Courtesy of the Star Tribune
As the participants of Drum Corps take the field few consider the serious inevitabilities of Drum Corps – back problems, feet problems, and hearing loss. Despite our inevitable search for “loud, louder, and loudest” the program still has yet to focus on a wide variety of issues that takes the use out of our whole bodies. Just as football players have increased their protection over the years, it is time for Drum Corps as a whole activity to do the same and to require safer performances and technique to be used.
One of the biggest negative impacts that Drum Corps has on the health of its participants is hearing loss, drum corps can be one of the worst sports to compete in in terms of hearing and longevity of hearing. As students play louder and harder, we find that their hearing gets affected even more. The ones who experience the most problems are percussionists as when they play loud they have constant popping in their ears, and once they wear hearing protection their hearing worsens even more because they play louder in order to compensate which also can hurt their bodies in the long run, as mentioned by Sara Neumann in “Hearing Conservation Programs for Drum and Bugle Corps: Implications for Educational Audiologists”. This phenomenon as discussed in the paper only creates harder problems for corps to mitigate and to push away from the corps as a whole. When we look at another study, done by Joseph Keefe, entitled “Noise Exposure Associated with Marching and Pep Bands” which does not study drum corps, but instead a high school and college marching band, the results that came back were deafening. In an indoor performance with Duke University, which is generally quieter (produces less decibels) than a Drum Corps, we see that the entire band experiences 295% the decibels, or loudness that is approved by OSHA. This doesn’t seem terrible because it could just be for the few times that they are playing. However, this is the average decibel level over a 150 minute period. Drum Corps, which produce more decibels, are on the field and playing their instrument every day, for 90 days from sun up to sun down, averaging 8 – 9 hours of rehearsal a day. The potential hearing loss from drum corps exceeds that of a college and high school marching band yet there still isn’t a rule or committee that requires a certain threshold of hearing levels.
Courtesy of Drumman
Many individual marchers report the same problems, years after marching they still suffer from pain in their joints and backs from the posture required to look “professional.” Many people choose on their own not continue or to go home halfway through the season due to pain and many times corps under estimate how many “sub” marchers they need – marchers that prepare to be called on a moment’s notice, with many corps recruiting marchers through Facebook or the likes. Sometimes, even these replacement marchers even get injured simply due to conditioning and the fact that they’re just being thrown in, sometimes having to learn and perform the show in as little as two days. Marchers continue to be blindsided by staff by being given under trained medical staff or not enough; it seems like the health of the kids is still not corps’ number one priority. We can mitigate these problems by teaching and training the kids that you will not lose your spot if you sit out for a rehearsal or a show. Of course, the stigma behind it, as described in Zdzinski paper “Contributions of Drum Corps Participation to the Quality of Life of Drum Corps Alumni” is a huge problem, as it is one of the biggest influencers in personal distress and the biggest issues people have while marching drum corps. It seems like one of the biggest ways to change the risk factor is changing the culture behind drum corps.
Lauren Pape
A huge effect that drum corps has on its members is also quality of life factors. As a study, entitled “Contributions of Drum Corps Participation to the Quality of Life of Drum Corps Alumni” written by Stephen Zdzinski. One of the biggest quality of life changes that members suffer from is missing their family while they’re on tour. As students leave their families over the summer for 90 or more days they, obviously, eventually get home sick. As Stephen Zdzinski explains in his research paper, corps need to focus on hiring staff who are also trained to help emotionally; sometimes a call home to mom doesn’t help, as he also found out that the most stressful thing for people on tour is actually the fellow tour members as there may be drama or simply just not liking someone. The best way to mitigate these problems is to have trained staff on board who have dealt with psychological problems before. Zdzinski however found that drum corps, without staff to help for mental issues did make students “stronger” and the amount of happy successful adults who came from Drum Corps was much higher than that of the national average and the median income of 77 randomly selected drum corps alumni was $49,000 and most had their Bachelors or higher, most also still support the community. The reason this is significant the Zdzinski is because despite the possible slight loss of quality of life inspired by Drum Corps, it is gained back once members return home and even then they feel like they grow from it. However, currently the issue is making sure that students have a safe, judgement free environment that doesn’t cause unnecessary stress as also mentioned by Zdzinski, which can be mitigated through staff and training.
As these problems in the corps get more exposed, we see the parent organization and board (Drum Corps International) pushing back against the individual organizations.
Kyle Monroe
In the current season, the board voted on requiring stronger support for Drum Corps’ members by the individual drum corps, the incentive for Drum Corps to follow through with these new rules is the ability to still compete in the World Class circuit. All of these changes will go into effect into the 2018 season, hopefully causing less people from dropping out and harming themselves on the long run through more active and aware medical staff. Training for corps should also increase on preventative measures such as stretching more cautiously and preparing for the day with longer and more full warmups, students will be able to stay longer and work harder and also know when to stop at a safe place before injuring themselves for longer.
chrisbernhardt 