The Secret World of Drum Corps

Originally written for Curious Culture, 9th January 2015

You’ve probably seen them at a carnival or Remembrance Day parade, trumpets playing and percussion beating. You’ve probably rolled your eyes at them as they march on past, heads held high. But I bet you haven’t thought about what they do beyond their annual street marches. I am, of course, talking about your local marching band. Except, and let’s clear the air here, they probably aren’t a marching band. "Of course they are, Smaz you giddy goat", you’re no doubt saying. Well, they probably aren’t – they’re a drum and bugle corps. Well, what’s that? Wikipedia has a pitch perfect definition:

A drum and bugle corps, also known as a drum corps, is a musical marching unit (similar to a marching band) consisting of brass instruments,  percussion instruments, and colour guard. Typically operating as independent non-profit organizations, drum corps perform in competitions, parades, festivals, and other civic functions. Participants of all ages are represented within the drum and bugle corps activity, but the majority are between the ages of 13 and 22.

So, let me take you behind the scenes and to a world you probably didn’t know existed behind that parade, and let’s meet the secret world of drum corps.

The easiest way to start is through a memory.

Did you ever consider picking up an instrument and go through lessons with a tutor? Many of us remember those early days of being forced to play the recorder in primary school, screeching out all manner of dying dog sounding notes. Perhaps it was a violin you attempted to pick up? Do you remember the music you had to play, though? Hot Cross Buns never sounded so stale and the twelve bar blues left everyone blue. My point is that the early days of learning a piece of music is pretty hard going, as it’ll never sound how you want it to sound without practising a hell of a lot, first. Finally, after it sounds okay, you can present it to people, except you still have to memorise the whole piece of music first, note for note. Every drum corps go through this, too, when given a new piece of music. It sounds like a dog with indigestion before sounding like chorus of mockingbirds, let alone all the wrong notes needed to trump before trumpeting the right ones by heart. Then this procedure is gone through around four or five times over, depending on how many pieces of music is needed. It takes a while before all of them sound as good as they should, and that’s providing the players don’t have an 'off' day, which we all do when tackling a creative art in some form.

So, by now you’re probably wondering why on Earth a drum corps needs to learn four or five pieces of music for parades? It’s simple – they don’t. The parade music is different to the stuff they learn throughout most of the year. You see, the drum corps compete in performance shows up and down the country, against many other drum corps, usually in football stadiums. This means they need a set show to compete with. This can be virtually anything. The best ones are the ones which implement the show theme and grab the four or five pieces of music from media which represent it. The worst ones are the ones which stick to, say, a film. For example, James Bond is a theme which has constantly been spewed out, over the years and by many bands, and the worst ones just stick to that theme and music from those films. The best ones will incorporate espionage or the feel of James Bond into the show and have only one tune from James Bond itself, having other tunes in there from similar settings. A great example of this was Jubal, a Dutch band, who won the European Championship in 2013 with a show entitled ‘The Dangerous Game’, which had the theme from James Bond’s Skyfall as a ballad piece which then linked in with ‘I am the Doctor’ from Doctor Who, with Sherlock and all else in between. And yes, this activity takes place all across the world, not just in the UK and US, with the music generally consisting of an opener to draw in the crowd, an energetic piece to keep them focused, a ballad to bring a melodic tone to the show, and the finale, which is everything and anything to up the ante for a climax (involving using every last bit of energy).

Then there’s the marching. It’s not just about keeping in step, oh no no. Have you ever tried running whilst playing the kazoo? Neither have I, when I think about it. The point is the same, though – the notes will come out like hitting your chest repeatedly when singing "aaaaaaah". Try it. Go on. Try it. Yep, that’s why the band Gods created something called 'roll step' to nullify this effect. Roll stepping is like being hit in the shins by a hockey stick. It, uh… hurts your shins, if you didn’t pick that up. You place your heel down first and then gently roll the rest of your foot down with it until the entirety of your sole is on the floor. Rinse and repeat. Then, placing your horn to your lips, you play and march, looking like a disabled penguin. It takes ages to combine the two in perfect unison, before even playing those right notes from the music learnt, earlier. In fact, all of that hard work to perfect those four or five pieces of music, all that work to have them sound like a mockingbird, has now been cut in half. You now sound like a mockingbird with a cold. So, suddenly, you have to learn how to play those tunes well, once again, whilst marching properly… and then learn where to march at which point of the music in a perfectly choreographed routine. Yeah. There’s that, too. Marching so happens to encompass where you are on the field and at what point. It’s all a memory game that you’ll probably screw up again and again until you achieve the right positions and timing, to avoid crashing into another person who’s desperately trying to remember the same things you are.

Eventually, the show is good enough and ready for the first competition, which is usually in June, in the UK. There’s little more nerve-wracking than standing in front of an audience, waiting to present your show. You’re left to stare at them as they stare back at you, on the field, expectantly. It’ll all be fine, though. You know everyone’s there to do their bit. The trumpet players will usually have ridiculous marching set placements on the field, as if being punished for playing the smallest instrument in the corps. They’ll be leaping about, between specifically placed yard markers which count up in 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 and so on until 50, before counting down again. These mark out the show field and where everyone should be and at what point in the show. The mellophones have slightly larger brass instruments and have the best bits of music, usually, so they can focus on that. The baritones, with even bigger instruments, focus on their bass… and usually get bored, so will blow harder and louder than anyone else to have more fun. The largest instrument of all, the tuba, will usually face impossible feats, such as throwing their instrument about 12 foot in the air or something ridiculous, whilst not smashing into anyone. Beyond the brass, there are the percussion unit, of which the snares will do their best to look like their robots injected with liquid sherbet, stern and somehow racing around the field, the multi-drummed tenor players will be the same except cranked up to 11, whilst the base drums sort of just focus on the beat all the time, making sure nothing goes out of time. Well. Sort of. The colourguard have their focus, too, as they swing their colourful flags around as if to signal a plane from the sky in elaborate fashion. As long as they make the show look pretty, and not just a bunch of people running around the field, all is fine. The final section are the front battery, who don’t march, but focus on the musical aspects only with their glockenspiels and twinkly bits. They’ll usually bugger up the timing, but they make it sound pretty. As long as everyone focuses on their bit and works in unison, all will be fine. These shows are, of course, marked by judges who like to dance around the field and cause havoc whilst speaking into a Dictaphone. All of these musical sections, as well as visual effect, are marked by them to give an overall score out of 100. Whichever band obtains the highest score, wins, simply.

Carolina Crown as they march in the Drum Corps International Championships.

Now, it’s probably occurred to some of you that I play a trumpet and, indeed, have marched in a drum corps before. Yup. I’ve marched in several, in fact. Sure, I’ve had my fair share of running backwards into someone and having notes higher than I can play… again… and again, but I have enjoyed the experience, overall. It may be a lot of hard work, but you come together as a unit, you and the drum corps, and it’s all about teamwork. There will be dark days where nothing goes right. Literal dark days, too, when the clouds are grey and the rain won’t stop (trust me, that won’t stop you rehearsing the show on an open field). But then there are the days where no matter what happens, you smile about it because of the other people there. Sure, running three yards in a couple of seconds whilst playing “Paint it Black” isn’t ideal on your leg muscles, nor exactly reasonable with your roll step, but everyone’s in the same boat. Not just everyone in the band, but everyone else in the other bands, too, which you compete against. There’s a sort of reassurance in knowing that. In the end, it’s the people that can make or break it. I left for a lot of reasons, but one of the two primary ones were because I wasn’t happy with how some of the staff treated me in my final year. If you’re doing your best, but it is openly mocked time and time again, then it stops becoming enjoyable. The people make it enjoyable, not just the music or the marching. It’s an unusual case that only ever happened that year, so it isn’t a common occurrence at all, but then that person was a new staff member who probably thought better of me than I actually was. The other reason I left was due to the amount of time it took up. Participating with a drum corps takes up most weekends, let alone band camps. Let’s get this joke out the way, now, since I’ve put it off for the entirety of the article – this one time at band camp. Except it isn’t just one time. It’s about 7 times a year. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are spent in a school, doing nothing but perfecting the show. When your only time to see your partner, away from your work life, is the weekend, it’s a tall call. So the second reason was due to my partner and how little I was seeing her due to band. That’s possibly why so many relationships end up happening between two drum corps members, as opposed to outside the activity, when I think about it.

In a nutshell, think twice before rolling your eyes at the people who march past in a parade. They’re most likely there in between learning their annual show, giving up their free time and having put a lot of work into their activity. Most importantly, they’re probably quite young, as most start marching young and then stick with it for as long as they can, since it may be a lot of work, but it’s enjoyable, too. I started when I was nine years old. I took a few years out when I went to university, but I stuck with it. It could perhaps be an enjoyable venture for your child, or even adult, too, as most staff are made up of the parents and relatives of the marching members, anyway (keep in mind, the whole thing is a non-profit organisation, funded by charity and events, only)! So, as this show ends, why not give a round of applause for the drum and bugle corps?