Spirit Of Atlanta 1981

Georgia, 'Ol Man River, Devil Went Down to Georgia, You are the Sunshine of My Life, Let It Be Me.
Corps Director Freddy Martin.
Brass caption head and arrangements Gary Markham.(1947-2022)
Percussion caption head and arrangements Tom Float (1952-2022) and Mike Back.
Visual caption head and drill design Steven Moore.
This was the year of the huge drum line (12 snares, 7 tenors, 7 bass drums, 6 cymbals, 3 grounded near sideline) and the North Drums, which were ditched midseason, as they turned out to be "tick machines" with their snare heads (not the batter head) facing straight out to the audience. All great art requires risk and sometimes it doesn't work out.
I learned a lot in '81, being just my second year in the activity. I still did not fully understand how to write in the modern style. I could appreciate what the Blue Devils were doing and marveled at the innovative approaches with the Cavaliers, Cadets, and Santa Clara, but I didn't know how to design it. I also didn't have enough real world experience to understand proportion, interval size, and other important principles. To make it worse, I had not yet developed a marching basics systematic approach to teaching (in the corps style). My leadership skills were non-existent. And I was an immature 21 year old. Freddy Martin helped me with teaching and understanding that repetition was much more important than discussion when teaching drill. And Tom Float helped me understand much about staging. One fine Georgia morning, Tom Float came out to rehearsal to see the new drill I just designed and taught. Well, for some reason, I thought it was a good idea to "feature" that huge drumline 12-7-7-6-3, with the massive North drums by putting them IN FRONT OF THE HORNLINE in the second tune. I really thought he was going to kill me that day right there at the stadium. So, I re-wrote the drill. In my defense, there were a lot of parameters put on me for the design, some of which I should have resisted. For instance, you'll notice most of the drill has the brass inside the 35s and the interval is at a 2 step. This was supposed to help the sound of the corps. But honestly, it was too tight, especially with the drum line. Did I mention it was HUGE!? Had I been more experienced or smarter, I would have opened it up a bit in a judicious manner. Tom Float also taught me some other design principles. I specifically remember him pointing out that I had way too much negative space in some of the designs and it should have been filled with something. He knew a lot about drum corps in all areas, not just percussion. Through a ton of rewrites and collaboration, we ended up with an entertaining show and the brass and percussion sounded good. Tom got rid of the North drums and the scores began to climb. Once again, I was indebted to Phil Min, Brad Caraway, John Armstrong, Mike Back, and others as we did everything we knew for the members to be successful and we have been lifelong friends ever since.