At every competition, a drum corps gets about 11 minutes to strut its stuff.
For Denver’s busy Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps, that means it will have competed for just over 308 minutes by the end of the summer. That is not much time in the spotlight for a group that practices 10 to 12 hours almost every day from Memorial Day through mid-August.
“We spend hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours perfecting that show,” corps director Mark Arnold said. “The show is a kind of a living work of art where it’s constantly changing. We’re constantly improving upon it and making tweaks so that it has the maximum effect on the audience as they watch.”
The corps competes against six other elite corps at 7 p.m. Saturday in the 35th annual Drums Along the Rockies at Invesco Field at Mile High, one of the nation’s top competitions for drum and bugle corps.
Drum major Ryan Kehn, 21, said almost half of the corps’ 128 members debuted with the Blue Knights this summer.
The veteran of three summers, however, was quick to toot their horn.
“There is a much higher talent level throughout the corps than we’ve had in a long time,” he said. “There’s a really strong work ethic this year.”
Some newcomers have performed with other corps; some are getting their first taste. One of the latter is color guard member Lynne Thielen, 17. She started marching and spinning flags, rifles and sabers at Arvada West High School.
“I marched winter guard and marching band,” Thielen said. “My freshman year I marched flute. I saw the color guard girls, and they looked like they were having so much fun. They were dancing. They were all so pretty, and they moved well. I decided that is what I want to do with my time. So I switched.”
Her high school marching career did not prepare her for the demands of a drum corps.
“It’s such a different lifestyle than I have ever encountered,” she said. “It’s taxing, but it’s fun. You have to learn to adjust to anything that gets thrown at you and take it in stride.”
Newcomer Dan Gustad, 19, said his first summer in a drum corps has surprised him in some ways but not in others.
“It is pretty much what I expected just in terms of a daily routine: the same thing over and over every day,” he said. “In terms of how hard it was going to be, there are things that are harder than I thought they would be, like nighttime rehearsals that go on forever.”
Gustad, a sophomore at the Colorado School of Mines, plays the mellophone. He played it for three years with Pomona High’s marching band.
But this is no high school.
“On road, if we have a show, we wake up 8-10 o’clock in the morning,” Gustad said. “We rehearse from 9 till around 4. Then we go do our show, and then we drive to the next city.
“If we don’t have a show, say it’s just a typical all-day rehearsal: wake up and start rehearsing at 9 and get done at 9.”
That striving for perfection is a major reason young people take part in drum corps, Arnold said.
That’s certainly true for Thielen.
She likes “working real hard with tons of people who want to work just as hard to do something well.”
Even so, Thielen had to get used to a few things.
“I wasn’t expecting traveling into a gym at 3 o’clock in the morning to sleep for an hour,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting practicing until midnight.”
And then there is being cramped together with other members all the time.
“You get zero time alone,” Thielen said. “When you’re inside your mind is your alone time.”
Casady and Shannon Campbell, 21-year-old twins from Stillwater, Okla., agreed that it has been a communal summer.
“You have to get along with everyone,” Shannon said.
“Yeah, you’re around the same people 24/7,” Casady said. “You’re either friends or enemies, and it’s better to be friends.”
Talent, hard work and camaraderie already have earned the corps some rewards. It has finished in the top three in all but one of about a dozen completed competitions.
But they’re still working toward that perfect 11 minutes.
Staff writer Ed Will can be reached at 303-820-1694 or ewill@denverpost.com.
Drums Along the Rockies
DRUM CORPS|Invesco Field at Mile High, 1701 Bryant St., 7 p.m. Saturday|$15-$80|303-830-8497 or ticketmaster.com
