I, too, wonder why the corp-style drums have taken over (completely) the marching band ranks. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat. I find this good for drum corp shows but totally inappropriate for a full marching band. Many years ago, my high school band got a full compliment of new silver & red sparkle Ludwigs before our performance in the Rose Bowl parade (and marching band competition). Those were great days & great sounding drums. Did someone mention "old"? MarkE

You want to talk about old? I played in my high school's bands--concert and marching-- from my freshman year until graduation in 1961. All of our drums were ancient. This is odd because we were less than an hour's drive from where almost all of the new stuff was made in Elkhart, Indiana. When I say the drums were ancient, I really mean it. I doubt whether any of the snares and bass drums were made after World War Two. Since some of them had some metal parts such as lugs, I speculate that they were made before the war. Our scratchy old wool uniforms had to be almost as old. I think it boils down to the school board being a bunch of selectively stingy politicians who lavished funds on certain pet projects, and ignored other projects. Four solid years of selling candy never got us a single new drum or uniform. I'm standing next to the bass drum. The picture had to be taken in 1960 or earlier because the guy at the tympani graduated in 1960.

One more note on the Rose Parade, and in particular, that Japanese band. I saw several Rose Parades from a fifth floor window above the parade route and I was knocked out by that Japanese band, and many other bands, when I watched them live. But even more impressive is that the parade route is actually over five miles long and they do this for hours! I was in a marching band and we did halftime and pregame shows but never had to play and march on a sustained basis for hours.