A Mighty Wind Doth Blow – April 26-27, 2008
Spring has arrived on the calendar, but its arrival in Racine is nothing more than a rumor. That is part of the unique charm of spring drum corps in this part of the county. Outdoor Spring rehearsals can be downright bone chilling, and our April camp was just that, with 40-mile-per-hour winds accompanying temperatures that never made it out of the 40s. Some would have you think that rehearsing in such conditions builds character, but I believe that effectively rehearsing in such conditions takes an intense collective resolve and character to begin with. I’m happy to report that despite the less than optimal conditions, the Kilties were able to put the first 2 Movements of “Renaissance” on the field.
Luckily, the weather indoors at Gilmore Middle School was 70 degrees with no wind, and we spent much of the weekend indoors. In fact, the color guard and front percussion ensemble spent nearly the entire weekend in the friendly confines of Gilmore. As always, our weekend began at 9 a.m. Saturday with breakfast in the Gilmore cafeteria. Corps Director Scott Stewart gathered the full corps around him at 10 a.m. and outlined our weekend schedule which he and the staff had tweaked on account of the ugly weather. Scott introduced us all to 2008 drill designer, Dave Koelz, who was up from Alabama to teach us his creation. Dave will be driving the long road from Alabama eight times this season to work with us. We are hoping that he brings some of the warm Alabama weather with him for his next visit, our Memorial Day weekend camp :-)
We began the weekend with 2008 Drum Major Guy Gregg leading us in a full corps stretching session in the gym. At 11 a.m., the guard took control of the gym for the rest of the weekend, the pit invaded the Gilmore atrium for the weekend, and the battery and brass sections headed down the block to Wadewitz Elementary School where the visual staff had chalked off a full 100 yard field on the large asphalt school playground. Our usual grass practice field at Gilmore was just a bit too soggy to be of use this camp.
Dave Koelz ran the rehearsal from his head-set, and with the playground partially surrounded by the school building itself, hearing his directions was not a problem. For me, the hardest part was keeping the pages of my drill book opened and visible with all the wind. At times, the gusts literally blew you off your dot. Despite the wind, we got ourselves into a nice learning groove of about six or seven drill sets per hour. Dave runs an extremely efficient rehearsal. There are many more horn moves in this year’s show than previous years, and with the pace of teaching, it seemed a bit like sucking water from a fire hose at first, but like I said before, we eventually got into a nice groove. Two-hour blocks were about all we could do in that weather, so at 1:15 p.m. we headed back to the great indoors of Gilmore for barbeque sandwiches, fruits, salads, cookies, and all the fixings.
Our next two hour block went from 2:30 to 4:30, and by the end of that block we had completed our 24-set opener, “Out of the Darkness,” and moved into the second movement, “Celebration”. Following dinner, we worked our way to the end of movement 2 and picked up our equipment. The brass line didn’t actually do any playing, but the drum line did, and we ran the four defined sections of the opener and two defined sections of movement 2 with equipment in hand with the drums playing. It was a good way to cap off the evening. The battery couldn’t get enough of a good thing, so they tacked on a battery sectional at the end of the evening just for good measure. I stuck around and watched. I’m no percussion expert, but from my perspective, they were solid!
Sunday greeted us with both a reduction in wind speed and a reduction in temperature. Mercifully, we spent the morning indoors with 9 a.m. breakfast followed by 10 a.m. stretch. Then the entire corps hit the gym for parade rehearsal. We defined our parade block and paraded around the gym in preparation for our appearance in the Racine Memorial Day parade on May 26th.
Then the percussion and guard kept possession of the gym for visual work on movement 4, “Peace,” while the front percussion ensemble hit the atrium and the brass line headed to the cafeteria for a “horn move definition” and “gimmick” session. Dave Koelz sat us down with drill books and pencils in hand, and took us set by set through the horn moves in the opener. It kind of freaked me out that there are sectional horn moves and horn facing instructions associated with nearly every set this year. These are things that we can work on at home, so it is great that things are so well defined up front. Then Dave defined movement 2 “gimmicks.” The entire tune is full of them. Rather than describe them all here, I’ll just say that there’s a lot going on in movement 2.
We were all treated to a steaming hot lunch of ham, turkey, parsley potatoes, baked beans, pasta salad, green salad, fruit salad, cookies and more. It was a veritable feast (special thanks again to the Kraus family), and it was just what the doctor ordered before the battery and brass headed back to Wadewitz to put music and drill together for the first two show movements. We worked six defined show segments, one at a time, each segment handled in defined steps. First we’d get in the first set of the section and play it in place with the horn moves. Then we’d march the segment. Then we’d march the segment singing. Then we’d march the segment with just percussion playing and horns singing. Finally we’d perform the segment with everyone playing. It worked well, and by 4 p.m., we’d covered all six segments. The first two movements were declared officially “roughed in.”
By that time, the guard and pit had made their way to Wadewitz, and they watched as the brass and battery arced up and played through “Out of the Darkness” and “Celebration.” If I needed to describe the run-throughs in a word, it would be “solid”. We all assembled around Scott and the staff for the weekend wrap-up. We had accomplished all that we had set out to accomplish, and now it will be up to us as individuals to go home and engrain what we learned into ourselves. We all have a lot to absorb, memorize and internalize but we’ve all been given the tools we need to succeed including animated Pyware drill with music. The corps has demonstrated that they have worked hard between camps all winter, and I expect that this will continue to be the case. We’ll all be putting feet and horn moves to our home horn practice. As is the Kiltie tradition, we finished off the weekend with the playing of “Slow Syne.” As always, it reminded me of all that is good with the Kilties.
Til Next Time,
JC
P.S. It is with deep sadness that I must tell you that Dennis Hagner has passed away. Dennis was a snare drummer for the Spectacle City Mariners and the Cavaliers in the early 60's. He was then a member of President John F. Kennedy's Honor Guard in 1963 and President Lyndon B. Johnson's in 1964. He was a drum instructor for numerous corps in the SE Wisconsin area, and later became a judge for VFW and then DCI competitions. Dennis ran the famous Spectacle of Music show in South Milwaukee for many years. The Kilties senior corps did a standstill for the very first time in front of drum corps fans at the Spectacle of Music show thanks to an invitation from Dennis. From the mid 90s until 1999, Dennis was the President of the Kilties Board of Directors. He was a tireless, innovative and dedicated asset to the Kilties throughout his association with us, and more importantly, a dear friend. Dennis also enjoyed auto racing, and ran the Milwaukee Motor Sports Show at the old Mecca in downtown Milwaukee for many years. For the last 10 years Dennis' health has been deteriorating. He had undergone multiple by-pass surgery and for the last few years he was undergoing kidney dialysis. He will be greatly missed by all of us that were lucky enough to know him.
Please keep Dennis, his wife Jeanne and his family in your prayers.
