This fall, a history book covering the years leading up to the formation of Drum Corps International (1969-1972) to the present day will be produced by the publisher of Drum Corps World, in cooperation with Drum Corps International.
The co-authors of the book, Nic Waerzeggars and Dave Wilson, will be working to include personal comments from those who have first-hand experience as members of Drum Corps International corps. Wilson, a native of the Chicagoland area, served as the Web content manager of Drum Corps International from 2002-2006 in addition to stints at the Chicago Tribune. Waerzeggars is a freelance creative writer from Madison, Wis.
The authors are looking for individuals from each of the past 38 years and competitive levels (open class, class A, class A/60, all-girls division, and modern-day Divisions I, II & III) to make submissions of 1,000 words or less, describing one year in your life as a member of a drum corps that participated in a DCI World Championships. Feel free to focus on or cover any of the following topics:
- What was it like marching in your drum corps?
- Experiences riding on the bus
- Sleeping on busses and gym floors
- Food on tour
- Meeting new people from across the country or world
- Traveling to competitions
- Rehearsals
- Sightseeing while on tour
- Performing in front of small and large audiences
- Non-competitive performance opportunities (parades, mall openings, building dedications)
- Listening to comments from judges to make your show better
- Interacting with instructors, designers, management
- Helping behind the scenes with your corps (publicity, logistics, fund-raising, loading buses, planning sightseeing stops)
- Raising money for your personal dues or for general funding of your corps
- What your corps jacket means to you
- Collecting recordings, corps buttons, other memorabilia
- Did you have supportive parents, siblings, band directors while on tour?
- Which corps was/were your biggest rival(s)
- Which corps was/were your friendliest competitor(s)
- Who did you look up to while marching in a corps?
- What have you learned from being in a drum corps that has been valuable in your life?
