SYMPOSIUM KEYNOTE ADDRESS:
Beginnings
Mr. A.R. Casavant
Educational Beginnings.
Some of us had advantages. We played with dozens of different groups. Now, a kid plays in his
high school band, university band and that's it. The number of pieces he plays is probably
limited to a couple dozen, so his education is not real great.
I went to a school in Chicago, and the very first year I ran around with a guy who was a big shot
in Arkansas - had a little band, wiped everybody out in marching. I thought I might want to be a
music educator (whatever that is). I went to military school. He used military - it was strictly
military system.
After World War II, into the '50's, they were still doing scatter-drill. In other words, every kid
went from A to B, on his own. It was a wonderful situation because they could get a bright
sophomore and he could write their whole book for the entire year. I went to school (at
Vandercook, of course, in Chicago), and we had an expert every two weeks for six weeks. In
other words, we had three experts every Summer for four Summers for a Masters. So in the four
years I was there, I had twelve of the top names of marching. At the same time I was doing
research. And I just thought, 'how stupid this is,' because I was also aware of what corps were
doing. The band directors weren't.
There was one exception to that. There was one high school band director brought in one time, a
man named Hal Bergen from Sexton High School, Lansing, Michigan, and he had won fame
with his marching band. He did eleven steps to ten yards, and he was a ramrod man (in other
words, military drill). He actually made some sense.
Research Beginnings.
I used to buy books. The British Museum was very kind. They would xerox them and bind them
for me, all the old British military books, 2 or 3 inches thick. They would do that for a nominal
fee. But I had a man over there talk them into it - a retired Colonel. I got to meet with him a
couple of times. He was a gem. He'd spent all of WWII on the island of Malta and they were
bombing them every day - he was under fire for 6 years. He was quite a character.
I collected everything I could get a hold of that I could afford. I had researchers working for me.
A man in London, a woman in New York Public Library, and a former student in the Pentagon.
So I had advantages. But those 4 Summers at Vandercook just pushed me ... I had a vacuum and
a push. We were required, every morning at 8:00, to go on the field and listen to these guys, and
given a booklet. And all it was, was 'go from A to B' on each page.
I regurgitated all that because of the military institute I attended (2 years as Cadet, 3 years as
Faculty). We did some fine military drill, and competitive among the different companies. I
was the bandmaster there at the time. I stayed there 3 and a half years after I was a Cadet. So
you see, I had a nice playing field, a background, and also an incentive. It was either get ahead
in the band world or go back, go into research, follow my desire to be a research scientist.
It was a very bleak field there in the early 50's. University people were not interested in
research. They had things going nicely for them. I'm basically a technician, more or less - "how
to do" things - and before I arrived, few cared. And it looks like not many people care now.
I don't know that there's anybody interested in research in marching. We're talking about a zero
occupation. And there's no such thing as academic research in marching. In other words, you
have to go down to get a degree (that's where I started from) and apply mathematics to it (I even
went to school and studied kinesiology) and, of course, when you get into the building of a show
and the design work, then you have all those areas you need to study. Art areas, psychological
areas, filming. I had a whole drawer full of information - how to build films, design plays.
Stage management. Stuff that's never been done. There's no been research in that area (that I
know of).
Terminology.
"Uniformity" is a bad word. It never should have crept into the judge's sheet. Consistency, yes.
Uniformity, no. Uniformity to most people means "the same thing, the same way," and that isn't
really the meaning of uniformity. Uniformity can be a progression, arithmetic, geometric ... I
guess it could be biological too.
I'm a biology major. DNA "hit the fan" when I was studying. It had just come out. In fact, I had
a professor from Purdue University, where they were just getting into it. Had just discovered it.
I don't have a Bachelor of Music Degree. I do have a Masters, though. I'm probably boring you
to tears.
I like facts. I prefer facts. And that's why the terminology to me is just absurd. You mention a
term and I can tear it apart because its either ambivalent or its incomplete. For instance, there's
no such thing as a "file." There's no complete definition of it.
DCI, you know, put their brain trust together to do that, to rebuild the terminology. They
reworded it, that's all. Its in a little blue book, a 4 by 5 inch booklet (they called it a "Blue
Book"), and they lived by it for a while. I've seen judges that would memorize it. But it's not
good because I can find holes in it. It just doesn't tell you exactly what they're trying to tell you.
That's why, during my workshops (especially on the graduate level) we had to go to the board,
and I made them repeat, to be sure that they understood what I was talking about. Those
workshops were a lot of fun, in a way. Well, we can't have them now - "everybody knows
everything." All you have to do is get two or three films from DCI, and "you know what to do."
Or you don't do it. You just hire somebody to do it. You go to camp for a couple of weeks, get
your drill instructors, and get all your design on these wonderful pages of printouts, away you go.
And the music's already memorized.
Terminology is a real problem. It's kind of hard to talk to people on the phone. For instance, if I
mention a term and you have one idea of what the term means, and I have a different idea ...
people used to call me at night to ask me questions and it just wasn't possible.
Before John showed up for the biography, another young lady did one. She had spent for years
in a very good high school band, four years in the marching band at the university, and she didn't
have the slightest idea what marching was all about. She learned her position, each year, and
that was it. So I couldn't talk to her. There was no way of communicating with her technically.
Marching Band Beginnings.
There were some contests going on in the '20's (band contests). The high school band
movement/contest started in the '30's. In fact, I obtained a copy of the 1936 contest that was held
in Cleveland, Ohio. I just got it the other day. Joliet was THE band. The instrument
companies in Elkhart got the thing together. There was a national band association, but that was
absorbed by the MENC - Music Educator's National Conference - and disappeared.
Before Second World War they broke down from one national contest to regions. I think there
were 7 or 8 regions. And of course they didn't have a first place anymore. They quit doing that
and gave first, second, third, fourth divisions so they wouldn't hurt anybody's feelings. But
Jolliet was the only band that ever won the top honors, back in the beginning.
Revelli (the great Revelli) won in Class B most every year (Joliet was Class A). But one year in
Class B some little old band from Oklahoma came and whipped him. Later he was at the
University of Michigan and took over there. And that marching band stunk (marching-wise)
until they hired a graduate student out of Ohio State. He put 'em on the map. A lot of things
went on back there in the '30's, '40's, and '50's.
Revelli was about 5 feet 2, looked and acted mean on the podium. He and I were good friends,
we got along fine one on one. He preceded me at Vandercook in Chicago. He went to school
there about 10 years before I got there. He really was a fiddle player, he and Sousa. But we got
along personally. He was just an intimidator. On the podium he said mean things. He was real
bad on the podium.
He's OK. We got along fine. We conversations together a couple of times (not regularly). I
worked a high school band for one of his big shows up there, or something or other. He tried to
get me to come and work the band and he found out I'd charge. He backed off. I wouldn't even
work the Michigan Band free. I work high school bands here free, but I wouldn't work the
Michigan Band free. Bruce Jones down at LSU thought I'd work his band free too. I wouldn't do
it. They charge other people to work, I was gonna charge them.
There were a couple of other intimidators back then. Al Wright was one. He was a baritone
player, but once he got to Purdue and started on clinics, he'd say mean things on the podium.
When bandmasters came from the ranks it was traditionally from the cornet section. Successful
directors from other sections were aberrations.
Bruce Jones, down at LSU .... Incidentally, I got along fine with these guys, and I got a lot of
respect out of them. Al Wright was the number one band director for probably 20 years in
marching. In fact, he was the Marching Editor for the Instrumentalist magazine. He started the
National Band Director's Association, and he was the first President.
His wife was Gladys Wright. She was big in her own name. She did real well. I remember my
first big clinic in Chicago. It was at the Midwest Band Clinic. The dean at the school set it up,
and they had some sort of meeting and they stayed. I showed 3 years of films: '54, '5, and '6
(this must have been about '57), and I was down front, introducing myself and telling them what
they were about to see. Up in the front row was a woman with a short skirt with her feet on the
chair out in front of it - a good-looking woman, and that brought her skirt up way above her
knees, and ... it was pretty hard to concentrate on what I was doing. And later on, I found out it
was Gladys Wright.
But she was all right. Very nice person. Just outgoing, I mean, she just moved along her own
course. She came out of Oregon, had a high school band there, met Al Wright and married him.
But they were a pair. I don't know who the big dogs are now, but we had some wheels back
then.
Frederick Fennell - he did a lot of harm to the band. A wind ensemble is not a band. It's really
not - you don't have any choirs. That Eastman Wind Ensemble, they play too nice. He plays a
bunch of marches ("screamers"), the old circus marches ... they didn't play them that way. I was
in some of those bands. They didn't play them that nice. They played 'em like real music. You
can get too good. Too "textbook." But you lose something in the process.
Glenn Cliffe Bainum was the big name there at Northwestern. He was there forever. He got his
name on a few marching books. He claimed to do precision drill, and his successor did (and I
can't remember his name - died of a heart attack, he had a municipal band there ... did quite a
good job). I did a couple clinics for him at the university because I had some students there at
the time, former students. They claimed to do precision drill but I don't know what it was, I
never did see them. Whatever "precision drill" is - I don't know, really.
There's not much left of the bandmasters - they're all "band directors" now. There's a big
difference, you know, between a band director and a bandmaster. A bandmaster gets his
learning before he goes to college (or the few years after he leaves college). Well, a band
director's the one that goes in, soaks up everything there is in college, and yearns to be a
"music educator." There's the difference. For example, I got a degree only to get a right to teach
(and then I finally got serious and started studying). Not music. Science.
Teaching Drum and Bugle Corps.
I had played around with a "drunken bugle corps." They had no ambition but to win the state
contest (which they had been trying to do for 20 years), and so I got to see what corps were
doing. I think it was '50 and '51. The Hawthorne Caballeros from New Jersey were the big shot
then. I could see that they were way beyond bands. Bands, as you talk to band people, put corps
down. "Non-musicians," and all that sort of stuff. But what they were doing was fantastic
compared to the bands.
They were doing 3 and 4-man squad drill movement carried over from World War I (bands, of
course, were all open-order). Two-dimensional block. We're talking about senior corps. And I
was hoping then to get a reasonable group together and actually go on a national basis. But I'm
afraid the local people just weren't up to it.
Incidentally, there was only one man in the group that could read music. One trumpet player.
Of course, I put them all on music reading using a little drum book by Haskel-Harr. I put them
all on drum sticks and taught the whole gang to read music. And after 2 years I saw there was no
future, so I backed out. Their interest was to win the state, go to the national, and have a ball.
Senior corps.
The junior corps weren't much then. The Chicago outfit was doing pretty well, and there were
two or three in the East, but this is Legion contest, and the Legion didn't pay much attention to
junior corps.
Teaching School.
My undergraduate work was in science and I wanted to go into research, really, and get out of
music. So instead, I went into research in marching and I found that the situation was abysmal.
There was a vacuum. I could sense it. I jumped into it and started experimenting.
I found a vacuum, a tremendous vacuum all over. Guard people and drum corps people were
pretty much provincial. They had their thing going and there was hardly any way to talk to them,
technically. Judging process was studying the process of judging, not what they judged. So it
was difficult.
I was well received. Drum corps people and I got along great. Other music teachers in my area
were great. They either copied me or I went out and worked their bands. In fact, after I retired I
kept going with their bands. I kept 3 bands going besides dodging around the country and doing
bands. As I say, it was a vacuum. Even the university people. I don't think that would happen
now. I just got on the scene at the right time, I guess.
Besides a band, I was given a girls drill team, which I built up to 2. So I got an 86-piece girls
drill team, built it up to 2 (2 different periods, 100 each), and I had about 80% of the band at
each period. So the 3rd and 5th period I'd go out and work with part of the group. Friday night it
all went back together. Of course I didn't use any paper. I just happen to have a mind that can
visualize things, and I'm pretty good at math.
We weren't a high priority at high school, you remember - it was just another high school. It was
really a prep school, in a way. It had very high standards. But it wasn't anything that had any
money. It was sort of an elder of the whole system. The whole thing is countywide now. We
have a consolidated system. But back then it was just the city. So things have changed a great
deal. In fact, I wouldn't want to be a band director today. It was a different situation back then.
It was rough. My last year of teaching (Spring of '59) they put me on extra months to get me
extra money but they wouldn't raise my pay. I worked eleven and a half months for $6,000.00.
That was the top - that's with a Masters. I don't know, maybe I'd have gotten another $500.00 if I
had a Doctorate. But they were as good to me as they could be, I guess.
I was a little bit of an odd one. I was doing things that were embarrassing other people I think
(they didn't say so). The football team was not much. One year they lost 10 out of 10 games,
and it was embarrassing to the athletic people and, of course, the principal. And we were getting
recognition all over the place. That was embarrassing to them. This is unsubstantiated opinion,
but I'm sure it was, because nothing else was happening. That didn't cause trouble for me,
except they weren't unhappy about me leaving.
The principal was a great fellow, but didn't give you money for equipment. We had to raise all
our own money. We got $100.00 a year from the school for equipment, which wouldn't buy our
music for a two-week period. So I raised the money on the side. And we took trips. We were
on national TV, we went to the Redskin game in Washington D.C., and they put us on the
network. That got quite a few eyes open. That was 1955. Luckily, we went on right after the
University of Maryland band. That helped.
Teaching Marching.
The judges flipped. I didn't have professional judges, you understand - they would have gone
down underneath the umbrella and start to get real picky, I think. But the judges I had were
university band judges - band directors, and they were pretty much flabbergasted. In fact, three
years in a row, I think, we got 100%. Not because we deserved it, but because they got boxed in.
They didn't have anything left to give.
I'd have to go back and look at the judge's sheet, but they were impressed by precision, which
amazed me. They thought the band was very precise, and it really wasn't. It was precise relative
to other bands of that time. But when I look back at the Cleveland, Ohio contest in the 1930's ...
there was a band from Red Oak Iowa that had been drilled mercilessly. A thirty-seven-piece
band stopped the show by their precision - George Bennett's outfit. And there was a band out of
Louisiana, I believe it was, that won the Lion's Parade (which is a five-mile parade) and they
didn't know where the judges were. Things like that ... people, or kids that marched like they
had ramrods in their back. And it amazed me that most of them did not advance technique, but
called on precision.
The fact is there are easier ways and faster ways and more efficient ways to teach. Of course,
the corps don't care because they have unlimited time. If they taught too fast they'd be standing
around with their hands in their pockets, I guess.
We taught it so easily. See, we were doing 5 or 6 regular football shows, with two drill teams.
Plus the fact the band then had their own competitive show to do, and we never spent more than
2 weeks on any one. Even concert competitions. It was the teaching method. I developed a
teaching method which involved breaking the individual and group movements down, and then
teaching it by rhythm and putting word structures into their mouth first.
For instance, you may run across the phrase, "steptwo"? Well that comes out of a teaching
method. We worked into an echelon from a standing line, and the words the kids would say
were "step, two, step, two, step ...". Once they said the rhythm, it was in their bodies before they
actually did anything. So everything was taught on a rhythmic basis, but first either nonsense
syllables or a relative wordings. Like "step, two, three, four, step, two, three, four" ... "steptwo".
As far as the teaching method is concerned (talking it out before you do the drill), there was a
predecessor, a Colonel Lentz. He wrote a little pamphlet called "The Cadence System." During
World War II this was a big thing, for troops on the march to sing out their cadence, so he wrote
a pamphlet on it. But it wasn't a teaching method. It was more a morale and a rhythmic method
to stay together. That pamphlet is very valuable (this is in my library).
Of course, we weren't playing around with music. We actually matched the music to the drill. It
was movement, math, and music. What the bands were doing was to music in one sense only.
When they moved, their left foot was coming down on the main beat, of course, but they were
not correlating forms and transitions to music. They had pistols out there for a while, and they'd
shoot a pistol to tell the kids when to start the new formation.
And of course the corps were way ahead. Everything was set to music, from beginning to end of
each show. So, in that sense, the bands were just ignorant. All these Doctor's degrees they had
up there ... they were musicians, though. And these "stupid corps people" got way ahead of
them.
Teaching Music.
I feel that there are two types of elite musicians: the symphony musician and the studio
musician. The symphony rehearses only what they're going to play, and when they rehearse
something its usually been played 15 or 20 times by each one of the members of the orchestra.
The studio rehearses once and then records.
I believed in the studio musician, and in the concert band. I thought that every kid had a right to
play every piece of music in the library (I built up a very extensive library). So every two weeks
the folders were changed until two weeks before the contest, and then we went to contest music.
And we stayed on top.
I was trying to develop the studio musician. Or just the kid that wanted to play. I felt I had no
right to put his "nose to the grindstone." He was there to have a ball. I just didn't have that right.
I know one band that had their contest music - for this year, next year, and the third - in the
folders after marching season. By the third year they're working on music for three years.
Typical attitude of the university bands - "elitist." I was hoping to be able to hold my own. And
I did. I've got the papers to prove it. I kept all the contest papers. And we played the top - we
were a Class A school (that's the top - largest school). And we stayed with every contest. Either
got the highest score, or as high as anyone else (in marching, of course, we got the highest
score). In concert you can tie - everybody can get a "one" (division rating). Well, anyway, that's
the difference in my approach.
Teaching Percussion.
I had a drum leg rest that sold like mad. I also had a bass drum carrier that sold like all-get-out.
We did quite well with them. Sold them all over the country. In fact, we sold them to Canada,
England, throughout the world. And they went pretty well. I had the patents and I had the thing
cornered for about 20 years. Well, how much more can you want?
The bass drum carrier wasn't designed for it. It was designed because I wanted to carry a tuba. I
used bell-front tubas (I'm talking about the early '50's). And I had to find some way to carry
them. I got the horns, and then couldn't find a way to carry them, so I had to design some.
Turned out to be a bass drum carrier.
Technique in drumming (percussion) has come along so far. Even the bugle work now is no
longer bugles. The horn work has progressed quite a bit. I used to have the drum experts come
in and teach for me in Chicago - we were a percussion workshop, and the corps people (several
of them) came in and taught them. They were pretty closed-mouthed in some respects, but they
did pretty good work.
The teaching method was to hit it hard and keep hitting it and hitting it, and you keep going long
enough, you're going to wind up with something. So once again, the traditional aspects of
"finding a very narrow path and staying on it for a long time." But the results are amazing. I
don't like the new sound. The high pitched sound. But that's a preference.
I was in drum work for quite a while, and was putting out books, putting out methods. And then
the drum people came along and started doing some real nice things. You see, drum people
were into rudiments for a long time, and I recreated them long ago. I'm talking about the '50's
now. And the '60's.
When they recreated the rudiments and went into real drumming, forgot about all that, uh ...
weird stuff, which wasn't bad (except its not practical), then I quit writing. I had a series back
then, a bibliography of 6 or 7 books, mainly rhythmic studies (single sticking for the most part).
But they could put all their opens rolls in the pattern, and I thought that was
good (no closed rolls).
I think rudiments are wonderful to impress a kid, but I can't see any actual practical value
because you're into the multiple bounce when you're into concert drumming - symphony work or
concert band work. But out in the field you just have to use a single bounce, and forget about
the multiple bounce. Use heavy sticks, and build up the muscles of the arms. In fact, some of
them are built up so much that if they don't warm up, they go into cramps.
Just like the flag was required to be on the field, the rudiments were required out there. They
even had bass drum rudiments. And then they had "American Rudiments" and "Swiss
Rudiments," and ... you know, all that good stuff. They were interesting, and good for a person
that wanted to be a professor in college and teach the drums. But out there in the field they
didn't count, as far as I was concerned. I wanted to hear.
When they opened up that roll, and kept it the same tempo, or the same steady place each time
they used it, great. I agree with the professors, the teachers that came in, clinicians that came in
(they did some fine work up there in Chicago). We had workshops every Summer for about 12
years - 15 years. Whatever. And they did a good job. Of course when you use the traditional
grip, there are certain disadvantages for multiple drums. There are definite advantages to dance
drumming, trap drumming. So you can put your trap drumming on an angle, and work up and
down it.
We also used to have some of the best trap drummers come in there in Chicago and do a clinic,
and they were all traditional grip. Of course, we had some of the old-timers too, played around
with the rudiments. I'm not against rudiments. I think they're interesting. I think it's wonderful,
the trumpet players that triple-tongue. They use it once every four or five years, but you have to
have it. This type of rudiment you don't. Not to play band work or drum corps work outside.
Our contests for individuals had them go through the rudiments, open-closed-open. But when
they got in the band, they didn't use them. They'd be using the concert drums, these nice, tight
snares with tight heads in concert. Needle point sticks. I'd see the symphonies use them. You
don't need to use any "war clubs" in the orchestra. So it comes down to practicalities and the
drum corps style, for marching.
My son now has a drum corps instructor for his drum section. He has a university band. The
percussion man at the university is actually a former corps player.
His work is different. His band looks different. He was on the road with me for about 6 or 8
Summers, so he had a basic background to go into university work. He's got a fine outfit. He
has arrangers and all that sort of good stuff. He's way out in front of me. He's moved on.
His transitions are great. There's always a reason that they're moving from place to place, and he
uses mass-transitions, not just piece-meal. The whole group would be moving and you can see it
flowing. He does a great job. He naturally has the ability to see such things in his design work.
He does all his own design work.
He has what I call the Cadet System. All the teaching is done by the students. The older
students are responsible. As they move up in years, they take on more responsibility to teach
individual movement and to maintain morale of the unit. In other words, he sort of stands aside,
and his criticism is only on one level. There are no Stetson hats on the field, you know what I
mean. The students take over.
That's what I used in high school. I did not teach any individual how to drill. My old students
taught the new ones/young ones. That was part of the approach.
Now and Then.
In the guard work, I liked the tremendous rifle work and the marching (until it got to be a
Hollywood spectacle). The rhythmic aspect built around the one hand 360-movement.
Especially when the rifle was coming down on the after-beat. I was really thrilled with guard
work for quite a while, and then it got into more of a "dance group with equipment" and the
marching was left out.
I didn't think much of the flag posting and that sort of thing. I think they were going to the
extreme, just like most of the old penalty judges. It wasn't presentation - they used to post it.
They had a pipe welded onto a piece of flat metal, and they would post the flag, and they'd do a
little drill and come back and pick it up.
Hundreds of rules they could have avoided. I thought that was icky. Real icky. Just like when
corps marched the flag into a corner of the field and had them facing the corner. When they
were required to carry the national flag, the color guard squad used to march into a corner of the
field so nobody would violate it. And I thought that was a violation in itself, putting the whole
show on behind the flag.
Well, anyway, that was the guard work. In drill teams, I was thrilled in the early '60's by what
was being done on the West Coast. Those girl drill teams out there were fantastic. They were
mixing dance work and drill work. Their arm movements were way ahead of anything that
anybody else was doing, and I haven't seen it since. They had beautiful arm work. The
California, Oregon, Montana, Washington crews, they were just great.
Of course the drums are a fascinating thing. They really went whole-hog. Percussion moved
along, except for sound. I don't like the sound. It was no longer a "drum" sound when they went
horizontal (it's been around for years, of course). The circus drummers, when they went on the
street (I'm talking about the beginning of the century, carried little drums. I'm talking about 4 or
5-inch deep shells) they would mount them on their chest. I played shows in the late '30's, and
when we went on the street, the drummers were carrying a little drum up there - in fact, the
sticks were around their noses - and they used the regular grip, except a few of them would use
matched grip.
The shows themselves, as a total design, had improved by then. I think it was the Blue Devils
were probably the exponent of what I call the "string of beads," and the "necklace of beads,"
where individuals pretty much stay within a line, but the line curves on its own. I call it the
"string of beads" (the spacing might change).
As far as band was concerned, we had some wonderful years in the '60's. Especially in the
mid-South, where technique was just all over the place - people were doing things that had never
been heard of. And the stuff came out of the bands - especially middle Tennessee. There was a
contest there ... as the bands went on, you could just sit on the edge of your seat or stand up
through the entire show. They were really putting things
together.
However, they fell by the wayside once the corps took the top position. Everybody now is
mimicking them. Like copycats, they're all doing the same thing, and of course, they don't have
transitions anymore. They've gone back to the scatter system that the university people use. It's
so easy to do - a few people down here, a few people over there ....
Originality - I haven't found any in the last 10 years. These days, originality is 'doing something
different the same way somebody else is doing it.' (or, 'doing the same thing different that
somebody else is doing'). I think originality has crept up into such an ethereal realm that its hard
to pinpoint - you can't put your finger on it. And this business of impressing the judge with these
huge steps I don't understand. But corps have always been bad about "following the leader." For
years, the drum section marched up and down the 50, yo-yo style.
Marching has progressed since my day in the way of precision. Individual to individual. And I
mean more than uniform position - I mean exact movement of position. Bands now do one show
a year, start learning their music after Christmas, start drilling in the Spring, and then go to
camp, bring in drill instructors and work on this one show. Which was unheard of in my day (of
course, the corps were already doing it).
That wasn't a step forward. I feel like its way back. After all, the kids have a right to an
education.