboard to convey what you want. You have to use the musical and tonal properties of those instruments to convey something piano-esque, if that’s what you’re after.
Succumbing to the use of outside sounds through the use of electronics basically means that the show designers can’t creatively use the instruments that define the medium in such a way to get the results they want. They have to resort to outside sounds, and this is the sign of giving up. This is a sign that says the medium should become another medium because the show designers cannot work within the medium as it is defined.
As far as sound effects, it’s ridiculous that show designers need to use synthesizers to produce sounds of a thunder storm. Me? I would use concert bass drums, sheets of metal, and cymbals. Need to add sounds of rain? That’s what rain sticks and ocean drums are for!
The great thing about music is that it’s abstract. Despite what we’ve been told since childhood, music is a language but it isn’t a universal language. Each person will receive a different communique from a piece of music because it is an abstract artform. Music relies on emotion and mimicry to convey a message. And while I think it’s great to be able to use samples in mixed music formats, such as pop music, the marching activity has always been an acoustic musical activity. I think the acoustic concept is important to reiterate as we talk about music as an abstract medium. Drum corps and marching band have always been acoustic musical activities. They’re basic and primal and rely on acoustic instruments to convey impressions with which the listener can associate. When a trumpet whinnies like a horse, it may sound like a trumpet, but the listener knows it’s mimicking a horse. When a bass drum pumps out a faint bum-bump, bum-bump pattern, the listener associates that with a heartbeat. It is this quality that I appreciate about drum corps.
It is a sad day when electronic instruments become the norm in drum corps. Marching band and indoor percussion are already plagued by them. I would hate to see drum corps rely on such a crutch. I want to see evolution and creativity, but I want to see those things within the boundaries that define the medium. I don’t want to see drum corps turned into something it isn’t. Push the boundaries, but don’t redefine them. A truly creative person can be so within those boundaries.