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Question on scores and judging


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Just a small question on how exactly corps are judged - Lets say hypothetically, that this year's top 12 corps played their programs completely and utterly perfectly. Every rifle was caught, every move was in time, every page of drill was perfect, and every note was played completely in tune and with the most balanced sound and with the perfect intonation... ect ect.

What would happen with placement/scores? Would the scores become based purely off of the program design/difficulty? I only say this because it is just ridiculous how good the top 5 (and to a lesser extent all the corps) are every year. Owning the DVD's and having watched every corps multiple times it just astounds me how clean and balanced their shows are.

Im not trying to start any "Corps X was soooo much better than Corps Y" here, but there has to be a point where corps become so good that the judging gets, well, funky. Looking at Bluecoats, Cavaliers, and Blue Devils, I honestly have no clue how the Devils took the colorguard caption, and if bluecoats took it, I wouldnt have a clue how they got it either because all three of them had just fantastic colorguards.

Any enlightenment?

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Design. Design creates the ceiling. You can perform crap perfectly but all you have is perfect crap. Those corps that do well max out their superior show designs.

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(flame retardant suit on)

I am going to respectfully disagree on this. I still believe that the corps "name" influences the judges, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. If you put the top 12 corps on a field on Finals night, with a panel of judges that didn't know what the corps' programs were, announced them as "Corps A, Corps B", etc. and the kids performed in shorts and tee shirts, I would be willing to bet that the outcome would be different than what it was. The same goes for almost any show during the season. During the course of any season, we sometimes may see two, three or even four corps that could switch placement on any given night if competing head to head. Usually by the time the week before Finals, one begins to pull away and the rest are fighting for position among the next x number of positions. Occasionally, there is a "surprise" during the championships, but it's usually a case of one of the top two or three leapfrogging over another. How many times have you seen a "6th" or "7th" place corps beat one of those top corps? It's not possible that earier in the season, one of the top corps has a really "off" night, and one of those lower tier corps has the show of their lives? To give an example, for the past few years, when DCI's schedule comes out, I look up the "local" shows to see what the dates are and who's performing in it. At that time, I tell my wife what the order of finish will be-and I have been pretty much spot on-before the corps have even had their audition camps! I am certainly no musical expert, but if I can predict the outcome 7 or 8 months before the corps even hit the field, I have to believe that there is some aspect of slotting happening with the judges-intentional or not. All of this is, of course, IMHO. FWIW, I have enjoyed some of the programs and performances from corps 13 and lower more than those of the top corps. Maybe we should just do away with the scores, judges, save some money, and let the corps just play!

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(flame retardant suit on)

I am going to respectfully disagree on this. I still believe that the corps "name" influences the judges, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. If you put the top 12 corps on a field on Finals night, with a panel of judges that didn't know what the corps' programs were, announced them as "Corps A, Corps B", etc. and the kids performed in shorts and tee shirts, I would be willing to bet that the outcome would be different than what it was. The same goes for almost any show during the season. During the course of any season, we sometimes may see two, three or even four corps that could switch placement on any given night if competing head to head. Usually by the time the week before Finals, one begins to pull away and the rest are fighting for position among the next x number of positions. Occasionally, there is a "surprise" during the championships, but it's usually a case of one of the top two or three leapfrogging over another. How many times have you seen a "6th" or "7th" place corps beat one of those top corps? It's not possible that earier in the season, one of the top corps has a really "off" night, and one of those lower tier corps has the show of their lives? To give an example, for the past few years, when DCI's schedule comes out, I look up the "local" shows to see what the dates are and who's performing in it. At that time, I tell my wife what the order of finish will be-and I have been pretty much spot on-before the corps have even had their audition camps! I am certainly no musical expert, but if I can predict the outcome 7 or 8 months before the corps even hit the field, I have to believe that there is some aspect of slotting happening with the judges-intentional or not. All of this is, of course, IMHO. FWIW, I have enjoyed some of the programs and performances from corps 13 and lower more than those of the top corps. Maybe we should just do away with the scores, judges, save some money, and let the corps just play!

Sometimes corps are required to "prove themselves" to move up. A corps could be better on a given night but before a judge will move that corps above a more consistent top-tier corps, they'll ask the corps to outperform said well-known corps on a consistent basis.

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Sometimes corps are required to "prove themselves" to move up. A corps could be better on a given night but before a judge will move that corps above a more consistent top-tier corps, they'll ask the corps to outperform said well-known corps on a consistent basis.

I would not be surprised if this happens. I actually feel this happens in Championship and Olympic figure skating.

BTW....I don't agree with this method of judging (if it does occur). The system doesn't say anything about having to prove or outperform....

If you perform better....you should score better....and place higher.

To me...the best change they can make to the judging system is....take points away from the most subjective areas and place these points in the technical captions/sub-captions

Edited by Triple Forte
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Just a small question on how exactly corps are judged - Lets say hypothetically, that this year's top 12 corps played their programs completely and utterly perfectly. Every rifle was caught, every move was in time, every page of drill was perfect, and every note was played completely in tune and with the most balanced sound and with the perfect intonation... ect ect.

What would happen with placement/scores?

(flame retardant suit on)

I am going to respectfully disagree on this. I still believe that the corps "name" influences the judges, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. If you put the top 12 corps on a field on Finals night, with a panel of judges that didn't know what the corps' programs were, announced them as "Corps A, Corps B", etc. and the kids performed in shorts and tee shirts, I would be willing to bet that the outcome would be different than what it was.

Sometimes corps are required to "prove themselves" to move up. A corps could be better on a given night but before a judge will move that corps above a more consistent top-tier corps, they'll ask the corps to outperform said well-known corps on a consistent basis.

Read this: Competitive Inertia

EDIT: for typo

Edited by Bruckner8
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I'm reminded of a certain year where a certain corp's front ensemble stood on top of their respective keyboards for the final hit of their show and crashed their hearts out with their cymbals! It made a certain percussion judge put them in last for quarter-finals for just being appalled by the "disgraceful" way they were treating their instruments. A different judge had semi's and finals, and gave them a score in the top five bracket in percussion for semi's. Unfortunately, that different judge was told by his mentor - who just so happened to be the same certain percussion judge from quarter-finals - that he cannot give a drumline such a high score when treating instruments so badly. Come finals - the different percussion judge dropped them drasticly from his semi's to finals placement.

All this talk about judging just reminded me of this "CERTAIN" story. Sorry if I'm not with the subject of the post completely, but just had to share the story. I couldn't resist.

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There's another aspect that we seldom discuss. That is how good programming highlights good performance (and perhaps hides flaws).

Cavies are among the best at this, designing their programs so that your eyes naturally focus where the program is peaking. Cadets 09 was an unfortunate example of the opposite; excellence in marching and playing was offset by an overly busy program which didn't give adequate opportunity to maximize appreciation.

This isn't just an audience issue. It's a judging issue too. The judges can't see everywhere. Like the audience, they focus sequentially. The program that maximizes appreciation deserves reward.

This is among the reasons why I'm okay with programming factoring into the judging. Not only is it fundamental to our enjoyment of the activity, it's highly preferable to the alternative. I don't want to see every corps marching the same show. Or worse, I don't want to reduce the shows to a series of common exercises in order to get competitive equity.

HH

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design drives the score... even if you execute perfectly, you can't get a 10 in the execution subcaption unless your "content" is 9.7+, IMO.

Is it really that unreasonable to think that a corps would sometimes put out a 7.5ish content wise but perform at a 9? If someone knows of any scores like this please feel free to post them.

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I'm reminded of a certain year where a certain corp's front ensemble stood on top of their respective keyboards for the final hit of their show and crashed their hearts out with their cymbals! It made a certain percussion judge put them in last for quarter-finals for just being appalled by the "disgraceful" way they were treating their instruments. A different judge had semi's and finals, and gave them a score in the top five bracket in percussion for semi's. Unfortunately, that different judge was told by his mentor - who just so happened to be the same certain percussion judge from quarter-finals - that he cannot give a drumline such a high score when treating instruments so badly. Come finals - the different percussion judge dropped them drasticly from his semi's to finals placement.

All this talk about judging just reminded me of this "CERTAIN" story. Sorry if I'm not with the subject of the post completely, but just had to share the story. I couldn't resist.

When did this happen? Your can keep the corps nameless if you like. I'm siding with the judges that put them down if they did in fact stand on their instruments. There's got to be some technique penalty for standing on your stuff. And that judge that put them up in the semis needed to be realigned before finals.

The whole story sounds fishy to me though since recently judges are not repeated from night to night. especially not semi's to finals.

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