I played the p/r Olds Duratone baritone in 77-78 Blue Knights, a King 2-piston silverplated bari in Sky Ryders 79, a DEG dynasty 2-piston bari in Blue Stars 80, and a "chrome" or "nickel") in 82 Freelancers. I now own 10 G-Bugles : Getzen p/r Soprano, Getzen p/r Baby Contra (from the Yooper Shriners), King silver 2-piston Bari (from Sky Ryders), and a FULL SET of Olds p/r: Contra, Ultratone,(from Colorado Springs garagesale) Bari, Duratone (from Blue Knights), French Horn, Ultratone (new-old-stock with papers, never played before me), Mellophone, Ultratone (from Great Falls Golden Sky-Liners) Mellophone, Duratone (needs rotor honed) Fluegel , Duratone (my favorite !) Soprano,Ultratone. You did a really good job describing things. The physical differences between the 70s and the 20s horns are dwarfed by the cultural chasm between the activity in the past Half-Century.

G bugles are cool

G bulges do produce more sound mostly due to the larger bore size of the instrument which allows the player to push a greater volume of air through the horn. Couple this with the primarily outdoor use of the horn in which we were trained how to pump out large volumes of air when playing them. Another difference I noticed in G vs. Bb was that it was easier to play in the upper register on G than on a Bb, and conversely, it was easier to play in the lower register on a Bb than on a G.i played my entire drum corps playing career (1987-2009) on G Bugles (2 valves, then 3) and found the G easier to play on after playing a Bb for the first time in 2010 (the first time I picked up a Bb instrument since 1989).

The first DCI show I ever went to was semifinals 1994. I was there for the last 6 years of G bugles and I still attend live shows to this day. IMO there is no comparison when listening to a live hornline. G's were so much louder it's not even close. A buddy of mine marched 99 BD and listening to them play Star Was ridiculous. No one today even comes close.

G Bugles aren’t only louder but you also Felt the sound. The Spirit of Atlanta was practicing in a small high school stadium in ‘79 or ‘80 and shattered the glass in the press box!!! I played a chrome plated Contra with a valve and a rotor with the Reading Buccaneers (DCA) in the early 1980’s. I miss that special sound. You can watch it on KZfaq but watching a Drumcorps show on video and watching it live are like night and day. Oh well what ya gonna do. Keep up the Great work!!! -Nick Giardiello

14:17 A lot of this is because the single valved bugle is a “tenor” bugle rather than a Soprano. The “tenor” bugles back then had the same amount of tubing as a soprano but with a bigger bore and bell.

I hope BAC considers selling more of their G bugles. Unfortunate they’re not making 2 valve, the Marine DBC had custom 2 valve bugles from Kanstul. Their contras had an extra thumb trigger to lower the pitch another half step and allowed them to sound an A-flat. Also your Slingerland is likely a stencil horn produced by someone like Conn or Olds. They were sold as package deals with their marching drums.

Nice post with good info. I marched 1975 and 1976 with Guardsmen drum and bugle corps. We had valve and rotor. I think in 77 the transition to two valves starting with the sopranos. Phased in due to having to get new bugles. I played trumpet in high school. For Guardsmen 1975 Flugle Bugle, 1976 Soprano. Too many corps are gone now. Thanks you all members of corps past and present for your hard work doing this great activity! 😊🎉❤

In Germany, we still got Lots of Corps with G Bugles

The 1 valve bugle was also called a G/D bugle and the "tuba" is a contrabass. I played a valve/rotar and 2 valve baritone when I started marching in the last years of the G bugle and the first year DCA allowed the Bb horns. I honestly prefer the ease of playing the G bugles, but it was much easier to tune the Bb horns.

9:08 - “A lot of the veterans… not all of them… but a lot of the veterans weren’t actual musicians…” Ouch! That likely unintentional critique brings back a few rough memories, but I get your point. 😊 Anyway, your comment was a bit of a leap in that the military occupation specialty (MOS) for veterans that used those, let’s all them “legacy bugles” was: MOS-5591 (Field Music Bugler) MOS-5574 (Bugler - Soprano/Mellophone) etc., to name just a few. Many of those musicians (like myself) graduated from the Armed Forces School of Music (Little Creek/Norfolk Virginia), and so by definition they were trained, professional musicians. They would go on to play important roles in the American Legion/VFW circuits that ultimately gave birth to the idea of competitive drum and bugle corps. The idea of playing on those challenging instruments in competition was mostly to hold on to tradition, to maintain the uniqueness of the genre itself, and the unique instrumentation of those marching brass and percussion ensembles. Keep in mind that the military maintained its music programs (from long before Sousa) along with the popular drum & bugle corps. The Commandant’s Own (U.S. Marine Drum & Bugle Corps) is the last of its kind (not sure if the Air Force Academy Drum & Bugle Corps still exists). 🤔 I marched in the USMC (85-89), just before they consolidated the last two (of three) of their drum corps (in Albany, GA and Twenty-nine Palms, CA) down into one, “The Commandant’s Own” in Washington, D.C. I also marched as a teen (late 70s to early 80s) when the drum corps activity was severely marginalized (berated) by the “real musicians” in the marching band (many of which were doing “corps style shows), and the larger world of music education in general. It was pretty brutal being told by many a band director to stay away from those drum corps that didn’t even use “real” instruments. Nonetheless, being a trumpet player before marching in drum corps, those hard to control horns (intonation, etc.) made me a MUCH better trumpet player and performer. 😊

I was born far too late to march any G bugle corps, but I got obsessed with old-school drum corps in high school, and eventually purchased an old 3v Kanstul G mellophone bugle (early-pattern, with the twisted third valve slide!) for use alongside my section of F mellos in my senior year of high school. It’s a bastard instrument, and I say that affectionately. It’s capable of stunning raw power, but its intonation (like many other mellos, F and G alike) can be iffy, particularly on the fifth partial, necessitating alternate fingerings. It sounds phenomenal when blown hard, and can be heard for several city blocks! However, that can make it harder to use indoors because of its unbelievable projection; it’s difficult to record because it’s so loud, even when playing softly. I did manage to record three-part harmonies with it on my song “To My Sisters” (which can be found on my channel!), during the last third or so of the song, but it’s somewhat buried in the mix. Overall, I love the sound of G bugles, but they can be difficult to tame in comparison with modern Bb/F marching brass, which by comparison nearly “play themselves”. But I wouldn’t trade my G mellophone bugle for that - there’s so much character to G bugles that modern Bb/F brass sometimes seems to lack. Not to mention the G soprano bugle having a full minor third of lower range as compared with the Bb trumpet!

I marched 96-99, at the end of the G bugle era, playing Dynasty mellophones. You were onto something with the weight of the instrument, contributing to the sound: bugles were louder in large part due to that weight. Pedagogically, we were also encouraged to aim for a more highly-focused sound than is usually desirable in a concert setting, which I don't think translates well on instruments not built specifically for outdoor projection.

I think the reason why that 1-valve bugle sounds less bright is because it's a tenor bugle, one of the earliest additions to the hornline alongside the baritone bugle. It's one of the middle-voiced horns (tenor, alto, flügelhorn, french horn, meehaphone, and mellophone). Most of these horns gradually fell out favor until the mello is the only middle voiced horn in the hornline. Its size also kinda gives it away. I'm also in no way an expert about G bugles (I'm a drummer although I wanna learn a brass instrument.). I happened to have went down really deep into this rabbit hole lol.

I have been wanting this kind of video forever, trying to find bugle information on my own has been tough lol

I never played a horn. But in my ears the stronger louder Flugel sounding G-bugle pushed a cooler sound to the audience. So maybe that's why corps are micing to get more sound to the audience. You are right it's a business move away from your g-bugle. To be honest I thought when they did make the change, it was because You could play the way music was Ritten better. I loved your post thanks for the information. For my ears the G-bugle was better.

I marched one of those chrome FE Olds Ultratone 2 valve baritones 94 and 95. Went to a silver Dynasty 3 valve horn in 96. The weight difference was huge. The silver horn sounded louder to me when I played it. I always wondered if that olds was louder out the bell than the dynasty.

Oh.. I saw the late great Maynard Ferguson three times. When we were young we digged his super high notes!

You could not get fully chromatic scales on a 2-valved horn unless you started from the A natural in the staff. From that point down, you HAD to have a 3rd valve to play Ab, Eb, D, or C#. ABOVE the staff you could play notes normally requiring a 3rd valve....Ab above the staff, for example, was 1st valve and push the 1st valve tuning slide all the way in.

Thanks for this description of horns, and all the other info you have online about corps. I don’t see an opportunity to comment on a different drum corps issue so I’ll put it here: I'm wondering if you and others feel as I do that the expansion of the pit has become a bit too much. I think the collection of vibes, xylophones, tympani and other percussion adds a lot, but there are just too many of them now. A show can be enhanced with some of this, used strategically; but it need not be such a major focus of a corps as it is now. Especially when a corps does a standing concert it has become like a vibraphone band with some horns and drums backing them - visually and musically it detracts from the performance. A couple years ago at Tanglewood this is what it seemed like, and it's what it's like whenever I hear a corps playing in concert. I'm going to the Crusaders' Concert in the Park this week, bringing some friends who are novices and I fear they'll miss out on the essence of what a drum corps is - Crusaders will do a standing performance of their show before taking it on the road. In addition to the musical/visual effect, all these extra instruments and people are making the activity more expensive. When we're losing iconic corps (Cadets, Vanguard) because of the difficulty of raising enough money, we need to be thinking about our priorities and how we can efficiently use the dollars we have. When a corps gets reborn after a hiatus (Blue Stars, Madison, Troopers, etc.) they don’t have much of a pit yet, showing it takes extra $$ they don’t yet have. I'm not an old-timey purist, don’t want just horns and battery; but it's a matter of scale, and it seems to have gotten a bit too swollen up front. Do you agree?

Hearing a D below the staff coming from a bugle that sounds like a modern trumpet is just bizarre to me. 😂

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about the topic is that the individual differences in sound between keyed instruments equates to a significant difference for the change in the group as a whole. But this doesn't pan out when we consider the overlap of voices in a family. Frankly, a lot of brass sounds like a lot of brass in any "key". It seems to me that it's the addition of valves that caused the G to be disused. With the extension of range into the lower register through additional valve combinations (as the key was intended to push the range higher for fewer combinations), the purpose of the lower key center became unnecessary. They could have just skipped the 3 valve G and gone directly to common Bb/F horns. I played 3 valve G horns in my time... but I quite honestly had and have no bias toward or against them. I find them simply unnecessary, given the rules permitting 3 valves. That ruling in the early 90s pretty much sealed the deal for Bb 10 years later. It just took some time for everyone to realize the logic vs. the adherence to tradition. Nice video!

They're beautiful. I was lucky to play one for many years.

I listened to some shows from the last year of the g bugles and from the first year of the Bb-F instruments and the quality of sound was vastly improved by using the new instruments. Probably because those are the instruments that they had the most experience playing and were most comfortable with. Although, to be fair, I could just be biased toward the sound of the modern instruments because that is what I am used to hearing.

Nicely done. Very informative. I miss the G horns and I think they were great for the field venue. But this video gives a lot of valid economic reasons for the change.

When I started in Corps in 91, I was given a 3 valve Dynasty G Soprano made of chrome. It was like playing on a bathroom faucet. The 3 valves had just been released. My last year in 96, I was playing on a 3 valve G Soprano made by Kanstul. Much better!! I DO not like the way Corps has gone now paying whatever instrument they choose. The key of G was so bright. B flat just doesn't sound the same on the field.

Can't spell Dynasty without nasty. Never liked the DEG horns. I played a Kanstul 5/4 contra (200G in their catalog) my last three years, and it was a beautiful horn to play. Key of G or not.

Very informative !! Thanks. Have some bugles myself, but now i can at least identify them.

The biggest change is actually the difference between playing G vs Bb. Playing a G bugle is more like a French Horn than a trumpet because you are an octave higher in the harmonic series of the horn than you are with a Bb instrument.

Great video and nice sound. Even though it has been a while I could still hear the difference.

Excellent video. But, the G/F horn, meaning a horizontal valve with rotor was introduced in 68 or 69 not 70 as you said, minor difference I know. Before that there were D rotors on some horns. But when they decided to introduce the 2 vertical valve horn that freed up a huge amount of space for a large main tuning slide. That's something earlier horns didn't have. I would always tell people that the reason lines started sounding better after 77 was a larger tuning capacity. Then after the tune any note was introduced but you still had to have that main slide in it's proper place. I very well could be wrong about the D rotor I was 9 at the time just starting out.

Many issues with this video: - You did not discuss the whole step F rotor or step and a half E rotors. - Zig Kanstul worked for Olds, then Benge, then King (before the CKB merger) - Dynasty began selling 3 valve G bugles in 1977 to the international community. - The single piston horn you have is a tenor bugle, so your direct comparisons to the 3V sop will be wrong no matter what. You should get a single piston or piston/rotor soprano in order to properly compare the two eras. - Big instrument manufacturers were partly responsible for the switch to Bb by refusing to make cost comparable G bugles and offering competitive "buy now, pay later" contracts which allowed corps to buy Bb hornlines on credit at a steep discount and sell them for a profit. - You also missed most of the development of the various other voices and completely ignored the creativity and ingenuity of designers in the 1970s and 1980s that created entire orchestral offerings of bugles: piccolo soprano, soprano, alto soprano, flugelhorn, French horn, baritone, euphonium, contrabass, plus boutique voices such as the cellophone, Meehaphone, low alto (1990s), and the last major bugle design created in the mid 90s, the 4 valve contrabass, which is the lowest pitched mass produced "tuba" voice ever built, with a chromatic range to A0 (pedal is G0).

Hawthorne Caballeros Alumni still play g bugles.

Glad you made this video like you said you wanted to in your last news video. Looking forward to your next news video in light of cadets news

1992 Madison had F horns. I think It was the first year with 3 valve horns supplied by Yamaha. If I remember correctly.

Unmentioned were the very odd instruments from the 80's, such as the trombonium. It would be great to see that covered in a future video. Also, wonder what your thoughts would be on that this evolution of instruments mirrors the evolution of musical expression in drum corps itself, from bugle calls to marches, to music for performance to music in service to a performative art. I believe this evolution may in some ways mirror the evolution of western music, if you substitute church (religion) for country (patriotism). Some of this is hinted at in this: Ritualized Performance and Community Identity: A Historical Examination of Drum Corps Competition in the United States by Denise Odello

G sounded like its own thing designed for a specific purpose. Bb/F just sounds like an imitation of that that doesn’t quite work 🤷‍♂

I'd heard about but had never seen the bugles with the tune-every-note slide, so that was cool to see. BD first used them in 1984, and Gail Royer tried to get BD disqualified the night before finals for using them. Wayne Downey and the 80s staff talks about it in BD's "Through the Years, the 80s" dvd. Always fun to hear Wayne lol. Love your videos, CJ.

It seems doubtful there would be much success in hiding a valve or trigger from the American Legion in those days, or the days of Tony S. However it would make sense that even as much as having a "nice" look to it, it was in attempt to keep it looking like a bugle. Even up into the 70's the judging sheets call them "bugles" not "brass." BTW it's not just accidentals being able to played with "slide slipping" technique. Many bugle lines were doing full glissandos in those days.

I’m like 95% certain that 3V soprano is silver plated.

I ❤ my Kanstul horn 🥳📯

Thank you! I wanna know the Fire between these, I've never heard G bugles

It's easier to lip trill on the G because you are higher in the overtone series. The pedal tone should also be fairly easy on the big single piston G. Projection is easier on the G Bugle due to the larger bell and flare. If it's a Power bore Kanstul then it's a huge .470" bore. And no, the Cornet and G bugle didn't really sound that similar. The last Dynasty Bugles were total crap and not even built in the US. I was there and have taught marching band since. The G Bugles were louder, darker, and projected better. Built specifically for that exact purpose. Modern brass isn't built for the sole purpose of playing outdoors. They're just modified versions of indoor concert brass. Wanna hear what the G's sounded like but with modern Bb horns? Easy. Put a G soprano bell on a .470" bore trumpet. That'll get you really close.

Is there some in-between for the G bugles and trumpets that gives the warmth and volume but also the flexibility? If so, why don't people use that?

Scooter!

I got 4/4 correct!

42 minutes ago, newborn ahh video ☠️💝

I actually mixed up the 3-valve and trumpet lol One thing I've always wondered about the G era: was there any difference between sopranos and mellophones besides the tone quality? Obviously, modern modern F mellos sit between the baritone and trumpet for that "horn-esque" alto voice, but did the G mello fill an equivalent role despite being in the same key? And if so, were the players just forced to use the 3rd valve (once it was added) a lot to play lower notes? Did the instrument manufacturers compensate for this? How did pre-3-valve mellos handle this?

Is that background music Cadets 1991 or 1999?

Why do you consider A 3 valve marching tuba more like a bugle than a true Bb instrument? Just wondering......

is there any way to get the G sound without the poor intonation?

Why is that slide soooo far out?

I need “I Don’t Support DCI” to watch this video

Chrome is Nickel. Horns these days are silver plated. Conicity? You mean bore taper. Cornets start with smaller bores at the throat of the lead pipe receiver than a soprano bugle which starts the size of a trumpet. Usually somewhere between .460" and .470". Trumpets are no longer truly cylindrical as they were originally. But the taper is much smaller between the receiver and bell crook.