Guessing this is a very early single valve DCI marching trombone?
Not sure if poster is a forum member.
I think I may have seen something like this before - maybe on Trent Hamilton's channel? Either way looks like it belongs on his wall.
Would be an interesting one for someone's collection.
It's actually a 1 valve tenor bugle, probably pitched in G (they all were when that system was in use). Very limited applicability today since even DCI has gone Bb (and 3 valve instruments).
Probably most useful as a source for project parts.
I wouldn't pay what he's asking.
Bruce Guttman
Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra
"Almost Professional"
Oh yeah, I would't pay that much for a wall hanger either.
Funny how DCI kept adding valves and now even use slide trombones or perhaps more accurately : slide bugles.
Probably due to increased complexity of the routines and the need to expand the repertoire.
Michael Saffier I ate twice as much lasagna as I should have...
dxhall wrote: Sat Feb 06, 2021 10:15 am
Don’t think I’ve seen one of these before. What were they used for?
Drum and bugle corps (now referred to as DCI) started out with a family of valveless instruments ranging from trumpet size to tuba size. All conical, all pitched in G.
Then the fashion changed to having one valve (probably equivalent to either the 1st valve or the 3rd valve on a normal 3-valve instrument). Still pitched in G.
Then a second valve was added. Probably now equivalent to 1 and 2. Still in G.
Modern DCI ensembles use 3 valve instruments pitched in Bb but still pretty conical. They are called things like soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and contra.
Some of the Tenor instruments are called "marching trombones" but that's not quite true. A Marching Trombone will be a little more cylindrical.
Bruce Guttman
Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra
"Almost Professional"
BGuttman wrote: Sat Feb 06, 2021 10:59 am
Modern DCI ensembles use 3 valve instruments pitched in Bb but still pretty conical. They are called things like soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and contra.
DCI doesn't have specialized bugles anymore, the Bb/F instruments are standard marching band instruments straight off the rack. The trumpets and mellos aren't called sops and altos anymore either.
The old 1-rotor and 2v piston/rotor bugles were so oddly designed to make the instrument still look like a valveless bugle on the field. From what I remember, the first corps to add valves did so against the rules so they had to keep their secrets hidden from the field judges...I'm a bit fuzzy on that part of drum corps history though. Eventually they switched to two pistons in the normal configuration.
There were 3 valve G bugles towards the end of their life cycle in DCI, before being replaced by the Bb/F instruments when the rules were changed to allow any key. When DCI moved to 3 valve G bugles, they rolled them out gradually, initially only allowing each corps to pick one section at a time to add the 3rd valve to rather than the whole hornline.
DCI is (or at least was) very slow to embrace progress. Not quite as slow as many of its older alumni, however...
Drum corps (later DCI, but not for the first few decades) is descended from military drum corps, which used G soprano bugles with no valves.
Due to this strange lineage, G bugles of soprano, mellophone (same length as soprano, oddly), baritone, and contrabass were used up until 2000-2005 depending on your individual corps. Early on it was just soprano and baritone.
The rulesets were pretty draconian, as Finetales pointed out. But arrangers wanted to play music... well, anything really that wasn't stuck in the harmonic series of G. They went through many iterations, from a half-step slide, single piston (whole step, or D slide), up to the more "modern" 2 valve (whole and half step, like the first two valves of any normal valved instrument), finally to the end-of-the-line 3 valve bugles in the early-mid '90s.
Seen here is a '60s instrument, with both D valve and half-step slide.
This horn is basically evidence of silly rules vs. arrangers wanting to write music that you could do with literally any other ensemble.
As said above, today drum corps just use normal Bb marching brass- trumpets, baritones/euphoniums, tubas, as well as F mellophones (4th below trumpets).
Last edited by Burgerbob on Sat Feb 06, 2021 1:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
