The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: August twelfth, saying, "Let the summer music games begin."

With much fanfare, the 27th annual Summer Music Games start this afternoon at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin. It's the national championship of the Drum and Bugle Corps.

For the uninformed, these are no mere marching bands. Each unit consists of up to 128 musicians aged 14 to 21 who have honed their eleven and a half minute routines to perfection.

With no strings attached and playing at tempos up to two hundred beats a minute, these young musicians perform on a variety of silver bugles and various percussion instruments. Whirling and spinning to specially scored arrangements, more likely composed by Ellington and Shostakovich than John Phillip Sousa, they create a wall of sound. Simultaneously, a tightly coordinated color guard executes intricate routines, spinning huge flags and doing grand jetes across the field with more military precision than any football halftime show. 

Drum and bugle is a passion which consumes thousands of Americans each summer. Each of the 100 or so units that will compete over the next five days have won the right to be here in a series of regional championships that have filled stadiums across the country all summer. Band members have drilled up to ten hours a day six days a week all summer on a single piece. Their supporters have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to sustain them on the six-week tour. Talent and tension run high. If you can't make it to Madison for the finals this Saturday night, tune in your local public television station. You'll be glad you did.

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