What have been the biggest educational challenges of the drum corps activity in the past?
GD: How one measures success determines the outcome of any activity. The basic premise of most world-class corps is extrinsic in nature: develop an ensemble to win the world championships or at least place as high as possible in the finals. As long as this is the key to the corps, then education is merely a process to achieve a competitive goal This, in my opinion, is not music education but is coaching. Music education is much more intrinsic in nature. It uses competition as ONE of the tools to measure outcomes, but the final product is not measured in trophies, rings or judges scores. I am not saying there is no intrinsic value in drum corps! Of course there is! What I am saying is that most corps (staff, members, alumni, fans, etc.) use only extrinsics to access their successes. Finding ways to invest (artistically) outside the corps seems to be the biggest challenge to most of the corps organizations I have encountered. I see corps struggling with finding ways for intrinsic investm
