Has anybody else ever gone down the rabbit hole of thought that is viewing the current state of DCI (and WGI for that matter, though I’ve never been part of that world) from an existential point of view?

​It is truly an odd thing that we have collectively developed over the years! Like… what is the point of it? What even is it? Why do people put themselves through that crazy, exhausting, months-long process? 

Bear with me as I go through some of the strange and remarkable things about the activity and then ruminate on why it is all worthwhile, even if it is one of the weirdest activities a young person can do in our modern society:

Drum corps is the only major form of entertainment of its kind in our country today, with young people presenting these extravagant, excessively rehearsed performances that are meant to be enjoyed by masses of people.

They aim to entertain and appeal to popular sensibilities, as opposed to, say, a youth orchestra or ballet performance, or a high-school soccer game, which don't go the extra mile to be entertaining to more than a core group of supporters.

Sometimes being at a drum corps show feels like you could be at a Radiohead concert, if you weren’t also baking in the sun eating a hot dog while watching a bunch of young adults running around on a field blowing into horns. 

(It may be obvious to you at this point that I've never been to a Radiohead concert...)

A similar strangeness is the high-tech nature of the activity today. While it isn’t produced with million-dollar budgets like modern movies and pop music, they still strive to the highest production value possible.

Change in technology began with simple amplification, which quickly escalated to writing utilizing synths and other advanced electronics. Today we have shows (or segments of shows) that are so ‘produced’ that they sound like they come straight out of Pro Tools.

It is a little weird when you think of the origins of this activity as an American outdoor summer pastime that required only a couple drums and bugles, a group of kids, and some grass or a parade.

Another unique aspect compared to other activities: the young people ARE the big league in this activity. There is no adult version that represents the ultimate dream of the young members (there is DCA, but that is not the aspiration of the standard Cadets hornline member).

There is no NFL or NBA or New York Philharmonic or Joffrey Ballet or Hollywood equivalent for DCI, though it should be noted that many DCI members go on to be top performers in whatever discipline they enter later in life. 

Next up: what is up with the choreography? There is a special form of dancing/movement that has developed around the activity that is unique from the worlds of both music and dance.

Sometimes I see drumlines playing their drum feature in the lot—along with the accompanying choreo—and I can’t help but chuckle to myself about the absurdity of it all.

​And then sometimes, I see it and think it is the coolest thing ever. 

​And that is just the drumline choreography...

Then there is the aspect - not so new to the activity but still existentially remarkable - huge groups of young people traveling around the country like some youth circus troupe without the a tent, performing for various audiences—some of whom are hardcore fans traveling long distances to witness the big regional shows each Saturday, some of whom were in the activity themselves when it was a different beast back in the 70’s-90’s, and many of whom simply went to the local 4th of July parade and have no idea what drum corps is, and just are happy to have an excuse to wear red-white-and blue outfits and drink beer in the sun with their neighbors for a day.

​There is no better way to realize how strange drum corps is than to try to explain it to one of those clueless people… ​

Part of what I loved most about the the activity was the intense pursuit of perfection of a single product over a long time period, which is very rare in our society, and therefore existentially quite unusual when you think about it in the context of the rest of our lives.

These kids are working on a single 10-to-12-minute production for nine months, often longer (especially if you count the planning that staff does for months before member auditions even occur):

starting in December with auditions (which normally span several rounds over the course of months);

going through monthly camps during the late Winter/early Spring, during which they rehearse for as many hours as possible over the course of a 3-day weekend;

leading into a Memorial Day weekend camp that is usually the checkpoint after which Spring Training begins, and the members all move in for a grueling month-long rehearsal process perfecting the show before they take it on the road for competition;

and finally touring the country for several months facing off against all of the other groups in competitions large and small, experiencing the beautiful landscapes and varied cultures of our country, performing for locals in small parades and for crowds in humongous major metropolitan football stadiums, and culminating at the World Championships in mid-August. 

In the same amount of time that it takes for a baby to grow to term in its mother's womb, this collection of people have gone through a life-changing process to create a product that won’t even exist anymore after it comes to term (well… there are video recordings, but it isn’t the same).

​How weird, yet amazing. 

Unlike the genius works of great individuals - the inspiring careers of the likes of Serena Williams or Michael Jordan, the groundbreaking choreography of Martha Graham, the unbelievably perfect symphonies of Beethoven, the masterfully constructed films of Stanley Kubrick, the novels of Marcel Proust, the art of van Gogh, et cetera - drum corps is remarkable because it consists of many people coming together to create something much larger than any one person.

I don't mean to say that any drum corps shows can even compare to the works of those geniuses. Just pointing out that it is the work of a community coming together to create greatness. And actually, if those people were alive today (besides the two that are alive...), they might have been huge drum corps fans, or at least have denied that their work is any better than that of a great drum corps production.

Yes, there are a select few people in each corps who necessarily have more creative control - and we celebrate them within the community - but no individual person gets to put their name on the final product.

What other activity is even remotely like this one? It shares individual aspects with many other types of arts/sports/activities, but combines them to create something unlike anything else.

Drum corps, in its unique way, gives many young people the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and completely throw themselves into the process, all while making lifelong friends and companions. 

People who might have otherwise felt like the geeks at their high school get a chance to feel really cool about themselves as the crowd goes wild after they play an immaculate triplet diddle roll;

or a brass feature that overpowers your senses and instills a powerful physical reaction in your gut and heart;

or a color guard sequence that comes off without a hitch and adds a perfect accent to create a tear-jerking moment;

or a drill maneuver that, like human clockwork, twists around the field at incredible speed, pushing the players to their peak physical limit (while playing breathtaking music, I should add), ending miraculously in a perfect line. 

Anyway, I will stop ranting now, though I think I could go on for a while if I allowed myself to… Let’s just end it by saying: drum corps is awesome.

To all the folks out there who are in the process of preparing for next summer (many probably even hard at work at their corps' February camp at this very moment), enjoy this process, and maybe take a moment this summer to stop and laugh to yourself about how crazy the whole thing is.

What do you think of the activity? Do you ever think about how strange but fantastic it is? Leave a comment and let me know!

Hindsight: I forgot to mention the crazy uniforms, which was part of what got me thinking of this in the first place. But this turned out to be pretty long so I don’t want to go back and make it longer. But I’ve always thought that was a strange part of the evolution of the activity. Thanks, Carolina Crown! But then again…the old school uniforms were pretty strange too, if you think about it…

I'm extremely excited to share this video with you all! Please enjoy:

​So cool!!!

Seriously, I don't know if you've gotten the impression yet, but I am so excited about this arrangement! It is pieces like this - arrangements of masterful works from monumental composers in the history of Western music - that I believe are the extra ingredient to push the marimba to new heights.

Of course, contemporary compositions will always be the forefront of marimba repertoire, but let's keep it real for a moment:

Just as every other point in the history of music,
there are hundreds and hundreds of pieces being written right now,
​but only about 1% of them will actually stand the test of time.

And that is OK! There are many fantastic pieces being written that won't get the attention they deserve, and I don't want to imply that they are any less than phenomenal. HOWEVER, for centuries before the marimba appeared in our little classical music world, the community of composers, musicians, and patrons went through a process of trial and error, weeding through the mountains of works from year-to-year and providing us with a body of masterworks that enrich our understanding of music today. 

Unfortunately for us, the marimba wasn't around during that time (at least not in western music circles), so there aren't hundreds of years worth of pieces written for us from which we can choose the 'good ones.' 

An amazing Messiaen arrangement on both an intellectual and emotional level, by Nancy Zeltsman

I think that the percussion community over the past century deserves acknowledgement for the amount of quality pieces that were written. We were the underdogs, but persevered and managed to produce a high percentage of quality works in a short time, giving us a fantastic foundation on which to continue building.

I often wonder how I can contribute to our highly productive, fast-paced community. Composition is something that I am interested in, but I have no illusions that I will be a groundbreaking composer any time soon (or ever), so that won't enable me to be productive right now.  However, I do think that my experience as a player puts me in a fantastic position to reinterpret some of the masterworks already written for other instruments and contribute to our growth in that realm.

So, while many people are working hard at composing new pieces for the marimba, I am focusing - for now, at least - on figuring out what we can learn from the masterworks that were already written for other instruments throughout music history.  ​Together, we can cover all of the bases and bring marimba to its next stages of maturity!

All of that is to say, I hope you enjoy my arrangement of the third movement of Bartók's Piano Sonata! It is a piece that has greatly inspired me, and the process of arranging it, and rehearsing, performing on my recital, and recording it with Jack van Geem was truly a pleasureful experience from which I learned so much. Hopefully this arrangement can inspire further advancements in the marimba world!

Stay tuned for movements one and two in upcoming Summer '16 Bi-weekly Video Releases!

This week I was finally able to acquire the recording of this performance on Jing Jing Li's SFCM recital.
​Please enjoy Udacrep Akubrad by Avner Dorman:

Wow, that was energetic! I think that is one of the more energy-packed performances that I've ever been in.

Sometime last fall, I was fortunate enough to be in the next practice room over from Jing Jing as she was working on the most intense moment of this piece in her usual fashion - metronome blasting out 16th notes, drilling nonstop for hours with stroke heights above her head - a sound the SFCM percussion studio would grow very accustomed to over the next 6 months. 

​I recognized the piece, and I really hadn't yet gotten a chance to connect with our studio's new post-graduate studies student from China, so I went over and started talking about it with her. Her English was not too great yet (her English is awesome now, less than a year later!), but eventually I learned that she has been trying to play this piece for years, though the performances always were cancelled for various reasons. 

And thus I came to play this piece with Jing Jing. What an amazing experience it has been! It is truly a pleasure to perform a piece with someone who is not only very talented, but also deeply loves the music that they are playing, and cares about the act of presenting this music that they love to an audience of friends and family. 

My favorite was how in rehearsals, she would always remind me about points in the music where we need to, "look at each other and smile, to give each other power."  Oddly, I think that power actually comes across in our performance, despite some mishaps... mostly on my part :)

Thanks for listening, watching, reading, and subscribing! -Stephen

Upcoming Blog Post: On Learning Music Quickly (​you KNOW that came in handy playing Udacrep...)

oh yeah, one more thing...

Darbuka Stands:
Preparing for this piece, I found it really difficult to find darbuka stands. The closest I could find were djembe stands and they were like 3 times the price of the actual darbukas.

So I made my own stands, and they worked pretty well!

​If you would like to inquire about having me make you darbuka stands, please get in touch  with me. 

 Greetings musical world, 

This marks the start of my blog; hopefully it is the first post of many to come! I just want to start out by saying welcome, and thank you so so much for visiting my site and being interested in reading my thoughts. Hopefully what I post on here will be engaging for you all in some way!

Feel free to scroll down if you want to skip all of the introductory jabber.

Please check out the bio  section of my website for more info on who I am. For you TL:DR folks, I am a San Francisco-based musician, actively performing and teaching around the Bay Area. I am a percussionist specializing in marimba performance, though I enjoy playing all percussion instruments. I am currently very passionate about increasing the repertoire through arranging works by monumental composers from throughout music history, providing the percussion community with access musical styles we otherwise would not have. I also really enjoy playing piano (yes, I know it is technically a percussion instrument), but I don't perform it publicly - it is what I do instead of watching TV.  As far as teaching, my goal with all of my students is to introduce new ideas to them, and to cultivate in them the tools and thought-patterns to become proficient independent learners. You know, the whole "you can bring a horse to water..."

As for the content of this blog, I don't have a specific topic of focus. I'm a big thinker - always pondering what can be learned from any situation in life, and how that can apply to music-making. So you can count on my ideas having some music/arts perspective, regardless of the subject.

Here are some burning topics that I already plan to write about:

• Repertoire - marimba, percussion, or other
• Techniques / Approaches to playing
• Learning-related topics (how to learn well, cultivating productive mindset, etc.)
• New Audio/Video Releases (bi-weekly video releases this summer!)
• Reviews of music/arts concerts/events
• Inventions - I currently have a couple in the works and hopefully more to come!
• Life as a Musician/Artist

I don't claim to be an expert in any area. I just have a lot of thoughts and I'm not the type of person to force my ideas upon anybody. If you are interested in my viewpoint, this is where I'll be sharing it!

In the interest of not losing too many readers by over-rambling in my first blog post, let's get on to the video release!

Alright, so this isn't the first video release of the summer - I've already released two videos over the past 4 weeks - but somehow I feel like this blog post marks the official start of the Summer 2016 bi-weekly video series.  From now until I run out of videos, I will be releasing a new video on YouTube every other Friday.

For now, the series will consist of performances that I've accumulated over the past two years getting my Masters degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Eventually, I want to release more professional-quality recordings, but that takes a little bit more time, planning, and energy, so I'm starting with what I already have!

Remember, all of the videos (at least until I get to posting more professional recordings) are from an educational setting; the triumph of these performances is what was learned in the process, NOT how many correct notes were hit. Though, hopefully we get most of the notes right... 

This was a very fun performance! Well, it is always fun to perform with Jack (you will get to see another performance with him in one of my video releases later this summer)! Every time I play with him, I realize again what it means to be a top-notch musician. It is really obvious when playing with him that he has decades of experience as the principal percussionist of one of the top orchestras in the world. It's not even that he doesn't make mistakes (because he does). It's more in his fine-tuned concept of sound and musicality (and lack of ego) that span across anything that he plays. Another big part of it is how easy he is to work with - everything I've ever played with him was an extremely enjoyable, stress-free process, despite the fact that we had very few rehearsals before the performance! But that is enough gushing over Jack for now...

About a week before his faculty recital at SFCM, Jack asked me to play this piece with him. The marimba part wasn't the most difficult thing I've ever encountered by any means, but I'm not too experienced with ragtime, so a week was a little bit stressful to prepare for this performance! However, I think it turned out well and I really learned a lot! Sometimes you learn the most when you put yourself in a situation that seems difficult. 

This performance was in my first semester at SFCM, before I delved much deeper into learning about music theory and arranging, and before I learned a lot about practice methods and how the brain works. It would be interesting to see how I approach it now that I have all of those additional tools at my disposal - the process would surely be different! 

I hope you enjoy! Please check out the rest of my website and subscribe to the newsletter to get updates on my performances, blogs, and video releases! And while you're at it, if you have an extra few seconds, please subscribe to my youtube page too! 

This arrangement was super fun to work on!  At some point, I fell in love with this suite of programmatic piano pieces by Bartók and always have planned to arrange them. This is the only one I have gotten around to so far and I think it worked really well! Thanks to the quartet members, Scott Aldridge, Nigel Ng, and Katrina Shore (the other members of my masters class at SFCM) for working on this! I know when we first read it they were skeptical of whether it would work (so was I), but we really pulled it together for the SFCM percussion ensemble concert. As usual, I'm always trying to learn more about making my arrangements better, so constructive comments are greatly appreciated!

This was another fun one to work on with the graduate student quartet! I actually started arranging this piece before coming to SFCM, but didn't really work on it until I found these 3 lovely people who were willing to play it. This was one of my favorite pieces for a while, and still is up there for me! This was truly a challenge for us to play - it was technically difficult and we were having to play in a style that we don't really get to practice very often as percussionists. We pulled off a pretty good performance for Scott Aldridge's first masters recital. I'd love to someday play this arrangement again and really get a high quality recording out of it. This is a lesser-known work by Stravinsky that deserves to be heard by more people! 

If you made it this far, I want to say THANK YOU once more for taking the time! I don't anticipate my future posts will be as long and rambling as this one. Hopefully they will be more topical and interesting. Please comment if there are any topics you'd be interested in for future blog posts!