I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:

I hate electronics in drum corps and drumline.

Tonight I attended the DCI Quarterfinals broadcast in the theaters. As has been the trend of the past few years, synthesizers were utilized by several corps. Unfortunately, I don’t see this problem (yes, I view it as a problem) going away any time soon, which saddens me. And not only because drum and bugle corps should consist of percussion and horns (hence the name of the activity), but because of another reason, one I think is very important to this medium.

Drum and bugle corps is both a visual and audible medium. It relies on sound and corresponding visuals. If you look at the field, take note of what you see: horns, drums, mallet keyboards, tom-toms, percussion toys, timpani… do you see a violin? A piano? A full orchestra? No? Then where the hell is that sound coming from?

The sound generated by a synthesizer is distracting. Being a visual medium, my ears expect to hear what I’m seeing. If I hear an orchestra or a piano but don’t see one, my immersion into and my connection with the performance and the show itself have been compromised. Hearing something I don’t see is a distraction. It is so jarring that my connection to the show is suddenly broken and I become removed from what I see and hear on the field. I suddenly become focused on other things besides the show.

Oh, wait… you can see the synthesizer keyboard on the field, can’t you? Well, that’s fine and dandy, but what exactly does a synthesizer sound like? Generally, it’s supposed to sound like something else. A synthesizer’s job is to synthesize sounds. I’m not aware that a synthesizer has an identifiable sound, unless it’s the sound you get when you run a midi piano or a midi horn through some weird processor. But since the synthesizer keyboard is associated with more than just that processed sound reminiscent of prog rock from the 1980’s, any sound created by the electronic instrument is jarring and distracting.

Then there are the sound effects. Even more jarring because they are so incredibly out of place. The samples? The pre-recorded vocals? Out of place. Can’t see where they’re coming from, no one is actually performing them… distraction. In addition, these sounds don’t balance well with the acoustic instruments at all. They don’t complement each other. It’s like watching a Disney movie from the 1990’s: hand-drawn animation composited with obviously computer-generated graphics and animation. It causes an imbalance. This imbalance causes yet another distraction.

I realize I am only one man, but I do know this man isn’t the only one with the opinion that electronic instruments should not be part of the activity. Even if the activity of “drum and bugle corps” were changed to “music and movement”, I would still want to see the orchestra if I heard the orchestra. I want to see the woodwind players if I heard woodwind instruments.

A medium – any medium – has boundaries. These boundaries are what helps define the medium. Music consists of a tempo and rhythm. Without tempo, there is no rhythm, and without either you get a bunch of jumbled sounds. A painting is composed of colors applied with a brush, whether digital or physical. Comics are composed of silent, static images in a sequence. If you add movement, it becomes animation.

This is the same with drum and bugle corps. There are drums and there are horns. Along with this is the visual aspect: drill, body movement, and colorguard. What you see is what you get. Unfortunately, in this day and age of the activity, what I see is not what I’m getting. I’m getting more than what I see and it’s a distraction. It’s an imbalance.

It’s like taking two foods that you absolutely love separately but do not pair well together at all because, when paired, they just taste horrible.