Drum and Bugle Corps

Larry McCormick, visionary behind early drum corps educational videos, dies at 88

Larry McCormick: Percussionist. Teacher. Arranger. Entrepreneur. In all of those areas he was one thing above all — An innovator.

The 2000 Drum Corps International Hall of Fame inductee died on July 16 at the age of 88. His passing was reported by son Scott on Facebook.

A Chicagoland native, McCormick marched in The Cavaliers drum lines of the mid-1950s. He became the arranger and primary instructor from 1962 through 1971. He also composed for and taught the Madison Scouts during that time.

“Larry’s charts for the day were extremely musical,” says DCI Hall of Fame member Dennis DeLucia. “His use of rudimental tonal bass drums was revolutionary for the time, and his writing inspired me when I started to write charts because I felt comfortable doing things that hadn’t been done before.”

Even this brass-oriented author remembers listening to the 1966 American Legion Nationals record for the first time and hearing the tuned descending “boom, bada-ba, boom…” of The Cavaliers’ bass drums and thinking, “whoa, that’s cool and different.”

McCormick was not only a visionary in the percussion world, he was also out front when it came to increasing the focus on the educational aspects of doing drum corps and marching band.

“He was a decade ahead in the use of video for education,” says DCI Hall of Fame member Tom Blair, who worked for McCormick at the start of his TV production career. “He first used it teaching his own groups but saw its potential as a broader educational tool.”

“McCormick’s ‘How To’ series brought corps style techniques in color guard, percussion, marching and show design to every band room in the country,” Blair added. “Those seeds helped sow the first great competitive marching bands of the ‘70s with awareness, proper techniques and inspiration.”

McCormick launched Marching Bands of America in 1975, which became Bands of America and now operates under the banner of Music For All. He credits the inspiration for and success of starting the organization to his marching music upbringing as well as his closest loved ones.

“Both the Lord and The Cavaliers guided my life journey in the founding and creation of the Bands of America national organization,” McCormick recounted while being honored as a 2023 recipient of The Cavaliers’ Adolph DeGrauwe Legacy Award. “Likely that would have not happened had it not been for the support of my wife Joy, and our 65 years of blessed marriage.”

Thanks to McCormick’s vision, marching bands have a national championship and full-blown video productions. The judging system he promoted evolved to allow the best adjudicators to move freely from DCI to BOA. The worlds of drum corps and marching bands move forward more closely aligned thanks to the foundation created by him.

In his memory, the McCormick family has established the Larry McCormick Family Legacy Fund for Music Education through the Central Indiana Community Foundation.