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Welcome to Rays Inspiring Productions and Life is Better with Music!

Episode One: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss the organization's mission and take a tour of the website showing off some key features created for the community. They dove into future plans for the organization and also what the next episode will be based on!

Welcome to Life is Better with Music!

Episode Two: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International returning for its 50th Anniversary Tour tomorrow June 24th after the 2020 season was canceled and the 2021 half-season. They dove into each Drum Corps to see if they have had a Show Announcement yet along with any repertoire. They looked into each Drum Corps to see if they have had any major staff changes and how that may change how the Drum Corps performs this season. Every Drum Corps had a different way of dealing with the last two seasons making this a year that is hard to estimate. With all of this being taken into account they discussed how they think each Drum Corps will perform this year with Competitive Drum Corps being back. Welcome back Competitive DCI for its 50th Anniversary Tour!

Welcome to Life is Better with Music!

Episode Three: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International's first few competitive performances this year from the west coast and the DCI Tour Premiere. They took a closer look at scores and how they all compare overall from coast to coast as of today's standings also saying how they feel about the outcomes so far. They also dove into a few uniforms and more show designs that have been released and discussed how they think these tie together. Clips of the first few performances were watched and they compared how the performances went up against 2019 and/or 2021. In the end, they discussed a special guest coming on next week's episode along with what you'll see in the coming weeks!

Welcome to Life is Better with Music!

Episode Four: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International's first week back in competition since 2019. They viewed all the shows from Coast to Coast and compared them overall with the current standings of each Corps. They also dove into how they feel standings should be from their point of view and noticed some interesting placements that sparked conversation. Clips of Corps performances throughout this week were viewed and discussed along with some clips of Colts in the Lot at DCI Muncie. Sadly the special guest could not make it this week but hopefully will hop on in the coming weeks!

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Episode Five: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International's Finals Bubble for this year and how competitive it is going to be. They viewed some clips and the scores from this last week and looked at how they have been growing and how placements are slowly changing. They also dove into DCI Mason with clips of the shows and what they viewed while watching the event in person. Sadly the special guest could not make it this week due to technical problems but hopefully will hop on in the coming week to talk about their background and how they feel the season is going as we slowly approach the halfway mark.

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Episode Six: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International's Halfway point in the season with special guest Kevin Ramirez. Kevin shared his background in the Arts field and gave his opinion on how the season has been going and what he expects to see. They talked about how they feel the second half of the season is going to go in comparison to the first half and what they expect to see. They also dove into past years and how scores went for those years in comparison to this year so far and discussed how Finals is going to be more intense this year than ever. They also viewed scores over the course of this last week along with a few clips and spoke about how these scores will possibly change throughout Texas Tour next week.

Special Guest Kevin Ramirez: Hello, I'm Kevin Ramirez, and I am an avid DCI fan. I'm from Somerset, Kentucky, and have participated in band since the 6th grade playing the Bb Clarinet. Since then, I've participated in middle and high school bands at Southwestern High School and have performed in local community bands. Additionally, I've marched for 4 years in KMEA and have participated in multiple All-Region bands and multiple All-State finals. I currently go to the University of Kentucky pursuing a degree in Computer Science with a mathematics minor.

Welcome to Life is Better with Music!

Episode Seven: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International's Texas Tour and how different the scores turned out to be in comparison to what they expected. They dove into how the finals bubble closed in tight and only has a very tiny window of moving room. They looked ahead to the fall season as Bands of America is starting up soon and talked about how competitions will possibly go leading up to Grand Nationals. They also discussed personal experiences with the groups they have been and will be working with throughout this Summer and Fall.

Welcome to Life is Better with Music!

Episode Eight: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International heading back East on tour and slowly closing in on Finals Week. They looked at scores and videos from the course of this last week and discussed how close some of these scores are. They also dove into how Corps have been placing in comparison to the last competitive season in 2019. They discussed and made a ranking list of estimated placements and captions taking the Top 12 and the first 2 out into account. The home stretch has begun!

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Episode Nine: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International heading into the Home Stretch of the season. They discussed the last week of competitions of World Class Corps as they head into Finals week and where everyone stands. They also took a look at how the season was wrapping up competitively for the Open Class Corps. Our hosts looked at some final clips of our Corps that have been having a pretty positive year and have shocked the DCI World this season. Best of luck to all of the Drum Corps this week as they end their season!

Welcome to Life is Better with Music!

Episode Ten: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International World Championship Prelims Scores! They looked at how close some of these scores really are and how they think they may fair as they finish out this weekend. They also discussed the finals bubble and the surprise of placements between these Corps. They took into account some previous years and what the deciding factors were for the World Champions those years and compared them to the upper 6 Corps this year with how close or far these scores seem to be. Congratulations to all of our amazing Drum Corps on their great performances tonight!

Welcome to Life is Better with Music!

Episode Eleven: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International World Championship Semifinals Scores! They watched these performances live and discussed how they thought the shows went in comparison to the scores given. They also talked about how far they think certain scores should be from one another and how they have been through the season. They also have a rougher estimate for finals night now after seeing our finalist group and the scores from the past two nights. Good luck in Finals to all of our top twelve!

Welcome to Life is Better with Music!

Episode Twelve: Our hosts Gavin Ray and Mitchell Urban discuss Drum Corps International World Championship Finals Scores! They looked at the overall recap and dove into how they thought scores and placements should have gone that night. They also talked about how they felt when the scores were first announced. They closed out Season One and discussed what to expect for Season Two starting next week!