Bruckner8

Can someone hook me up with Crown’s spring training dates and location? Internet searches have been unreliable. Is Ensemble Rehearsal open, even for old curmudgeons? Message me if Q clearance is required

My fav part of the report is where more than 1/3 of the participants answered “prefer not to say.” When that reaches 51% we’ll know we’ve turned the corner, rendering such reports meaningless. Almost there.

No. Linda Lastra for 1996

‘93 Finals. Phantom and Star. I don’t even remember Cadets, but that’s not unusual for me.

To be clear, the “prior year success” observation only applies to new champions. SCV has multiple championships and many champions on staff. Too bad their admin and board is full of goofs.

Rennick, Gaines, Riley, Van Doren Family Brass Team. SCV has plenty of CI, assuming it’s close. Thus the question will be “will the performance level/maturity measure up to its competitors?” If yes, SCV has enough CI to carry them over close competitors. More likely no. (Perc, Guard and Design will be fine.) Make no mistake: SCV is not starting over, by any means, except (hopefully) financial admin. Veteranship is lower, but that might be a good thing.

Cash easy to verify?? Ha! It’s the easiest to steal/hide/lose. I mean, I guess it’s easy to verify what's left lol. AP verification is directly proportional to the integrity of the AP Treasurer. (And surely SCV has two different people for the roles of AR and AP, right??? Not foolproof but still…) For the record, I’m not in the “yay we r back” crowd lol. The forces of darkness within me won’t allow that to happen until people are held accountable and SCV is competitive again. That will take YEARS

Debtors never forget. This number should be the easiest to verify!

There exists too much pro BD inertia in the judging community for ABBD to take hold. But yes, the ABBD contingent is strong in the fanbase, and yes, any smart bookie would take advantage of that lol. For me, as the author of Competitive Inertia (2007), and an instructor competing against BD for a long time, I’d put all of my money “on BD” every time…and it has nothing to do with “if i like their shows.” (I usually hate them, and can’t remember them, but I respect/understand their ability to “get points.”) I’d love to be able to bet on them…the easiest bet ever, with current judges and criteria.

This is the heart of my confusion: how can it be ILLEGAL TO SOLICIT donations, under any circumstance? Begging for money (in any context) is a time-honored American tradition. Even so, maybe all of those donations are Unsolicited. How would we (or a judge) even know? Who cares is the website has a donation button? Maybe they laid off the web developer in tough times. (A judge will let that go)

I love this take. Then I remembered Paul Rennick and Michael Gaines are involved, which means formula. The End. (not that formula is necessarily bad, but just that we already know what we’re going to get. It’ll be Excellent, but it will be designed for points, and nothing beyond that.)

Umm, I conducted it lol. I was new on brass staff (wait, 30 years ago? Yikes), and memorized the score on a bus ride across flooded midwest. The arrangement was super cool, with low brass intro, 5/8 and 9/8 meter (3+2+2+2), which made it easily conducted in 4/4 but with extra eighth on beat 1. There are some CF stories about how all of that went down, but in the end, Dan Acheson made it happen against 99% staff pushback. I was in the 1% 🙂

…me too! 😎

Gee, I thought the worst possible things for the activity were wireless mics and shrinking contra lines. But seriously, operational ineptitude has always been there, and always will be there. At this stage in life (closing in on age 60) I can’t muster more than a “bummer” when world class orgs take time off (or completely fold). it’s late October, foliage in full swing in the Southern Appalachians, holly trees are fruiting, the last hay was cut, and the poison ivy is going dormant. Time to break out the Brush Cutter and Log Splitter.

I feel you. For the record, I look forward to your lengthy, “keep everyone focused on the right things,” updates. I don’t care what your motivations might be, even if as “negative” as others have intimated. The facts are the facts, motivations be ######. If anything, your posts come across to me as “Please SCV, with all my heart n soul, I’m begging you, get your shizzzz together! iI’s not that hard!” Maybe I’m projecting, wtfe.

It's going to come down to Brass. To wit: 1) The Visual Design is going to be a championship contender (Michael Gaines) 2) The Percussion will be Sanford worthy (The Rennicks) 3) The Color Guard will be in the mix (Danial Riley at the helm for over 10 years) That leaves Brass, and the Vis Team that will be teaching them to march. The VanDoren Family will finally get their coming-out party! I'm very excited about their team's potential. I know the Asst. Vis Caption Manager (Taylor Trevino); he is all about SCV in all the right ways. Straight/Bent leg...don't know, don't care. Thus, I'm not worried. Except... Will the talent show up in the hornline? Every corps depends on veterans for continued success. SCV will probably have 90% rookies. That means they'll have to make up for it with older, and/or more-experienced-elsewhere members to pick up the slack. I'm not confident in that type of member choosing SCV right now. I expect a massive number of hornline members from the TX area (duh, brass team); any West Coaster has two other viable options in BD and Mandarins.

Since SCV is a historical champion, we don't have to worry about that aspect of CI. So the question boils down to "When the competition is very close, does SCV still have enough CI to be given a slightly higher score than a new-comer who might otherwise deserve it?" (IOW, will SCV still be afforded "benefit of the doubt" when it's close?) I say "Yes, absolutely." This is based on: 1) It was only one year off. No one will even remember this by next May. 2) Staff CI is still very strong, adding immense credibility to the organization going forward. Visual Design (Gaines) and Percussion (The Rennicks) will be world class champion competitors, no doubt. Daniel Riley has been Color Guard Caption Head for over 10 years. CI loves consistency. I repeat: CI only matters when the judged caption in question is CLOSE. It's entirely possible that certain aspects of SCV will suck for lots of other reasons, making CI a moot point.

Marched: (1) 1984 (SCV) Fan: (2) 1985 and 1988 Brass Staff: (18) 1992-1996, 2006, 2008-2019

I'm down. I'm on record, almost 30 years ago, in the old RAMD group, predicting drum corps becoming Summer Winter Guard with Hornline Accompaniment. A few years later, in the same group, I predicted the horns being replaced with 100% electronics, using only speakers. I missed the transition period we're now in, where hornlines will be using wireless mics. Right now, some corps are mic'ing the entire tuba line. Most corps are mic'ing a few players per part. All of this is then added to the "mix" coming through the speakers, basically rendering acoustic brass "impression" to be useless. (Even if you can still hear the acoustic brass, the sound level of the brass through speakers changes that impression...especially if one cares about Tuba sound, which admittedly, 99.99999% of the world doesn't.) All corps will be mic'ing all brass over the next few years during this transition to "Theatrical Drum Corps," after which it'll all be electronic, controlled by Organists (as in, organ consoles, with multiple keyboards, and using the feet too....surprised we haven't seen an organ-like console out there yet. I'm calling it! lol) You won't even call it drum corps anymore. Almost 30 years ago, I predicted that the horns would be replaced by fake instruments, so they'd still be marching in that style of a drum corps, cuz ya can't have 150 flags/rifles, right? RIGHT? lol, I dunno, maybe some people think that'll work. You'll still need some kind of visual "organization and deconstruction" movement variety to keep the visual interest. But the musical interest? Hell, bring on the rock bands, the woodwinds, the orchestras, the alphorns, 150 trumpets, 100% Electronic...whatever! Think Transiberian Drum Corps! Line the entire front and back sidelines with speakers, shared by all corps. Provide a "spec" to the member corps at the beginning of the season, so everyone can learn how to "plug in" their stuff. Heck, pipe it through LOS' sound system! Surround Sound baby! Acoustics be ######. And, get off my lawn 🙂

Safe for another year! No drama whatsoever at the top; no new champion, no new top 3. Hats off to Mandarins for making it to the Top 6! That's a massive achievement with or without SCV! Thus the interesting question going forward is: Will Mandarins debunk Competitive Inertia by winning without first coming in 2nd or 3rd? Can anyone even imagine how good Mandarins...and how clearly "ungood" all of the corps currently above them...would have to be (at the same time) for that to happen?

Cuz the brass judge had the easiest job of the evening. All he had to do was understand all if the following: 1) Crown was going to win brass, no matter what 2) BD was going to win the championship, no matter what, no harm in putting them second 3) everyone else may as well be in their performance slot easy peasy. No drama. Bloo had to be third cuz of 1) and 2) though.

Is it me, the mic placement, or are the Crusaders having a hard time playing together??? (Esp perc)

I worry more about the other way: definitely making a call, as in 2019, bloo vs bd, where a drum judge put bd up 0.3 (huge, call-making spread) and vis judge did the same, maybe 0.2, on finals. Absolute bs when corps are that close, basically saying “no they aren't.” This assured bd victory. It would have only taken one judge, but two? But hey, Competitive Inertia, right? Apparently bloo didnt have enough in 2019, adding credence to my point.

Because one then has to magically remember two hours later. It’s literally impossible. Better would be to do exactly what the sheets are designed to do: in real-time, check the verbiage against the box and assign a number. Submit instantly. Then let the chips fall. The activity’s insistence on rank is ridiculous. If one REALLY did this, we’d have lower scores, since in reality, no drum corps really achieves at these “upper box levels” (perfection is not achievable IMO, and no one even comes close, as described on the sheets) Let’s be real: even if it worked like I thought it should, judges would still keep notes, and try to assign lower numbers to a later corps, if they believed the earlier corps was “better,” REGARDLESS of the sheets!!! (IOW, they’d ignore the sheets anyway, which I claim they do now, lol) All of that said, just rank them, average the rankings, and announce the final order…forget the scores altogether. Use sheets/numbers merely as a guide for personal organization, but don’t bother publishing them…they are MEANINGLESS.

Fair enough. IOW, it’s even more effed than I thought. Good to know.