I’m going to stop working right now and take some time to write some stuff that may or may not be in my best interest. Yet, none of what is said in this blog should or could have anything to do with helping or hurting my cause with writing about this. Some things may are better left unsaid… and some things need to be shared with friends and people close to the person when help is needed/wanted. In this case, I can’t ask for help because there’s no-one that can help… and it’s not something I think should be kept to myself either.
My job is tough. I know it’s tough and I have been doing it for 7 years. I took on a task this year that has been nothing but a thorn in my side and I am now regretting it. That thorn happens to be my job as designer for the Spartans. I know there are drum corps people who will read this and quote me… in fact, even people in the organization that will read it and wonder why I would write this. I don’t want to put down the organization because it’s not them that I am upset with… but the situation the corps is in now and how it is affecting me.
The fact that they are scoring extremely low in June isn’t the issue so much as it’s the fact that there are comments about our show design that are slamming the team for essentially doing the absolute best we could with what we have. I remember a time when I really wanted to write for a drum corps and they always tell you “you gotta start small…” Well, I did just that and I hate it. My situation as being somewhat of the “scapegoat” in an impossible scenario is just disheartening when I sit back and feel fine with what I wrote however everyone out there that has seen us thinks otherwise.
I haven’t yet read any comments from fans (positive or negative) regarding the drill, but from the start the staff was giving me feedback that it was great and everything it needed to be. I was relieved that people in the organization were happy with the product and though I was worried about how it might turn out, so far so good… right?
well, show #4 rolls around and the shit hit the fan… literally. I mean, I got 3 phone calls that night after critique and it was one cut on my drill after another after another after another… they even dropped the “we should scrap the entire show and re-write the whole thing.” I shot that down really quick and essentially told them they would need to either do it themselves or find another designer. For me to cut into my summer writing schedule even more with this show would make matters much worse for me than they already are… and that’s just the beginning.
To step back a bit, I was going into this job being under the impression (my fault for assuming) that since it is a summer performing group and most corps learn drill as early as March, in some cases, or April/May at the very latest, I would be able to sit at the computer during the months of Feb thru May-ish writing the drill. Seems like it would make sense and it’s probably the case throughout most of the other drum corps out there. However, we didn’t even have a final draft of the opener until May 11 and soon after that final drafts of the rest of the music.
The other issue was the numbers. They were out of our hands because the numbers from last year were solid and this year were bleak at best. There were never any more than 12 horns at a camp… maybe 14. There were maybe 7 guard people at the most at one time… and the drums were plentiful. I think they may have even had to cut a few perc kids.
One way or another, in the end it was a fight between me and the rest of the staff to decide on numbers so I could get started as I was worried scared to death that if we kept waiting for the chance to recruit more people throughout the spring, getting up to 25 horns (which they were waiting for) it would bleed so far into the late spring and summer that my band show writing would suffer. In fact, that is exactly what happened and exactly why I’m writing this blog.
The numbers we worked out to write for were 15 brass, 15 guard and 19 battery. (including about a dozen in the pit.) Someone want to do the math and tell me how I’m supposed to write for that unevenly balanced group? 
I mean, I did a heck of a job, I think, making it work with such an overpowering battery and small and young hornline. In the design itself, there are some tough drill moves and everything seemed to be done the way it needed to to best set the corps up for success on the side of performing the show.
Another part of the last phone call I got was the mentioning of the fact that there are now only 5 (or 6) color guard members in the corps. 15 brass (only 1 tuba) and 5 colorguard… What do I do?? What can I do??
Well, I know there’s not really anything… I seriously did do my best and am personally happy with what I wrote… but that is what I wrote for 15 color guard included.
It is really unfortunate whatever it is that happened for this corps to suffer the way it has. And because of it, everything with me taking this job has hurt my future as a designer I believe. No, not because I’m worried about what people will think about my first drum corps show… but because of how much it bled into my summer and is still taking time out of my day and ruining my chances of making deadlines or expectations for some of my high school clients.
I know I am being somewhat selfish right now, but as I have told this to a few people, the response I got back was “well, that’s drum corps for ya.” If this is really what drum corps is like, then this was my first and last year as a designer. I may be stupid for saying it here, but I’m so fed up with the way things happened this summer that I don’t plan to have any part of any drum corps ever again as a designer.
Yeah, I know I wrote a blog a while ago talking about how much I would like to quit next year… then I made it private. This blog won’t go private and I am expressing this with not an angry tone, but rather a sound and somewhat saddened feeling that I’m losing control of what I have always been good at, which are my band drills.
So now… I am struggling to catch up with the band shows I’m writing and getting e-mails every other day it seems from directors saying “I thought we would see drill by now…” or “you said you would have drill for us last week and we haven’t seen anything yet.” I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I got angry with one director on the phone the other day because he was making an effort to somewhat say “I was under the impression you would have drill for us by now and I’m concerned about how this relationship is going to work out…” I didn’t get “mad” mad, but it was more of me thinking to myself “what do I say? … am I supposed to tell him about the fact that the Spartans guard designer faxed me 40 pages to re-do last week where I needed to re-chart the color guard for 10 rather than 15? … Or do I just tell him I’m working on it and it’s just not ready? Do I just tell him I’m doing everything I can to keep my head above water right now? ”
All of that is true, of course. I did in fact spend a lot of time working on it and was doing my best but I also had to re-write the first 1/3 of the Spartans’ show for a smaller guard and a few completely different modifications throughout, all the while I’m STILL writing their closer as well. I even missed the deadline to finish the closer by a few days because I was re-writing their color guard dots.
So, I told him about all that was happening and he pretty much said “I don’t care… you should have planned things out better from the start… ” and several other things that I missed because I just didn’t want to hear it and pulled the phone away. From that point on, all I could do was tell him “I’m doing my best and I will have something for you as soon as possible…”
I cannot believe I’m getting lectured right now about poor management of my time. I knew this was a possible threat back in March and I even looked up the forum post I wrote expressing my concerns for waiting until too late for me to write the show seeing that I was afraid it would interfere with my band shows. It has and now I am suffering and so are all of my clients because of it.
I will go on record saying that this year might work out to be fine in the end, but for anyone who might be bothered by reading this and know that I’m sitting on my blog and rambling on and on about issues rather than writing your shows, tough! If you don’t like it, find someone else to write for you. I’m doing my best and will always do my best. Right now, all I want is something I can’t have, and that is all of that time I wasted writing and re-writing the Spartans drill and be able to make all the promises I made back in the spring and not deal with directors hounding me for drill when I could have done it had I not had to deal with anything regarding the drum corps scene.
I feel like I want to cry… but I’m not sad… nor mad. I’m actually fairly un-emotional right now and that’s no exaggeration. I have no idea what I feel… or how I feel. I am just here and I am just not sure how to feel right now. I am not angry with the Spartans organization… but everything involved with the disagreements with marching a smaller battery (which I wanted but they didn’t want to turn anyone away for educational purposes) and now the discussions of having me take time to completely re-write the show to accommodate the desires of those who have judged the corps during the first full week of tour. That’s just too much for me to handle… on both accounts. I don’t understand the logic in marching 19 battery vs. even as much as a 20-30 person brass line. But on 15 brass? That’s a joke. I know it’s not what they wanted… it’s not ideal for any corps… but such a large battery, what am I supposed to do with that? I have bands as large as 120 winds with only about 13 battery and the drums still overpower at times.
I don’t know… a lot of this isn’t my fault and was basically inevitable. I ought to just sit back and do my job… move forward and try to do my best regardless. But as I sit back, get going on things and try my best, I get random e-mails and phone calls and voicemails, “where’s the drill?” … “how much longer? I’m getting anxious” … “I thought you said it would be here by now…??” And since it’s wrong to ignore them, it seems that just being honest with them and saying “I’m working on it and I’m doing the best I can…” I have a few that get angry with me… that feel they have to say things like “this isn’t turning out to be why we hired you…” and even “well, just get us a few pages by tomorrow just so we know you’re actually working on it.”
Wow! That really doesn’t help me at all. Thanks! And you know what it does do?? It put me here… in my blog, where I know I shouldn’t be. And it really brings my confidence level down so far that I open up Pyware, look at the drill and just decide “I really don’t want to do this…”
I’m a much better designer than I have put out there the past few years… I have so much potential but I kill that potential by doing stupid shit, like writing for a drum corps and at the same time taking on 11 high school bands. The number of bands isn’t an issue for me as much as the way the Spartans gig bled right into my summer the way it did.
I realized something last year that I noticed first the year before when I last worked with Mitch. I realized that I can only work when I’m in my comfort zone… and if I’m not in that zone then it’s pretty much hopeless that I’m actually able to get things done. I haven’t been able to get into that comfort zone yet and unless there is some miracle from God, it looks like I’m going to lose a few bands this year, if not get fired because I don’t have drill for them. I’m not saying I’m going to give up… it has just always been something about me that I can’t work when people put me under pressure. Once that happens, I shut down.
In the years I worked with Mitch, I was put under pressure a lot from him… not that it was a bad thing, but it was tough sending him 5 or 6 pages at a time and worrying how it would work. And if I was a day later than he wanted (which was always still early) he would get on my case about it and it would again make me shut down. It was so difficult and frustrating that I couldn’t write the way I knew I could because of it. The few times he left me alone I would cruise through the drill… and I mean, I would be on fire! And honestly, I didn’t really “know” it to be true… until the next year, 2007.
2007 I was on my own for the first time and had absolutely NO pressure from anyone at any time. There was never a phone call or e-mail saying “where’s the drill?” or “we need this now”, etc. And I wrote all my shows in a timely manner, enjoyed it thoroughly and if it weren’t for the fact that I chose a lease ending date at my apt. of Sept 30, then a few things could have ended smoother overall.
But there was no drum corps… no bands to write for in Malaysia or Singapore (both of which had no impact on anything) and no-one getting on my case to get them stuff. I know people need drill… guard designers and dance instructors need the drill. I know I told you I would have it done in May… and I know I’m already 2 months late for some people. Just please, leave me alone and I’ll do my best. And if you really need to e-mail or call me, I will tell you I’m working on it (which I am) and doing my best (which I am) and if we can leave it at that, everything should be okay. But saying unnecessary things like “but you said this…” or “that’s not what we talked about…” or “our dance instructor keeps bugging me…” … geez, man… I don’t know what to tell you. That really makes things worse for me and the way I work.
Will those directors read this blog and take note? Nah… I doubt anyone actually reads this or even cares to know what I think about everything. All I do know is that I am awake still at 5am… I am staring at Stony Point’s opener which is 37 pages long… it’s missing the first 6 pages and the last 4 pages. I got stuck on the opening idea 2 months ago and instead wrote forward and to the end, where I got stuck on the closing idea. All in-between I got caught up with having to write the 123-page Spartans show, with 51 pages of re-writes since and possibly more to come if they even have the courage to ask me to re-write significant chunks. Is that what I was hired for though? Maybe… but I was never made aware that it would be so much and I don’t like it.
All I know is that I told the SP director I would have him drill by the middle of this past week… and now it’s Saturday and I’m just now getting to it. I don’t even know what to do for the start or end of this opener and I don’t know if I’ll even be able to finish it by the end of the weekend.
My issues are really less with needing more time to do stuff than it is needed to just be left alone. Every year I get drill to people when they need it or before they need it. If they just give me a deadline I meet it. But where I screwed up this year was answering the question they would ask which was “when do you think we can see some drill?” and rather than actually think about it, I immediately respond with some ridiculously optimistic estimate like “yeah, I could get this done in a couple weeks…” and I dig my own grave by saying such a thing. In a way, I might be sounding like a hypocrite for expressing myself the way I have been in this blog when it was really me who did this… but at the same time I keep sticking with what I know I am capable of and am as honest as I can be, but what happened and what got in the way of all this??? Spartans.
I’m tired… and a little frustrated. Nothing too terrible or threatening… but just not a comfortable feeling in a job that I realized 2 years ago that I have no choice but to be comfortable in order to succeed in this job.
You might laugh and say “it’s drill design! it’s not an easy job and is very stressful.” Well, it’s true for some, but not for me. I don’t go out there and say to anyone that I think this job is easy, but I really do. It is sometimes tough to get stuff to work or get an idea, but the process of doing the job takes less time for me than it might for many others… and I don’t know why. Last year… something crazy happened. And I’m not talking about once… or even twice… but looking back at my files, there were 6 movements of drill (out of the 25+ total) that I wrote in a day, each… and all of them were my best movements. Stony Point mvt. 1, Hanks mvt. 3, Cathdral City mvt 1, Dutch Fork mvt. 3, Pasadena Memorial mvt. 3 and Calloway County mvt. 3.
I know you can get “on a roll” and get stuff done… but it’s not that with those movements. Those were ones that I wrote with little to no effort at all, and mostly because I was not pressured, I knew my limitations and just had things figured out after some time. There was an issue with SP’s opener and PM’s closer, but both of which were overshadowed with other bigger issues I was dealing with at the time I was working on them. I think I was a bit late getting SP their opener, but the day I wrote it, I was in Starbucks for 9 straight hours, was unhappy with everything I had sketched to that point… I deleted the file, set a new one with the page tabs and wrote it all right then and there. And same with the rest of those movements…
In the end, somehow all 6 of those were the most highly complimented from everyone I wrote them for and I knew after last year that this job for me isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s also not so bad as long as I am in my “zone” when I write.
Where is that “zone” now, you ask? Way far, far, far away! in 2006, I finished Memorial’s show on or around June 2nd.. all three movements. Maybe I was around half-way done with everyone this time last year, I don’t remember. It’s now July 5th and I have finished only one movement of band drill. ….one!
Now I want to cry. I feel it coming on as I type… but it’s not going to happen. I won’t let it. I haven’t been able to do anything for my bands over the past 6 weeks because I was busting my ass and spending hours on the phone with the designers getting stuff done for Spartans and what do I have to show for it? Pretty much nothing. Nothing but negative comments and criticism for what I designed for Spartans, and the questions that I should have to completely re-write their whole show. One movement for PMHS… A dozen or so pages for DSHS… the middle 2/3 of SP’s opener… and no-one is leaving me alone. Everyone wants something now! Everyone likes to point out my mistakes… my faults… my broken promises. To all of you… I am sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I am sorry.
I know that apologizing doesn’t get the job done, as you still need a show. And I am here and will do my best to get it done. I plan to push very hard over the next several weeks and get myself caught up with my shows, put myself into my comfort zone and try not to get so bothered by my clients, who are just doing their jobs. There’s nothing wrong with a director that wants to know what’s going on and to be informed on the latest… I just can’t emphasize how unnecessary all the extra lecturing and pointing out “you said this and that…” is in the end. I will get it done and you have to trust me on that. I will get it done and it will be great.
There was a lot more I wanted to write about… if you can believe that… but this is the bulk of it. I do have a feeling that a year completely removed from drill design is the best plan for me next year. It will hurt… and I will resist doing it. But with the help of several close friends that I have been in touch with recently, I think the consensus is one of two things…
1) I may not be cut out for this job in the long run and just got mild success just because I was working with Mitch for so long…
2) I just need to completely remove myself from it for a year… maybe teach a corps or marching band as a tech to stay IN the activity, but just not as a designer.
We’ll see what happens and how I feel come December.
Well, on another note unrelated to all of this, I had originally made the decision to move to Austin, TX in the winter after my lease ends here in my Houston apartment. The lease ending date of Dec 31 may sound crazy to most people for a time to move, but it works perfectly for me and the timing between seasons of writing drill or working with indoor groups. However, a wrench got thrown into the mix when Uichi e-mailed me last week asking me to come back to Japan to perform with Aimachi again. They told me all last fall they wanted me to come back so I wasn’t as overwhelmed as I thought I would be at the time… but this time it’s official. And the realization that I would be gone from mid-September through the end of December pretty much shoots down any chance I would be able to come home to the US after spending 3 months away and have to immediately find a place, pack and move across the state in that short of a time. I know what I’m capable of and I don’t see myself being able to pull that off. Finding a place but only having e-mail and a 14-hour time difference to deal with communicating with people in the US just isn’t ideal at all for making this work. How do you fill out an application with a fee/deposit when you live in Japan until a week and a half before you have to move?
Right… the answer to that is that if I want to make the move work, I don’t go to Japan. Can you actually believe that THIS is also bothering me right now? How effed up is all this?
But you’re correct… I shouldn’t worry about that right now. I need to get my ass in gear and write some drill. I need to just grind and dig and do my best to get more than just 6 movements of drill done in a day each… but more like 25-30 in order for me to get stuff done in time. I know I can do it… maybe I just need to sleep on it and tomorrow will be a new day. Maybe it won’t be PMHS’s day… maybe it’ll be CCHS’s. day. I don’t know yet. All I know is that over 1000 kids from all over the country are depending on me to write them a great show and 11 band directors that are paying me some good money to do this difficult task of writing their drill. I will get it done… and it will be great!
I just need to not be bothered by the Spartans situation and move as far from that as I can so I can get going on the shows that need to get done for the fall. I feel as if some things I said regarding the Spartans may seem like I threw them under the bus. That’s not my intentions and I have no ill will towards anyone affiliated with the organization. My anger is more towards the situation of being their designer and how it has done nothing but negatively impacted my band writing schedule… and so bad that I’m now 2 months behind, with some of my bands having camps in 2 or 3 weeks and I have yet to write even a single page for them.
I don’t need words of encouragement… in fact, any words might just get in the way rather than help. If anything… anyone who reads this, please pray for me. Whatever God you believe in, please pray for me… I beg you.