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January 30, 2007

DCI Approves 150 Member Limit, Electronics Denied

On Sunday, the DCI Board of Directors reviewed the rule proposals and came to a decision about each one. Among those passed include the percussion judge in the stands until July 4th, extended pre-show warm-up (like BOA), and the biggest being the new 150 member rule going into effect in 2008.

Just a little about the last one - there are definite pros and cons to this 150 member rule...

The pros: more young people get to experience being in a Top 12 corp (a 10% increase), bigger and better both in sound and visual appeal, and it allows corps to better utilize their buses since the new ones now seat 55 per bus (x 3 thats 165 seats). The cons? Harder for the midrange corps (10-17) to fill brass spots because everyone wants to be in a Top 6 corp, midrange corps don't have the new buses so its a moot point for them, and it will possibly open an even wider gap between the elite and those in the midrange.

Now there are a few things that didn't pass, but the biggest news maker is the 10-10 tie for inclusion of electronic instruments that ended in defeat. The purists dodged a bullet this time, but I don't think they'll be as lucky in the future. Me personally? In a world of pop singers and Pro Tools making it where anyone can sound in tune, I would like ONE thing to stay true to the original and not just be another "me too" for technology. Yes, electronics and music are here to stay, but that doesn't mean that everything has to go there.

I think of cars....what happened when automatic transmissions came about? The beauty of shifting gears without all the work, why wouldn't you want it? Did every single car from then on come with an automatic? No. Maybe there's something to the process that connect people to the machine? I think this hold true for the Drum Corp fan too - we see bass guitars in the pit in college bands, synthesizers in the pit of BOA bands, maybe....just maybe people still want to see the muscle car come with a manual transmission. It just always seemed right.

Posted by Ryan on January 30, 2007 12:16 AM