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Championship Shows - Defining Moments vs. Real Substance


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How about 2005 Cadets for an example? Great "moments" throughout, but tons of less flashy but just as impressive content too. I'm thinking of "Liquid," their second number (or first after the "Zone" intro). Almighty brass hit followed by a flawless Mikey Terry solo, then building to a satisfying climax, but what about all the mezzo-piano technical stuff with difficult drill at a high tempo in the first half? I think that's the kind of thing the OP is talking about.

Liquid really is a great, solid couple minutes of drum corps. Musically good with really effective visual design/performance

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A few things to always keep in mind:

1) judges are evaluating one puzzle piece of a large production, and then the scores added/averaged for a total score/rank. That is obviously well-known, but as fans seeing the entire show we often think of the entire puzzle, instead of focusing only on one piece for the entire 15 min. Obviously the GE judges look at the whole show, but even then they're a little limited in scope as to what they are focusing on. So just because we think of the bigger picture it's easy to forget that the scores/rankings of any given night are accumulated by 11 judges looking at a fairly narrow scope/piece of the performance

2) as far as clean vs GE, remember that these judges are human, and get caught up in a show just as much as we do. A lot of times the judges are also fans who want to see the corps' members rock a great show, and it's not uncommon for judges to get caught up in the emotions and excitement of a performance. I'm not saying judges think with their emotion only and make wrong calls, but that can have an effect on numbers/placement to a degree

Excellent points. I think many, if not most of us, lose sight of your first point especially.

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Excellent points. I think many, if not most of us, lose sight of your first point especially.

Yeah, that's really easy to do. Every year when people talk about scores, and talk about, "I'd have them at a 92.6" I always chuckle and wonder how that poster comes up with that number, how the sub-captions break down in their head to arrive at that number, etc. I do that at times to, think stuff like, "I thought that spread would be closer/wider." And it's not too different for sports fans, who might want to argue balls/strikes, or holding non-calls (without really knowing the NFL rule book), etc.

It's something I never really thought a ton about until I started judging marching band & winter percussion stuff and thinking more analytically about judging, how adjudicators arrive at their numbers, etc.

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A few things to always keep in mind:

1) judges are evaluating one puzzle piece of a large production, and then the scores added/averaged for a total score/rank. That is obviously well-known, but as fans seeing the entire show we often think of the entire puzzle, instead of focusing only on one piece for the entire 15 min. Obviously the GE judges look at the whole show, but even then they're a little limited in scope as to what they are focusing on. So just because we think of the bigger picture it's easy to forget that the scores/rankings of any given night are accumulated by 11 judges looking at a fairly narrow scope/piece of the performance

2) as far as clean vs GE, remember that these judges are human, and get caught up in a show just as much as we do. A lot of times the judges are also fans who want to see the corps' members rock a great show, and it's not uncommon for judges to get caught up in the emotions and excitement of a performance. I'm not saying judges think with their emotion only and make wrong calls, but that can have an effect on numbers/placement to a degree

I absolutely agree but I am fairly certain the sheets did change significantly between '97 and '01. Was at finals in Buffalo in '01 and my definite take away was that Cavie's had the coolest show by far on the field that night but were a distant 3rd in execution to BD and Cadets. Judges clearly thought they were just clean enough to give credit for the content and award the proper GE!

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the key for 01 ( and 02) was that visual demand bled way too much into the music captions. that helped Cavies out a lot ( drums were ###### good tho)

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Yeah, that's really easy to do. Every year when people talk about scores, and talk about, "I'd have them at a 92.6" I always chuckle and wonder how that poster comes up with that number, how the sub-captions break down in their head to arrive at that number, etc. I do that at times to, think stuff like, "I thought that spread would be closer/wider." And it's not too different for sports fans, who might want to argue balls/strikes, or holding non-calls (without really knowing the NFL rule book), etc.

It's something I never really thought a ton about until I started judging marching band & winter percussion stuff and thinking more analytically about judging, how adjudicators arrive at their numbers, etc.

It is different when you actually are judging A single caption. I judged bands a lot in the 80's and 90's, and I liked to judge Individual Muisc Performance on the field...reactions at that level often had NO bearing on the upstairs captions at all, for instance.

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