Day 52: Quiberon, France

So right now, I am on fall break, and I am spending mine in Quiberon with my friend Yohann.  Yohann marched in the Madison Scouts in 2004 and he founded the first drum corps in France, Kadoudal, in 2008.  I will be spending some time the next few days working with his group.  They are only in their third year, but they are off to a pretty good start.  Here is a video of them from the 2011 DCE Finals:

They are quite small, as you can see, but the biggest European drum corps only have maybe 60-70 members.  This group is made of kids between the ages of 8 and 16, so it is quite different.  During lunch, we went to Yohann's house and ate pizza and salad.  It was most good.

Yohann working with Clement, one of the 6 trumpet players.  Clement is basically a pro.  He has been playing for several weeks.

 
Yohann is struggling to generate interest for his group, basically because drum corps is hard, and French people don't like to work.  His group is growing, though, and there is a possibility of another drum corps forming nearby. 

Me teaching(clapping at) the mellophones.  Rehearsing here is basically the same as in the USA, except instead of saying "again" in between clappings you say "encore".

The group is very young, and has a ton of room to improve, but overall, I was very impressed.  They are all very willing to learn, and apply new information really well.  I think that Yohann has a great system in place, and hopefully soon, the group will really take off. 

After we finished teaching, we went to Yohann's brother's house and spent the evening there.  Yvan turned 42 today.  I don't quite completely understand what he does, but it has something to do with a bugle and a horse.  It was a really nice evening.  We had appetizers and snacks and then eclairs and cake for desert.  I also had multiple glasses of good champagne.  It may have tasted so good because it was mixed with raspberry liqueur.  My last glass was with a lavender liqueur.  It was a little weird, but good.