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what tuba's do each particular top 12 corps use? in your opinion, which is the best tuba used in DCI today? which of the top 12 corps has the best tuba-lines and why?

just curious

OK, back to the subject at hand...

In the key of GG... I played an old Deg 2 valve 4/4 Contra, a King K-90, then a Deg 3V 5/4, and finally a Kanstul 3 valve Contra Grande 5/4. The K-90 had great tone and projection but the pitch sucked. The Deg 5/4 was mushy and hard to hold in the correct position for your embouchure but good pitch. The 4/4 Deg would be great to use at I&E, it is very responsive and easy to center in the high range. The Kanstul I own, it plays with a big fat sound and the thumb activated tuning slide match pitch control easy but it does take more air. But you get used to it with time.

In the key of BBb... At the NAMM Show I played all the Kanstuls. Nice sound but pitch is not good and they are small bore. The Deg 4/4 and 5/4 play very nice but loose pitch control in the high range F and above. The Yamaha played the absolute best. Great pitch control, good feedback so you can hear yourself, and smooth slurring. I have not had chance to play on the new King horns yet.

The Bluecoats used to march Kanstul instruments; I don't know if they still do or not. The Carolina Crown marches the Kings with the funky 4th valve, and I think the Blue Knights march Kings as well.

SpartanContra wrote:what do all the "legit" players on this board think about the drum corps activity?

s'cool.

A tuba's a tuba. Corps playing is trying to do the best you can, while playing the tuba. Its like asking what do orchestral players think of band players, or band players of British brass banding, or ...

Keep on rockin'!

BTW, I still have my grandfather's drum and bugle corps actual Bb bugle: no valves at all, and NOT what you play Taps with...

SpartanContra wrote:what do all the "legit" players on this board think about the drum corps activity?

Hate it. Change the subject.

DCI jumped the shark they day they went all BBb. When it was GG it was all good and separate. Now they just let them march sousaphones and quit with those GAWDAWFUL contrabass thingys...

SpartanContra, I am a barroom bassist, and that's what most might consider illegitimate.
I marched in high school with a sousa and played snare drum In the N.A.S. Memphis Marine Drum and Bugle Corps. The music and snappy rhythm stirred my heart then as it does now. I like it. It was fun.
Dennis Gray
tubatooter1940
www.johnreno.com/

Jeffrey Hicks wrote:DCI jumped the shark they day they went all BBb. When it was GG it was all good and separate. Now they just let them march sousaphones and quit with those GAWDAWFUL contrabass thingys...

while were at it why don't we march saxophones and clarinetes.


it is different. it is easier to march with a contra-bass if you are physically fit to play it. sousaphones are for the fat and lazy (yes i know i'm going to get flamed for this)

hurricane_harry wrote:it is different. it is easier to march with a contra-bass if you are physically fit to play it. sousaphones are for the fat and lazy (yes i know i'm going to get flamed for this)

Not using capital letters is for the fat and lazy!

to add to that, before DCI, drum and bugle corps were in both G and Bb

hurricane_harry wrote:sousaphones are for the fat and lazy (yes i know i'm going to get flamed for this)

"Tubas are for fat guys with pimples."
Louis Russ, Mr. Holland's Opus

SpartanContra wrote: what do all the "legit" players on this board think about the drum corps activity?

Love it! Any musical performance that can inspire gooseflesh is cool in my book! Plus, any young player who wishes to devote 5-6 hours of daily facetime during their summer gets mad props from me.

Dave "looking forward to 8 glorious hours of DCI in the Georgia Dome next Saturday" Zerkel

Doesn't the Dynasty Contra=Willson 3050 in bell and body just different valve section?

BTW, going to see DCI for the first time this Sat. in San Antonio and really looking forward to it.

Karl P wrote:It also has peaked their interest in classical music.

I probably would have fallen into enjoying computerized music if it weren't for drum corps intervening at the time.

On the other hand the major problem I have with marching band programs today is that they play the same music all season which limits the exposure to other music.

Kinda difficult to say that for sure, as they'll get opportunities the rest of the year to play more varied music. And, with the mishmash of musical minds that they would experience in drum corps, they'll gain exposure to even more music.

I've also contended that, at some point, a musician needs to learn what it's like to refine a performance to near perfection. Once they do, their standards are raised, and they're willing to work harder to get there. Starting around July, "living in tune" is a normal thing for pretty much any decent drum corps hornline, and it's always a shock to return to school band in the fall. Year after year, none of the school ensembles I played in ever reached the level of clarity that we had in mid- to late-season corps. I didn't even hear that kind of ensemble playing at my university until the Navy Band came to town.

I'm like Karl's Kids; drum corps were my introduction to classical music. I bought my first classical CD (not counting solo tuba CDs) because the music sounded cool when a drum corps played it, and I thought that it would sound equally cool being played by an orchestra. Anyone that can run around for 11 minutes while carrying around a 25 pound tuba (and playing it!) gets mad props in my book. There is nothing like a company front with 64 brass playing fff (in tune). DCI is what made band cool for me. There is nothing like seeing your first drum corps show. If you haven't gone, you (really) need to.

I think the new principal trumpet in the Chicago Symphony marched in drum corps...

THE TUBA wrote:I'm like Karl's Kids; drum corps were my introduction to classical music. I bought my first classical CD (not counting solo tuba CDs) because the music sounded cool when a drum corps played it, and I thought that it would sound equally cool being played by an orchestra. Anyone that can run around for 11 minutes while carrying around a 25 pound tuba (and playing it!) gets mad props in my book. There is nothing like a company front with 64 brass playing fff (in tune). DCI is what made band cool for me. There is nothing like seeing your first drum corps show. If you haven't gone, you (really) need to.

I think the new principal trumpet in the Chicago Symphony marched in drum corps...

Yes and the interim principal and second chair trumpet in the New York Met was the soloist for the Phantom Regiment in the 1970's.

"If it wasn't for drum corps, I wouldn't be a musician today. And i definitely wouldn't have chops and like to cuss."

~Pete Bond.

Mike Roylance played in futurecore at Disney.

Having said that, MOST of the drumcore stuff I have heard is pure whitenoise and nothing I would want to hear, BUT there have been a few recordings that a friend of mine has played for me that I thiught were pretty musical. Still not something I would go out of my way to hear, but I'm not nearly as repulsed as I used to be.

The real problem is that when I went to undergrad in Passaic County NJ (which is dangerously close to Bergen county) most of the brass players would go do a summer of drumcore, come back to school in sept. and sound like crap. They wouldn't be able to play anything softer than FFFFFFF and the sound that came out was brittle, bright, unsupported and generally something that was not appropriate to be played indoors and nothing that anyone wanted to hear. So unfourtunately I have a bias against it.

Starting Sunday I will be doing a band camp of a high school that marches DCI style, but they are a marching concert band. The sound is really refined and beautiful. So, who knows the trend may be changing and there may be some great musical moments happening (and I hope there is) but I guess again the union of marching and good music is still not chocolate and peanut butter for me.

Bill