Reading · GHop on the World of Marching Music

SO …. I am going to pour through a ton of Cody Fry stuff. He can do it all.

I hope you heard the Blue Devils and Cody Fry with “THE MAGIC IN YOU” It is posted right here on my Substack Page

Aug 16

So, I saw a few promos, and I was hooked. The Blue Devils and Cody Fry. What the XXXX. Then I saw the entire Tune .. “Magic In You”

There are so many great songs that can be adapted to drum corps. Cody Fry does not know it, but he can be a drum corps arranger.

Let’s listen … and yes … I appreciate the need for narration, but … listen, please.

BETTER

This chart, with Cory Wong, a kick-ass rhythm guitar player, is pop, jazz, some funk, and it is GOOD !!!!

Can it work on a field? Never say never anymore. Check out the middle section and the slide into the funk bridge, and then back to letter A… HELL YES.

But how do we move to it…???? Figure it out, gang. One thing we have all seen … you do not have to march to it :)

ELEANOR RIGBY —- So …. the Bluecoats kind of did some of this a few years ago …

But I have another question as you listen and watch the audience …

How long until we engage the audience in our performance? How awesome would that be? What are we waiting for?

Underground …. orchestrated to the max … what an interesting peace.
Here is Cody below, with a full orchestra and Cory Wong again. If you follow along, you will see that my ideas are not fully thought out, but they are ideas … and … what I look for, are ideas that have melodic content, ideas that will allow an audience to buy in … and well … the possibility of a performance that people will love and kids will love to present.

And then there are ballads or call them what you want and as you will see, “Photograph” has a hold on me

And here is the thing … will this tune get you to cry without words? Maybe? How about with words? Tears and more tears without question. I am a living example :-)

Listen to this ………… “my god”. Nothing else to say … Foks, this is what we talk about when we talk about generating emotion.

I had never heard this composition until this evening and I have been sitting here for hours listening. I get it … he has words … BUT that said … when we, in marching music ( seems like that is an archaic phrase) talk about generating emotion out of an audience … THIS IS IT. How can you not be mesmerized?. The idea, the picture he paints, the musical lines, the violin at the close … all of it.

I totally get that we live in stadiums, and we march and play …. but in my time, I would have done, and did anything to allow people to generate within themselves ( with our help) this kind of emotion. It is I think why we are alive.

There are many ways to draw emotional reaction.

One of the key ways I think … “Collective memory” What is Collective Memory ????(from sociologist Maurice Halbwachs) ——

Field of Dreams