The Making of a Drum Corps Show

In past blog posts, I have evaluated the effectiveness of several top-notch drum corps shows from this past summer, but, I feel like changing things up this week. In this blog post, I will explain how a drum corps show is born.

It all starts in early fall (late September, early October). The design team of the corps holds a brainstorming meeting, where ideas for stories are shared. No music is brought up, no visual ideas are brought up; all focus is on the story to be told. Once the main concept of the show is created, designers begin shuffling through hours and hours of potential music that will be capable of telling the show’s story. The choice of music depends on two things: the nature of the story itself, and the traditions of the corps. Many corps have a signature sound, and along with that, they play certain genres of music in their shows. Most corps include only classical music. Some incorporate jazz music into their shows, and more recently, contemporary compositions have been included in drum corps shows.

Once the music is selected, it is the brass arranger’s job to choose the parts of the source music that he/she believes does the best job of telling the show’s story. This is an incredibly pain-staking and difficult task, and takes weeks to complete. This used to be done by hand, but now, with the advancements in music notation software, arrangers not only no longer have to write the music by hand, but they can immediately hear what the music they are writing sounds like. This shortens the process immensely. Once the brass arranger is finished writing the music for the hornline, the score (full sheet music) is sent to the percussion arranger and the color guard choreographer. The percussion arranger, much like the brass arranger, spends weeks writing parts that complement the music that the hornline is playing, as well as add energy to the show. The color guard choreographer uses the audio of the show to decide what the color guard should be doing at that point in time of the show. The choreographers analyze the changes in dynamics, as well as the style being utilized by the hornline to write the dances for the color guard.

Finally, all of this information is sent to the drill designer, who coordinates the motion of every single performer to create the forms seen on the field. This is the most tedious process of them all, because the drill writer needs to take so many different variables into account: sections playing, shapes need to tell the story, physical practicality of motion, etc.

This is not a once-and-done process, however. Edits are made almost daily to the show before it is even given to the performers, and even more changes are made once the show is put on the field. Again, advances in music notation, as well as drill-writing software have made this process much easier than its handwritten counterpart. However, the creativity and precision of these designs are absolutely incredible, and work the designers do cannot be taken for granted.

Once all of these aspects of the show are created, it is the instructional staff and performers’ job to give the design life. These individuals work for nine months on a twelve-minute show, striving each and every day for perfection. In mid-August, the final product of all the hard work and design is shown off at finals. Seeing drum corps shows makes me really appreciate the hard work and creativity that still exists in today’s society, and I think if more people knew about this activity, they would realize how incredible drum corps is and what it can do to better an individual’s life.

 

This video sums up everything I have just said, and gives great visual representations of what I stated in this post.

2 thoughts on “The Making of a Drum Corps Show

  1. Johann Christian Malkemes

    It was very cool to be able to picture all of the work that goes into these shows. Though picturing it and planning are only half of the process. It must be quite the feat to get these shows up and running. I do not believe I would know where to start! But very interesting nonetheless! I can see how you can analyze and score each performance to such a great level of depth now after understanding briefly how much goes into each performances preparation.

  2. Sarah Danielle Williams

    As someone who still knows only very superficially about Drum Corps, I really appreciated this post. It’s amazing how much planning goes into these performances! It’s not extremely surprising, though; the performances always seem so rehearsed and well done. I would have never expected that one performance would take almost a year to perfect, though – that’s true dedication! This post was really informative and interesting, nice job once again! I wonder if there are any Halloween-themed Drum Corps performances…

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