BigW

It's not going to surprise me at all if more of this starts coming out. And it shouldn't shock and surprise anyone else if it happens.

In this case, it appears whether anyone likes it or not that it was the only solution. I think it's a rather stark and ugly wake-up call for everyone who's left to get things together ethically.

Now you mentioned that I taught someone who played Mello for several years there in the 90's. The experience changed him, but I'm not sure of it was for the better in some ways. Comments about the "Spanish Gangsters" all the time (BD)... other comments I saw them make on YT in similar veins about BD... I sure as Hades didn't teach him that, who did? My guess is GH. They ended up aging out with Crown because in that YEA period they desperately needed the right body on Mello, even though they were done. Then they became another one of at least three people I know that worked for YEA for a year and ran. (Jeff also knows one of those three I know)... I don't know what to think about that aspect of the Cadets. Most I personally know aren't that way at all, period. They're gracious individuals. A couple are rather full of themselves like that. As for the end of the corps, it's like a Greek tragedy. It took 40 years, but alleged disgusting behaviors caught up to the organization. I was hopeful that the move to Erie under different leadership would build in a few years into something very special for the activity as a whole. I can't say I'm sad, surprised, or shocked. I'm just thinking, this is what can happen when someone engages in unethical behavior and wrecks an organization in spite of any good people who were involved.

Pete would be a definite go-to guy. I have no idea how to reach out to Mel Stratton, but he'd also be another very knowledgeable person concerning the visual art in this period.

The hunch here is you're right. I don't know if anyone's ever did a statistical analysis of, say, that if Crown's percussions scores would be more in line with their other captions, what difference might that have made at Finals. Even though Effect has a lot of weight, if there are no real large gaps and spreads and other captions have them...

Nothing should be a sole determining factor. Definitely agreed. With certain groups- it's a Seperator, especially at the sharp end of the stick in DCI. That whole thing can also be risky. Trying to set new standards can also fail in a really miserable way, This I Believe.

I swear that there were repeated statements that innovation was to be taken under heavy consideration in the evaluation. To hit the top box, there had to be State of the Art, cutting edge elements in the program. I've been thinking about that whole concept and how it's affected the activity as a whole in one way, but work calls.

There was some serious pushback and struggles on those issues, for those not familiar. It's even beyond the music versus visual tussle when it comes to the inspections. I know the one story told to me from one of the posters on this thread about the AL people trying to deduct over haircuts worn by guys on currently active service in the Army- if their hair length was passing muster by the actual army... what's the beef? Seen other posters who went through it feeling the deductions were rather arbitrary and smacked of favoritism. Then you had the issue with the rules where all music had to be performed within a specific range of beats per minute or get penalized. The problem was that a lot of the arrangers wanted to actually try and create more musical performances. It's no wonder that the Senior/All-Age community split from the Legion, and that the Combine/DCI split from the VFW. I know there were other more serious issues at hand but things like that pushed the split. Even in the 50s and 60s, people were trying to expand musical boundaries and conventions in the activity. Whether some folks like it or not, it's been an institutional progression because of that ethos. I've been meaning to bring this up as well, and Jeff might have answers and clarification: IIRC when DCI released the new placemats pre-covid, they had them up for public viewing, and I remember the one very strong implication on those placemats was that innovation was to be rewarded as a priority. If someone was pushing the envelope, coming up with new ideas, and it was good material, it was to be rewarded higher than someone less innovative. If the judge is being asked to do that- there you go.

True. Bad playing didn't help. Nope, nope nope. In one area near us, folks think that they need to play like their state's university with 350 members droning away when they have 25-60 kids... You know the rubrics. Droning Loud and Constant ain't gonna generate effect on any sheet I know of. Might get a 90k home football crowd jacked up... but a different situation.

Thank you, Jeff. I'll share experience I've had at least twice. Don't know if you or your spouse have had this one: Is flipping on blinking LED vests while honking and droning inanely away while stumblebumming around while the band moms scream like crazy "effect"? Bad effect, maybe. It certainly was unforgettable; I'll give it that...

Jim F- didn't you perform in some of those in the Mid 70's with Westshore? I think the Red Carpet Association ran some of those when the hosts couldn't afford a judging panel. I remember guys like you calling them "Clap Shows", and indeed they were pretty much looked down upon. Basically, a competitive group is submitting itself to an intense peer review with established rubrics. Even in that wild and wooly period that's what members wanted, even though in many cases they'd take a beating.

You can be my bodyguard! I'm really not that bad! 😋

I wish I could ignore idiocy. Ever since that one show BITD at Hershey where some cluck physically threatened me when I Blooed the Blue Coats and I stopped going to shows for several years, I really am half afraid of what clucks I'll run into anymore. If my Mom and sister weren't there, I'd have popped that jerk. There have been few times where I've felt comfortable to really appreciate and react as a spectator since then. Usually when there's space between me and anyone else like Clifton when I bought the VIP ticket and like three other people did... or when I'm surrounded by friends/bodyguards. I'll gladly go back to Dover. If I miss the late season all age-World class contest, really, I can work on my Historical gaming miniatures, take myself to a top-class restaurant, or make a road trip to a couple of museums up North to watch live WW2 tank demos. I figure it'll eventually pop up online and I can enjoy it in the safety of my room.

How close to the sideline are you? That's got a lot to do with it. they're setting up the mix for the press box area. When I went to Dover PA last year, I wasn't feeling that from any of the competitors, but I was right below the press box. Surf, Spartans, and Southwind all used a fair amount of amplification. I didn't get that at the DCA contest at Hempfield and I was pretty low down. I was more disappointed with a few incomplete shows than with ensemble blend between Brass, percussion, and electronics. This from a guy who played competitively on and owns a Piston Rotor horn.

It could be that it was felt that it needed to be more balanced. The thing is the top teams will always read the sheets regardless and still succeed. There's another effect maxim that came to mind: Do you hear what you see? Do you see what you hear? Just something to also think about. A great show has both go hand in hand. When there's dissonance...

The "home town homerism" was so bad it left me demoralized after the last DCA show I went to. I plan on trying to go to the season end show because Crown et al will be present. I need to snag tickets when available. Hope I'm not too late. I had a Much better time at Dover where the audience: -stayed for everyone -appreciated everyone -and everything was complete- maybe not well polished in some cases, but enjoyable and watchable. Off topic, I really, really liked Spartans. Well, maybe it is on topic- Their music wasn't normal fare, but it was wonderfully arranged, performed, and all made sense phrasally and went from one idea to another without feeling like one had ADHD.

The Peruvian Prison model?

Indeed. A case study could be the whole DCA "communication" semi-subcaption. I asked people involved that I respect that should have been able to give me a clear answer to me about the caption that weren't really able to. They obviously needed to interpret what the sam scratch it meant since they were having to put numbers in the box. From my observation, and this is my personal impression- it just ended up being a parroting of the actual what/how main caption numbers, or an average of the two. Last season- and the last season it will ever be used-(for which I believe Jeff is thankful, myself as well) judges finally seemed to have a better understanding of what the intent was and the numbers finally began to have some actual independence from the main section of the caption. What do I think, and mind you, this is what I think for what it's worth: 1: it was a well-meaning but not a great attempt to try and come up with some kind of an excuse to give Effect more weight and try and give some kind of nod to the audience. 2: I also think it was an attempt by some competitors in particular that figured that their pandering to the audience was their specialty, that they had a monopoly on it...and that the "Blue Team" (emphasis the DCA Blue team) didn't have a clue and that this would easily reel them in. This was a pretty huge mistake on their parts. The Blue Team folks don't live in a bubble, they're not fools, and they can read the sheets and the rubrics. They made adjustments and pretty much won Communication while it existed. It reminds me of when the Electronics rules in DCI were developed and voted in, The Bluecoats pretty much said, "We didn't vote for this, but we're not going to sit back and not do it. We're going in whole hog, we'll figure it out and do it better than everyone else." Certain groups who hoped to get that "unfair advantage" (1$ to Mark Donohue) got knocked on their bohintis/Badonkadonkas (1$ to Tiny Tina)

I slept on some of this yesterday and seeing some of the replies, I'll try and shoot back some various thoughts. Adjudicators at any level are pretty experienced, well educated, thoughtful, and diligent folks. Those who aren't generally get shown the door. I know my share of the DCI level people. They're people I try and ask questions to and share things so I can be more thoughtful and insightful when I have the chance. They're good people and more than willing to share ideas. They're people I feel better for having known. Another aspect that's kind of been touched on but not nailed has been the percussive arts. The weight of them in modern DCI adjudication has dramatically increased, and that's justifiable. A lot more of the difficulty in the musical scores now is inherent in the Percussion ensemble. Better writing to underpin everything, the quality of the musicians and their musicianship all play a role. Most of the more difficult content melodically and harmonically rest on the Front Ensemble, and one has to give credit when it's deserved as it is. I'll throw this out- could someone win percussion at Semis and not make finals nowadays!? (Oakland Crusaders....) Could someone end up with a seventh-place percussion section and win the championship? (80-something Cadets, the graffiti in the one practice room at WCU about that was priceless...) Here's a loaded question: How much of all of this is to deal with the acoustics of the Championship venue? I've discussed this with someone who has a handle on that subject and the arranging has changed to try and get things to sound 'right' in that stadium. Just some more thoughts. I need to rest, I'll try and add more things in when I'm better rested.

Touching on the comments here, I'm reminded of other thoughts from people that the musical design aspect has been accused of taking the final number out of the hands of the performers and into the hands of the design team. Everyone's insanely clean now, subatomic particles need to be split to separate in raw performance. It's more in the hands of content that cause separation between DCI competitors. In regard to this, there's been other threads and thoughtful comments touching on some aspects in BoA in particular regarding the degree of meshing of electronics into the ensemble sound so well no one's sure who's doing what at times and with what weight. I can say that since the OP started going back in time, a lot more of the difficulty/analysis numbers are generated through how challenging the book is to play while moving/field placement/use of body while playing the brass instruments rather than the raw musical content. This is something I've become painfully aware of over say, the past 5 to 10 years in the activity in general. This is even more prevalent at say, the base HS level (I'm not talking about the elite HS units out there), especially since COVID hit. Another aspect to touch on his BITD, visual design was predicated on what the musical book was. The designers were given the music and then they wrote in reaction to that. Over the past two decades, many teams will have a drill sequence written out and ask the music design team to create something to fit that instead. Which, might explain some of the comments about patchwork designs occurring. Would I like to see more coherent melodic thread in a lot of what I'm hearing? More resolved musical phrases and completed thoughts? Yeah. I was trained in Music School that music is a language, phrases are thoughts and sentences. And when. You break. Them up abruptly. and Change subjects without logical flow. It's not. A good. Thing.

Jim, you hit a nail on the head, old friend. The old building I worked in was pretty diverse, the new one is even more diverse, and I feel great about that. We're more multi-lingual than before, and I'm working with even more really nice folks. More people are getting a great opportunity to get pretty well-paying jobs now, and if they're nuts enough to go into supervision and management, even better. It might have been a low bar to hurdle, but my job is better in large part because of this. If I read a lot of the thoughtful posts here correctly, I'll try and slice this with Occam's Razor. The gist seems to be that the corps has identified that they have an issue they sincerely want to address. Admitting there's problems is always good. Denial in this activity has led to multiple disasters. The real problem is now, we have serious concepts we want to commit to getting better at and not just talk about it- but how can we effectively address this and do something concrete? My guess is this could be a long process of learning and evolution before they get to their eventual goals.

Malfeasance of management will figure in with a few. On the DCA side I can think of two readily. Losing sponsorship of the Church/CYO/WFW will also figure in as well. Rising budgets wiped out many in the 70's because they really couldn't afford the touring model. Corps poaching from corps not as well off or as capable factored in as per the one recent discussion on the Cadets thread. That pretty much imploded the Quebec scene. At the time, there were plenty of corps around. A corps going under meant others grabbed the equipment and preferably the more talented individuals, and no one cared. Now, we're kind of looking around at what remains and acting surprised.

You were a strapping young lad then! heck, I was under 30! 😎

"The Worst Band Parents Ever" Jeff was really young when a lot of this happened so I'm not sure how much he knows about. The HS no longer exists. It was merged into another school in Central Pennsylvania. in the late 70's it was arguably the finest small marching band in the country (under 50-60 musicians) with a really great Director- very kind, developed talent from his students. Never a problem then that anyone heard of. His son was also fantastic, ended up in the Crossmen HoF. He gets a job offer @1980 for a school that has a good program with three times the kids and offers him twice what he's currently paid. He leaves and turns that program into a Wrecking Ball in Pennsylvania for the next 15 or so years. That's when things go bad. They hire an individual right out of college, my guess was to save money. They weren't bad, they weren't a bad person, they weren't untalented but who could really replace this guy right out of college? The band came down to earth and other bands started to beat them. After about two years the Parents rioted and had the District get rid of them before they got tenure. They then managed to hire an experienced guy, who was also a really good and decent fellow, who already had led a pretty successful program. He manages to dig them out of the hole but after about two years, he ends up with stress related illnesses and runs to another program where he takes that program and makes it flourish. The word on the street was the parents drove him to near insanity. He was a lot happier when he got out of there. You could see the relief on his face. They then managed to find someone who had things figured out. They brought in a very good design team and their shows were very airtight and complimentary. The total packages were fantastic, and that's what kept them above everyone. Here's where things unravel. Sometime in the late 80's, the Circuit Championship had to be held indoors at Carlisle HS. Wind gusts in excess of 50 MPH, ice all over everything, and wind chill factors well below Zero. Their parents lose their minds. Standstill contest, no drill, they know that they're losing their major asset of having a total show. I'm working the floor entrance. They lose to someone who better handled the situation. Kids from this band are crying, The Band Parents are flipping out and outraged making all sorts of comments that this show should have been held outside. I glared at them and said, "Your children aren't gladiators." The loudest mouthed parent is obviously thinking of starting something, and I was ready to slug it out. This guy is older. Word on the street a lot of those Boosters hadn't had children in that band for years and pretty much ran the show anyway. The Circuit commissioner gets an "AxxHxxe Certificate" in the mail with no return address. It wasn't hard to figure out the likely culprits. I didn't hear any other complaints from the other competitors. This director leaves. Word on the street was they had enough of the Parents, especially after their obnoxious behavior in public, and the fit the kids had. The job comes open again. I need a job. Dad encourages me. I tell him what's going on. He helps me with a cover letter to the HS Principal stating basically that "The word on the street is that your Band Parents are out of control, and that they interfere with the director's ability to direct the program as they see fit to direct the program as professional educators. As the principal, you'd be my boss. If the Parents get out of line, will you have my back and get these parents under control?" Needless to say, I didn't get an interview. They find a decent guy but by now the program's a wreck and he's pulling every stunt in the book like having suspended cymbals "WOOOSH!" ing at the end of nearly very phrase to try and mask that they can't end a phrase together. They're down to 16 musicians (including percussion) trying to play 8 note chords. The same old big-mouthed clown who hadn't had a kid in the band for years and nearly beat on me over the gladiator comment nearly attacked me for pointing these things out quietly to someone within his earshot once. The whole mess died when they merged with their next-door rivals. Because of the hatred that both schools had for each other, and the parents had for each other, all their sports programs and extracurricular activities crapped out and haven't recovered 35 years later. So, that's the story of the Worst Band Parents Ever. Obsessed with winning over education taking place and wanting to send their kids on an icy field in 40+mph wind gusts and sub-zero Wind chill. And I frankly don't feel bad for them. I do feel bad for a generation of kids that need an activity like this to get them out of the depressed little town they live in and deserve better.

I need to go to work but I've got a whopper of a story involving out of control band parents in Central PA...