A New Chapter

Well, it's been a few months here since my last post. Hopefully I haven't lost all of my faithful readers, and some of you still check in from time to time to see if I've made good on my promise to continue this blog, even if the subject matter is going to change slightly.


For the uninitiated, the purpose of this blog last year was to chronicle my experience as the drum major of the Bushwackers. I tried my best to give you honest commentary on how things were going with the corps, what my feelings were regarding the season, and basically what goes through your mind as the field leader of a top-flight "all age" drum and bugle corps.


Flash forward to now, and I have taken on a new role with a new corps. I am now the program coordinator and brass arranger for a new corps, Fusion "Core" from Morris County, NJ. My job is basically to design a show with the design team (arrangers, drill writer, guard designers) and manage the entire creative process form conception to creation. On top of that, it's my job to set the educational agenda for the drum corps each weekend, manage the staff as far as setting goals and monitoring achievement, being a go-between for the staff and administration, and basically making sure we are on track...and if we're not, getting us back on track. Finally, it's my job to write all of the brass music for the drum corps.


This is my dream job. I've been in the marching arts since 1991, and after being a drum major, this was my biggest goal. I'm really excited to be doing the type of work I'm doing, and hopefully I can do this for many years. I suppose a lot of that hinges on the quality of work I do this year and over the next couple years as I establish my style and try to build a championship caliber drum corps from almost scratch. Of course, I won't be doing this on my own. I have a very good team assembled around me, and I know that they're all as dedicated to the project as I am...but when it comes down to it, the program is my responsibility, and if the program doesn't work...I won't be working either.


I'm fine with all that. I understand that, and if I can't do it, then I shouldn't. I can, though. I'm confident that my team and I are going to give the members a fabulous vehicle to showcase their talents and passion for the activity. When it comes down to it, it's their drum corps and it's all about the 10 minutes of show THEY do during the summer. All I do is watch them. I can't save them; I can't coach them during the show. I and the rest of the FUSION staff just has to give them the best tools we can give them and let them fly on their own.


A drum corps is a community and a family, but in many ways it's like one body...each facet operating in harmony with other facets, and all coming together to create a very special piece of art. I'm just happy to be a part of it, and especially with a corps going on just its second year ever...this is the perfect opportunity for all of us to just go for it. We have no history to live up to...we're writing our history. We are setting the bar. We are establishing our standards and identity...exactly what it means to be a member of FUSION. That's exciting to me, and hopefully is to everyone else involved with the organization.


So, the focus of this blog from this point forward will now shift from being a drum major and trying to be an inspiring leader to the perspective of one designing the show and managing the entire process. It'll be a different perspective to be sure, but one I hope that you'll find entertaining and maybe even a little educational. I know I'll sure find the process educational, and I have no problem sharing with you my failures as well as my successes.


...and so it begins.


The show has been planned and music picked for some time now. We chose two of the songs right away...back in September, I guess. We've teetered back and forth with an opener that will fit the theme for a while, but I guess about 3 weeks ago we locked it down, obtained copyright permissions, and away we go. I'm not at liberty at this point to disclose exactly what all that music is, but after our open house on December 1st, I'll be able to tell you a bit more.


...or you could come to our Open House and find out for yourself. :) That would be better! See http://fusioncorenj.homestead.com/home.html for directions and more information.


Anyway, back to this...


The programming of the show is what took time. I'm not a "pick 3 songs and BAM, you have a show" kind of guy. I find that boring. I refuse to program anything that I think is boring. It's not fair to the members, the fans, or me. I want to give them a show they can sink their teeth into...something with substance that won't get old. This year, we decided to choose an abstract thought or term...something open to interpretation, but something that we could easily express through visual and musical motives. The theme acts as an overall umbrella over the production, providing thematic ties between numbers. This approach to programming allows us to choose whatever music we want, regardless of style or genre, as long as we're able to tie it together via the theme. So, 3 different styles...vastly different styles are what we got, and I believe the show is much better for it.


I finally sat down to writing the opener on Wednesday. I've had it written in my head for a while now. Generally speaking, I like to listen to a piece I have to write over and over again...for weeks when possible. I write it in my head, hear what I need to hear, lock it into the old memory banks, and then explode on paper when the time comes to write it. Well, explode I did. Wednesday was one of the more fruitful writing sessions I've ever had. I knocked out nearly the entire tune in just a couple of hours, and almost all of it has survived a few rounds of revisions. It is likely that I will be passing out the entire opener to the brass line at the open house. That's awesome.


Of course, I don't work in a bubble and as the coordinator as well as the arranger it's my job to make sure that the other elements (percussion, drill, and guard) are all cohesively conceived and executed. So, I sent my music off to the percussion arranger (JR Bechtel), and let him stew on it over the Thanksgiving holiday. We got together on Saturday night at 10pm to chart out the introduction and discuss some outstanding issues about the closer, and then wrote almost non stop for the next 6 hours. JR and I have been writing together on and off since I began writing back in 97. We're able to hear what the other WOULD write and anticipate each other's creativity. By 3am, he had written battery parts and filled in most of the pit parts I didn't write for almost all of what I had written on Wednesday. I moved on and wrote the entire next section, while making revisions to the A theme (not A-Team).

So, right now we have a bunch of music completed. We'll get together a couple more times before Friday night and pour over everything we've written one last time before passing it out to members. I'm going to make sure that there's a good quality control system in place, so that huge changes aren't necessary. We expect to have to tweak things all winter and once we go outside, but nothing is worse than getting drill with wrong counts or something like that.

Bottom line is that we're prepared and excited for the show...we're ready to go and kick start this thing on Saturday. I'm energized for drum corps, and can't wait to meet the members and then start the building process.

Check back soon for updates and all that.