Memorial Day Weekend Report – May 23-25, 2009
For hard core drum corps people, Memorial Day weekend can’t come fast enough. It is the symbolic start of the summer drum corps season, time for the rubber to meet the road. As with every Memorial Day weekend that I can remember, we worked our tails off. Our muscles got a little sore and our chops got an over the top work out, but we emerged from the weekend with the field show in great shape, and our first outdoor performance under our belt.
Home base for this year’s Memorial Day camp was the Wadewitz elementary school play ground. The asphalt surface took any threat of a soggy field out of play. Saturday’s 9AM breakfast was followed by 10AM stretching, deftly fronted by Amber Jarosz. Our stretch session culminated in a fine rendition of “Shaky Shakes” fronted by all Kilties that double as graduating seniors in real life. For the first time this season, the weather gods were smiling (or at least not frowning). Temperatures were in the mid 50s to mid 60s, and it was sunny for much of the afternoon with light breezes, great marching weather.
Our stretch session was followed by warm-ups and basics, both musical and visual. Brass warm-ups were fronted by Bobby Lindsey. Then we worked our parade repertoire with Mike Madonia running the show. If there was a musical theme for the weekend, it can be describe simply as “Start and Stop together”… period. This, in a nut-shell will become our most sought musical goal for the season. Mike promised to pretty much beat it into us all summer. He explained that as musicians, our lifelong goal, after all, is to attain musical perfection. Musical perfection would be attained if everyone’s pitch, tempo and dynamics were perfect, and if we started and stopped every note together. We will spend plenty of time working pitch, tempo and dynamics, but we will spend even more time working on starting and stopping each musical note together.
Our visual basic session was dominated by the classic “figure 8” block drill. We paid particular attention to our style at each direction change. There will be no “pivots” per-se in our direction changes. Rather, we place the last step before a direction change at an appropriate 45 degree angle to prep the turn. Visual guru Chris “Scooter” Jacobson explained that this technique not only looks smooth, it also minimizes the possibility of injury caused by excessive stress on the knee joint. The last set of reps can best be described as “Death by Figure 8”.
Next on the docket was parade rehearsal. We defined our parade formation for 2009, and circled the school yard practicing equipment work, starting and stopping, horn trail positions, turning corners, street beat, roll-off, horns up and down, arm swing, and of course, “Auld Lange Syne” and “Scotland the Brave.”
Next up was review and coordination work on Movements I and II of the show. This part of the rehearsal was run from atop the scaffold by Scooter, who concentrated mainly on brass and battery visuals, and Angela Klingenmeyer who concentrated on guard visuals. The opener is being performed at a pretty high level, and Movement II was pretty good as well. But I’m most happy to report that rehearsal etiquette reached an entirely new level on Saturday morning. With the exception of a little stretch right after lunch on Saturday, rehearsal etiquette for the entire weekend was indeed better than at any time in my stint with the corps. This corps is indeed hungry to be good. If we can maintain the level of effort and rehearsal etiquette long term, I like our chances.
That took us all the way to lunch. Classic Memorial Day weekend cookout fare of brats, hot dogs, potato salad, fruit and all the fixins was graciously donated by Kiltie Contra extraordinaire Jay Buhrow. The great brats made me feel like summer has finally arrived in this neck of the woods. Thanks Jay!!!! You da man!!!!
After lunch it was all about new drill. Since we are saving Movement III drill for our May 30-31 camp, we set up the first set of Movement IV and went set-to-set. Movement IV is a gorgeous ballad that begins with exquisite small ensemble features while the brass and battery spread out over much of the “side 2” half of the field (the old finish line side for all you folks out there old enough to remember a finish line). The tune climaxes with a full out power section, followed by a brass duet with full corps vocal accompaniment. Both the staging and the music should produce what we like to call simply “a moment.”
The last hour of rehearsal was spent roughing in the first 6 sets of the closer, Movement V”. It became immediately apparent to the membership proper that this movement is not for the faint of heart, or the out of shape. It is a brisk 160 beats per minute minimum (even the opening fanfare, which is written at 80 BPM is marched double time), with plenty of linear velocity and quick hitting sets throughout. I foresee lots of work on this number in our future.
Sunday morning greeted us with brisk temperatures and brisk winds. Temperatures never did reach 60, and the breezes blowing off of Lake Michigan made it seem even cooler. Following 9AM breakfast, 10AM stretch was conducted by 2009 drum major Kurt Klingenmeyer. Our customary “Shaky Shakes” routine was led by the 2009 Kiltie Contra line. They were sporting their new practice uniforms highlighted by black and red Hawaiian shorts and orange Hawaiian shirts. They are indeed the ugliest practice uniforms I’ve ever seen, but they look really good on the Contras.
Warm ups were followed by a collective groan when it was announced that we were going to set up for more parade rehearsal. We may have groaned, but we do realize that more people see us in parades than in shows, so it is indeed important to put our best foot forward for parades. Then we jumped right back into learning drill. By late-afternoon we had completed Movement V and reinforced it with a couple of playing run-throughs. Look for the very cool ripple in the big company front before our final charging of the stands. It promises to be a show highlight.
We finished off a great camp by running through the entire show (albeit playing but not marching Movement III). Corps director Scott Stewart assembled the troops around him and congratulated everyone on a great camp. He told us that he believes that we are on the right path and are right on schedule with the show. We have worked through some personnel issues in the battery, and things have stabilized there, having added 2 quads and a snare just this past week. We won’t field the largest battery in open class, but it should be solid none-the-less, with good talent throughout. Our front percussion ensemble on the other hand is huge and also extremely talented. We are still looking for 1 mello, 1 soprano, 1 contra and 1 guard person to fill out the corps.
Sunday night found the Kilties being hosted at the Fazzari residence for the first classic bon-fire / cookout of the young season. It was a great chance to meet some of the new members and staff and just have a great time together. As always the Fazzari’s went above and beyond the normal rules of hospitality and treated us all to roasted hot dogs, marshmallow s’mores, chips, brownies and cool little fruit bites speared with little Scottish rampant lion flags. What a nice touch!! Thanks Joe and family!!!! You’re the best!!!
Memorial Day greeted us with perfect parade weather! We gathered at the Southwest corner of Washington Avenue and West Blvd. for the West Racine Memorial Day parade. It is always fun to witness the annual first donning of the uniform by new members. If you have ever actually put on one of our uniforms, you know why it is a bit of an ordeal the first time you go through it. But we think it’s the coolest uniform around, so it is all worth it. And speaking of cool uniforms, we all got our first look at the awesome 2009 guard uniforms. They are a clean and classy red black and gold design that go exceptionally well with the rest of the corps’ Buchanan tartan. They were a welcome visual exclamation point on our appearance in the parade.
At 9 AM the brass line warmed up in the northwest lot, and the percussion and guard warmed up in the south lot. It was great to see all of the Kiltie alumni and friends on hand for warm-ups. I was pleased with the professionalism that the corps showed during warm-ups. After all the mundane warm up drills necessary to get the chops loose, we ran Scotland the Brave and Auld Lang Syne for the guard so that they could practice their flag work. Then we practiced “Slow Syne”. At 9:45, we walked across the street to Mound Cemetery and arc-ed up around the Civil War canon and the American Flag. We played “Slow Syne” in honor of long time Kiltie Honor guard member Ron Sokoloski Sr. who passed away this winter. Long time Kiltie front percussionist Ron Sololoski Jr. carried the American Flag at both the ceremony and in the parade to honor Ron Sr.
Then we lined up for the parade and hit the streets playing Scotland the Brave to a wildly cheering throng of Racinians. We settled into the “once through the street beat… roll off… horns up” routine for the remainder of the parade, alternating between runs of Scotland and Syne. It’s always fun to march parades in Racine because the locals give us such a great reception. After all these years, the great reception never gets old and is greatly appreciated.
We finished the parade marching into Graceland Cemetery and arc-ed up for one more playing of Slow Syne. I became very emotional when I was allowed to tell the corps proper that we would be dedicating this year’s closing Memorial Day playing of Slow Syne to all of the members of the Kiltie family that we had lost this past year, including Ron Sokoloski Sr., Kiltie Jr. and Charter Kiltie Sr. member Dennis Heusdens, and Joel “Lothar” Magnuson’s father Howard. You never know when your emotions are going to bubble to the surface as they did for me on Memorial Day, and I thank the corps for bearing with me and understanding that the tears were brought on not only by my mourning for friends lost, but also by my belief that all that is good about being a Kiltie is represented by what we were about to do in honor of the departed members of our extended family. Slow Syne emanated not so much from our bugles on this day, but from our hearts.
Scott’s closing words helped us put our performance in the parade into perspective. He reminded us that when we don the plaid, we represent a long line of Kilties that extends 75 years into the past. It is up to us to honor them and the Kiltie traditions as we strive for excellence whenever we are together. Memorial Day 2009 reminded me why I remain proud and honored to wear the plaid.
Til Next Time,
J.C.
