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WGI, Time for a change?-


drumguy50

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And percussionist have no one but themselves to lay the credit (or blame) upon; because that ballet ("sissy dancing" as some call it) direction is due to the nature of the indoor percussion activity being historically driven by, and historically underneath the banner of, Winter *Guard* International, and not Winter *Percussion* International.

very few are complaining. I do some, but not because of the amount, but that so much of it looks the same from group to group.

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Nowhere on the judging sheets is there an indication on what type of movement has to be performed or what type of music has to be played; so according to the sheets there just needs to be a qualitative combination of music, drill, visual, and GE no matter the style for a unit to win. However, the people driving the WGI percussion bus, BOA, and to some extent DCI are now completely fixated on ballet movement type GE (ie what some call sissy moves). And even though the sheets are neutral, where any style *should* be able to win if it is performed better than all other groups, I doubt very seriously that, for example, the best show-band drum line in the world, which happened to perform their dance movements better than the ballet moves of MCM, and played their music better than RCC, would ever place anywhere near the top in WGI, or in BOA, or DCI for that matter. Go ahead, show me my error; where in the judges sheets does it state that ballet movement takes precedent over show-band dancing? Or is it just as I contend which is that the people in charge of WGI choose to inject their own human bias toward ballet dancing into what is supposed to be a neutral judging system?

ballet influenced body is the new fad...like running at 200 bpm was 10 years ago Stu. And when you see a new fad, everyone jumps on it. They're not mandated to do it all. I've yet to attend at WGI critique where we were told "you need to do more of this". The emphasis was on playing cleaner. In fact, once, we were told the amount of body was affecting performance, so maybe we needed less.

The sheets don't tell anyone what to do. It's more of a mindset in the designers saying "well they did that, so now we need to do that now."

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I didn't say it was on the sheets that you had to do ballet. What I said was, the more demand in your show, the more credit you will get for what you are achieving. Doing ballet while you play is harder than simply marching dot to dot. Could there be other ways to get that demand? Sure. But this is the way most of those groups have decided to increase their visual demand. Simply marching won't cut it anymore.

As for your show band analogy, we're talking about completely different animals. Show bands, for the most part, are focused on entertainment much more than fine tuned execution. Even the best among them don't do the exact same movements across the band, and the music is often not as clean also. This is not a knock on show bands, as I have a lot of respect for what they do. But their focus is on completely different things. They wouldn't win at BOA because BOA is looking for extremely high levels of execution. They'd probably do well in effect, but not as well on the performance sheets.

I've been teaching in this activity for a long time, and I can tell you, I've never gotten a tape that said "you should do some ballet under what your playing". I have gotten the comment that there needs to be more visual representation of the music, and more variety in the visual package. The judges aren't biased towards one type of demand over another. The real question is, why are you biased against WGI?

a) If it is about more demand, then why the very real push in the activity to do *just* ballet or musical type movement to increase demand? I mean more demand can be applied in an infinite number of ways can it not? But yet the ballet moves are what the judges are giving credit towards more than other things; so that is the reason why most lines are implementing those moves into their shows. And I am not biased against winter percussion programs; it is what it is. But I am bothered that the indoor percussion activity is a historical outgrowth of the indoor *guard* activity, that it remains under the umbrella of the winter *guard* international, and that the *guard* ideas of Visual/Movement/GE are not just influencing, which is ok, but actually driving the indoor percussion bus. And it is also the *guard* driven ideas which is pushing the ballet moves over other things which could also increase demand.

b) As for show-band drum lines, while they are apples/oranges to current BOA/WGI/DCI lines, and I agree with you on their focus is on entertainment (which, by the way, their focus on entertainment is the reason the Battle of the Bands gets 100k paid spectators and DCI gets around 30k); however, I disagree with you on the importance of *clinical* uniformity within various styles of music interpretation. The great show-band drum lines movements are very uniform and clean to their style, just not in a military *clinical* sense. Jazz music, for example, which needs uniformity of style within the ensemble is not designed for *clinical* cleanliness; and Jazz actually loses much of it's genre feel when crow-bared into the realm of *clinical*. The word Uniform, therefore, is relative to the genre; which means that clean jazz is not the same as a clean classical, and clean military rudiments (and their hybrids) are not the same as clean show-band grooves.

Edited by Stu
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a) If it is about more demand, then why the very real push in the activity to do *just* ballet or musical type movement to increase demand? I mean more demand can be applied in an infinite number of ways can it not? But yet the ballet moves are what the judges are giving credit towards more than other things; so that is the reason why most lines are implementing those moves into their shows. And I am not biased against winter percussion programs; it is what it is. But I am bothered that the indoor percussion activity is a historical outgrowth of the indoor *guard* activity, that it remains under the umbrella of the winter *guard* international, and that the *guard* ideas of Visual/Movement/GE are not just influencing, which is ok, but actually driving the indoor percussion bus. And it is also the *guard* driven ideas which is pushing the ballet moves over other things which could also increase demand.

b) As for show-band drum lines, while they are apples/oranges to current BOA/WGI/DCI lines, and I agree with you on their focus is on entertainment (which, by the way, their focus on entertainment is the reason the Battle of the Bands gets 100k paid spectators and DCI gets around 30k); however, I disagree with you on the importance of *clinical* uniformity within various styles of music interpretation. The great show-band drum lines movements are very uniform and clean to their style, just not in a military *clinical* sense. Jazz music, for example, which needs uniformity of style within the ensemble is not designed for *clinical* cleanliness; and Jazz actually loses much of it's genre feel when crow-bared into the realm of *clinical*. The word Uniform, therefore, is relative to the genre; which means that clean jazz is not the same as a clean classical, and clean military rudiments (and their hybrids) are not the same as clean show-band grooves.

a) Because ballet is hard. I don't know how else to explain it to you. You keep saying "well there are other things you can do to increase demand", but have yet to offer a single idea. You ask why do we "have to" do dance oriented movements. Why do we have to play drums in a gym? Why do we have to move our feet together. The activity has parameters. Every activity has parameters. This activity requires visual demand. Marching alone just isn't demanding enough to make it in to the upper echelon.

b) You're absolutely right. But the fact is, the sheets, and the activity, are oriented towards the clinical idea of cleanliness. That's the activity. It has been that way for a very very long time, since long before WGI. Having played jazz for years, I can tell you, not once has anyone ever talked about playing clean. Its more about the collective concept. There is a ton of what people would call "dirt" in jazz. Again, that's not the focus. The focus is on other things. Show bands are no different. And as a result, other types of ensembles would probably not do well on WGI sheets. That's why you don't see jazz bands entering WGI competitions. WGI/BOA groups would do poorly at a show band competition because they are focused on different things. Again, you can't really compare the two.

And yes, you clearly have some sort of bone to pick with WGI. Whether or not there is a separate organization makes absolutely no difference. The judging is completely different, the administration is completely different. There is a completely separate structure of organization that just happens to be under the same umbrella organization. Often times the guard folks have no idea what's on on the percussion side, and vice versa. There is no secret faction of guard people driving the bus. The move of the entire marching activity towards dance oriented movement has been happening since the percussion side of WGI was still in its infancy, so no, the guard side of the activity isn't making the percussion side do anything.

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a) Because ballet is hard. I don't know how else to explain it to you. You keep saying "well there are other things you can do to increase demand", but have yet to offer a single idea. You ask why do we "have to" do dance oriented movements. Why do we have to play drums in a gym? Why do we have to move our feet together. The activity has parameters. Every activity has parameters. This activity requires visual demand. Marching alone just isn't demanding enough to make it in to the upper echelon.

b) You're absolutely right. But the fact is, the sheets, and the activity, are oriented towards the clinical idea of cleanliness. That's the activity. It has been that way for a very very long time, since long before WGI. Having played jazz for years, I can tell you, not once has anyone ever talked about playing clean. Its more about the collective concept. There is a ton of what people would call "dirt" in jazz. Again, that's not the focus. The focus is on other things. Show bands are no different. And as a result, other types of ensembles would probably not do well on WGI sheets. That's why you don't see jazz bands entering WGI competitions. WGI/BOA groups would do poorly at a show band competition because they are focused on different things. Again, you can't really compare the two.

And yes, you clearly have some sort of bone to pick with WGI. Whether or not there is a separate organization makes absolutely no difference. The judging is completely different, the administration is completely different. There is a completely separate structure of organization that just happens to be under the same umbrella organization. Often times the guard folks have no idea what's on on the percussion side, and vice versa. There is no secret faction of guard people driving the bus. The move of the entire marching activity towards dance oriented movement has been happening since the percussion side of WGI was still in its infancy, so no, the guard side of the activity isn't making the percussion side do anything.

> Because ballet is hard. I don't know how else to explain it to you. You keep saying "well there are other things you can do to increase demand", but have yet to offer a single idea.

Well, as for dancing Break Dancing is also hard, so is Ballroom Dancing, so is Jazz Dancing, ad infinitum; but credit from the judges is mainly being fixated on just the Ballet style. And I would not call moving your feet in a drill at 210 beats per min while playing those hybrids any less demanding than standing still doing variations on a Curtsy.

> The activity has parameters. Every activity has parameters. This activity requires visual demand. Marching alone just isn't demanding enough to make it in to the upper echelon.

And show me where Dancing is a part of the specified parameters within the judging sheets concerning visual demand or the rules of performance. Otherwise, it is just something that is being pushed by the community as the current “in vogue” thing to increase visual GE.

> And as a result, other types of ensembles would probably not do well on WGI sheets. That's why you don't see jazz bands entering WGI competitions.

And as a result, the attempts of groups in BOA, WGI, and DCI performing other types of ensemble music which lay outside the realm of military precision do somewhat come across as clinical (thus losing some of the genre value provided by the more-free show-band or the free-feel of a real jazz band). For example: Ballet music and movement has a huge amount of Rubato, but not when performed by the clinical uniform stylings of a WGI line; no way; in WGI it has to be within uniform accel and decel, not Rubato. And, as much as I enjoyed the Blue Devils performing Channel One Suite, it paled in comparison to the Buddy Rich ensemble playing that same chart. Not because of pro to amateur quality differences, but because of the clinical-feel to free-fell differences. But WGI is what it is; an activity in which you yourself stated that the focus is not on entertainment like the show-band drummers, but places clinical uniform cleanliness above genre musical interpretation.

> There is a completely separate structure of organization that just happens to be under the same umbrella organization. Often times the guard folks have no idea what's on on the percussion side, and vice versa. There is no secret faction of guard people driving the bus. The move of the entire marching activity towards dance oriented movement has been happening since the percussion side of WGI was still in its infancy, so no, the guard side of the activity isn't making the percussion side do anything.

I agree that there is no secret faction and the percussion side makes its own path within the parameters of WGI; but I also want to reference the bold in your statement; indoor percussion was set up in its infancy within the realm of the *Guard* activity, under the banner of the *Guard* activity, grew under the banner of the *Guard* activity, and by very nature is still highly influenced by the parent *Guard* activity. So, if you want to say I am biased it would be with the genesis of the indoor percussion being an outgrowth of the indoor *Guard* activity.

Edited by Stu
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ballet influenced body is the new fad...like running at 200 bpm was 10 years ago Stu. And when you see a new fad, everyone jumps on it. They're not mandated to do it all. I've yet to attend at WGI critique where we were told "you need to do more of this". The emphasis was on playing cleaner. In fact, once, we were told the amount of body was affecting performance, so maybe we needed less.

The sheets don't tell anyone what to do. It's more of a mindset in the designers saying "well they did that, so now we need to do that now."

You are sort of touching on my point. My issue is *not* with the ballet dancing, nor with it being blatantly commanded by the judges; but with it currently being tacitly credited *above* other demanding visual ideas causing the cookie-cutter effect. Ballet is the current "in vogue" GE tastes of the judging community which is being pushed into all types of show concepts thus creating a situation of units forsaking other ideas that are just as demanding.

Edited by Stu
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You are sort of touching on my point. My issue is *not* with the ballet dancing, nor with it being blatantly commanded by the judges; but with it currently being tacitly credited *above* other demanding visual ideas causing the cookie-cutter effect. Ballet is the current "in vogue" GE tastes of the judging community which is being pushed into all types of show concepts thus creating a situation of units forsaking other ideas that are just as demanding.

any demand will get credited Stu. if you play a flam drag, thats more demanding than just a flam. Now if you play that flam drag with a body move, thats more demanding than just standing there playing it. If you are running and playing that flam drag, you'll get just as much credit for the demand. is ballet harder? yes. But if not performed, in a dreived achivement environment, doing it for the sake of doing gets you nowhere. Doesnt stop people from trying though.

ballet is not the in thing with judging. it is the in thing with designers. judges credit what is there and how it is done. I have heard judges say " you do too much of the same thing". your issue is being focused on the wrong people.....the designers put it in there,and it's not because they are told to by the judges.

see, reading what we're typing would help you see that.

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a) Because ballet is hard. I don't know how else to explain it to you. You keep saying "well there are other things you can do to increase demand", but have yet to offer a single idea. You ask why do we "have to" do dance oriented movements. Why do we have to play drums in a gym? Why do we have to move our feet together. The activity has parameters. Every activity has parameters. This activity requires visual demand. Marching alone just isn't demanding enough to make it in to the upper echelon.

b) You're absolutely right. But the fact is, the sheets, and the activity, are oriented towards the clinical idea of cleanliness. That's the activity. It has been that way for a very very long time, since long before WGI. Having played jazz for years, I can tell you, not once has anyone ever talked about playing clean. Its more about the collective concept. There is a ton of what people would call "dirt" in jazz. Again, that's not the focus. The focus is on other things. Show bands are no different. And as a result, other types of ensembles would probably not do well on WGI sheets. That's why you don't see jazz bands entering WGI competitions. WGI/BOA groups would do poorly at a show band competition because they are focused on different things. Again, you can't really compare the two.

And yes, you clearly have some sort of bone to pick with WGI. Whether or not there is a separate organization makes absolutely no difference. The judging is completely different, the administration is completely different. There is a completely separate structure of organization that just happens to be under the same umbrella organization. Often times the guard folks have no idea what's on on the percussion side, and vice versa. There is no secret faction of guard people driving the bus. The move of the entire marching activity towards dance oriented movement has been happening since the percussion side of WGI was still in its infancy, so no, the guard side of the activity isn't making the percussion side do anything.

many of the Ensemble visual folks don't even judge guards

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> Because ballet is hard. I don't know how else to explain it to you. You keep saying "well there are other things you can do to increase demand", but have yet to offer a single idea.

Well, as for dancing Break Dancing is also hard, so is Ballroom Dancing, so is Jazz Dancing, ad infinitum; but credit from the judges is mainly being fixated on just the Ballet style. And I would not call moving your feet in a drill at 210 beats per min while playing those hybrids any less demanding than standing still doing variations on a Curtsy.

> The activity has parameters. Every activity has parameters. This activity requires visual demand. Marching alone just isn't demanding enough to make it in to the upper echelon.

And show me where Dancing is a part of the specified parameters within the judging sheets concerning visual demand or the rules of performance. Otherwise, it is just something that is being pushed by the community as the current “in vogue” thing to increase visual GE.

> And as a result, other types of ensembles would probably not do well on WGI sheets. That's why you don't see jazz bands entering WGI competitions.

And as a result, the attempts of groups in BOA, WGI, and DCI performing other types of ensemble music which lay outside the realm of military precision do somewhat come across as clinical (thus losing some of the genre value provided by the more-free show-band or the free-feel of a real jazz band). For example: Ballet music and movement has a huge amount of Rubato, but not when performed by the clinical uniform stylings of a WGI line; no way; in WGI it has to be within uniform accel and decel, not Rubato. And, as much as I enjoyed the Blue Devils performing Channel One Suite, it paled in comparison to the Buddy Rich ensemble playing that same chart. Not because of pro to amateur quality differences, but because of the clinical-feel to free-fell differences. But WGI is what it is; an activity in which you yourself stated that the focus is not on entertainment like the show-band drummers, but places clinical uniform cleanliness above genre musical interpretation.

> There is a completely separate structure of organization that just happens to be under the same umbrella organization. Often times the guard folks have no idea what's on on the percussion side, and vice versa. There is no secret faction of guard people driving the bus. The move of the entire marching activity towards dance oriented movement has been happening since the percussion side of WGI was still in its infancy, so no, the guard side of the activity isn't making the percussion side do anything.

I agree that there is no secret faction and the percussion side makes its own path within the parameters of WGI; but I also want to reference the bold in your statement; indoor percussion was set up in its infancy within the realm of the *Guard* activity, under the banner of the *Guard* activity, grew under the banner of the *Guard* activity, and by very nature is still highly influenced by the parent *Guard* activity. So, if you want to say I am biased it would be with the genesis of the indoor percussion being an outgrowth of the indoor *Guard* activity.

some history for you Stu. Indoor percussion has been around long before WGI introduced it in the early 90's. Around me I know of 3 circuits that offered indoor percussion on a local level. All still running,and one of them may still be using their own in house sheets and not the WGI ones. In those circuits, drumlines were actually considered more progressive than the guard side was visually. I remember seeing an indoor drumline use a floor long before I saw a guard use one.I remember in 1986 seeing a drumline do body stuff, thatnow days would be looked upon as lame, but was ahead of it's time even against the guards in the circuit...some of which that did well in WGI competition.

Hell, I once saw a drumline do the Electric Slide to Roll the Bones by Rush. poor tatse in dance matched to music aside, this was before WGI had percussion, and guards looked at it and went "wow".

So trying to claim the guard world ruined all is well, absurd.

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some history for you Stu. Indoor percussion has been around long before WGI introduced it in the early 90's. Around me I know of 3 circuits that offered indoor percussion on a local level. All still running,and one of them may still be using their own in house sheets and not the WGI ones. In those circuits, drumlines were actually considered more progressive than the guard side was visually. I remember seeing an indoor drumline use a floor long before I saw a guard use one.I remember in 1986 seeing a drumline do body stuff, thatnow days would be looked upon as lame, but was ahead of it's time even against the guards in the circuit...some of which that did well in WGI competition.

Hell, I once saw a drumline do the Electric Slide to Roll the Bones by Rush. poor tatse in dance matched to music aside, this was before WGI had percussion, and guards looked at it and went "wow".

So trying to claim the guard world ruined all is well, absurd.

I am well aware of the late seventies early eighties pre-WGI history of the Ward Durrett/Chicago drum line competitions and the Dr. Robert Schitroma creation of the PASIC competitions; but they never took off and caught national fire like the genesis of the WGI competitions. I mean the 2011 PASIC marching show has turned into a glorified clinic because not many lines compete in that venue anymore; and the Chicago competitions are long gone. But what has survived is the WGI style; that is what I am referring too when I state the current indoor drum line activity is heavily Guard influenced.

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