Big Adam

Also I want to say I'm not trying to be combative, I like the debate and I agree that marching groups that feel like they should be checking off the boxes on a design sheet rather than working towards making a cohesive design do create those poor design decisions then. 100%...... but I don't think that's determined by the need to marry visual and musical concepts.

Oh brother...... hahahahaha why would any try to coordinate what they see with what they hear?....... if only there weren't those pesky judge's sheet that determine integration of effects and ideas. We wouldn't have themes, or uniforms, or color guards, or staging, or music that compliments each other. 100% of the time in the last 20 years of drum corps groups have had to worry about how their musical ideas and concepts fit their visual concepts and vice versa. It's part of the symbiotic relationship that is now drum corps. It's not just checking off all the boxes, it's making sure the pacing is on point and impacts are on point. It's very evident to people when a visual concept or guard work or props or anything having to do with visual are an afterthought and not part of the original thought process. None the less thanks for to the OP for posting this. Can't wait watch it. I thought seeing other people's creative process in action. I'm the guy that watches the DVD extras. haha

But Jeff..... back in my day we never had live streams of DCA shows or even the internet. That's not real drum corps so I'm against it.

That wasn't meant to be insulting. I'm sorry if it came off that way. It was more to say that I am who I am and that if my answer doesn't appease anyone than I don't know if you're going to get a better or more detailed answer from anyone else. That was what I was getting out. But I do stand by saying we should grab a beer sometime and talk about the future and health of the activity.

I'm not sure I follow hahaha

I'm not mad. Far from it. Just you were looking for answers and as someone involved in this decision to have it be a judged exhibition I offered you an explanation but let me ask you what reality is being delayed? and the only thing that is being devalued about the hard working members here is implying that the only reason anyone does drum corps is to win. Nobody who participated in the show on Saturday feels devalued. It's actually quite the opposite reaction. There are plenty of corps that have been rehearsing since November that haven't even gone out yet. Are they also devalued? Every year, almost the same five corps, five of the best corps and historic corps in DCA, choose to air it out a week earlier and in some cases weeks earlier than the rest of the circuit and because they aren't being scored they are being devalued? If anything I think it raises their value. And I have no problem when a corps chooses to start their competitive season, that's their choice, a lot of factors go into building a drum corps schedule. They need to do what's best for their drum corps. But sitting here speculating that there's some kind ploy or that everyone that was there is outraged or feeling devalued is insulting. We're probably not going to see eye to eye here but I'm not a keyboard fan. I'm one of the guys that are there at every rehearsal and if you don't want to hear and believe it from me than I don't know where else you would believe it from. I'm not hiding my affiliation or behind any kind of screen name so hopefully we see each other at show sometime and can have a beer and smooth it over. Introduce yourself. I'm always open to debate and discussion and certainly enjoy a cold one. I love the judged exhibition and I know our corps does so I'll defend it.

Fair enough so there it is. Those are the reasons why. Some pertain to the first year of why we tried it, some pertain to the reason why we continued it. I think the reality is that nobody is sorely bent out of shape out of it. Maybe some people prefer it to be judged, that's ok, everybody's opinion is going to differ on every issue in the world but there's no implication that drum corps is doomed or that the member's aren't being challenged or rewarded enough. In three days from now there will be scores and there won't be a whole lot that will be different, just numbers. Anybody that was at the show could probably tell you the rankings, maybe even a generalization of the numbers but like I said (and as someone who is competing against all the groups) I think it was the best that collectively the corps have been in Wildwood so I'm glad everyone could just the aspect of performing. And despite what anyone thinks, it was still a competition, the judge's still critiqued us, most of them will see us again, some people have formed impressions and fans/people alike talk to each other so there's still a competitive aspect to it. Just no number.

1) Just a common drum corps phrase that's uttered from time to time. I have no documented the exact people over the years but sometimes it's said, sometimes it's not. 2) Everybody does the work through the winter and spring. There's no question of that but sometimes you just want to know you're on the right track and you want to be able to go back to the members and say "hey everything we've been telling you all winter and spring well now a judge is saying the same thing". It's classic like a parent telling their kids to do something and then the uncle comes over and says the same exact thing and they do it. It happens everywhere. 3) IMO the last two years, after the show at the hangout seem to have a much supportive tone between staffs and corps. That could just be my impression but either way it's been nice. I think some of that is because of people not being upset with who won or their number/placement. It seems like you're really upset and I'm not sure why.

You are right it used to be judged and it used to be in the convention center. It was only changed to a judged exhibition last year. I'm only on the Caballeros staff and only have a few friends I've discussed this with on other staffs so I can only offer our perspective. Most people like it, we enjoy the first week of the DCA season being about the audience entertainment, the drum corps' camaraderie with each other, and the staff getting the necessary feedback on their program to be able to provide the best product they can for the rest of the season and finals. Over the years Wildwood has become less about score and more about the success of the future shows. There are plenty of corps that take their time and ease into the season. Part of this is due to the age and demands (both internally or externally) put on our performer's. There's corps that still have plenty of holes to fill in terms of membership, design, costuming etc. There's been years where groups have literally finished learning their closer the day of Wildwood. Is it really fair to put a number on that? And I know what you're going to say, corps should try harder to get their shows done and make sure this doesn't happen but I've got to tell you no matter what we do many corps have this issue creep up every year. Gain a member-lose two. Order the guard flags in November-they don't arrive until the Friday of WW. Need a new part for the sound system-they ship everything except that and don't tell you it's on back order until two weeks later. Most schools proms are Memorial Day weekend. Most schools graduations are the Friday night of Wildwood. Most times we're still explaining to parents where exactly their kids are going to be traveling to each weekend and why. It's something that every corps deals with and we work our butts off to try and prevent it. The staff of the Caballeros literally eats, sleeps, and breathes recruitment, scheduling, show design and performance. So it's not for lack of trying. As I'm sure every corps does. I've been doing this for nearly twenty years. I can tell you that everyone on Saturday came to Wildwood more prepared than previous years, all corps were the best I've seen them in WW, so everyone left feeling good, happy and excited to move forward on the season. I've been part of years where a corps got a number they didn't truly deserve in WW because they were willing to go out and expose themselves very early on for a score. It can really deflate the momentum of a corps early on. As for the adjudication side of things, here's the benefits to no number: -Nobody can say the season was called at the first show -We get honest and open dialogue from the judge's about the show design and performer effectiveness where they don't feel like their commentary has to fit exactly in the caption or number box they need it to. -The performer's have a chance to just perform without the pressure of a score but the pressure of a legit adjudicated performance. -We know performer stamina is an issue with most corps early on so the judge's can talk more about performer's execution and design than performer stamina. Additionally Wildwood is always windy so who knows if they actually would have caught their equipment or not. - It provides validation to corps staffs about the show and the performance. -Removing the competition aspect of the performance leads to a lot of great conversations behind to the scenes between corps staffs on how to do things better or what we enjoyed about each other's show. It's a great feeling we've established for the rest of the season. -Everyone leaves happy and not feeling like their whole season is in danger based upon a score. The only upside I can think of by getting a number is that you get a number. That's about all. The people who didn't attend the show now know who won. That's literally the only difference. So there's nothing to be angry or upset about. Drum corps is not failing the world by having an exhibition. It's actually really benefiting and like I said before I truly believe this because every corps went into Wildwood the most prepared. It would be discouraging for any corps not to think so but when numbers come out then that changes the attitude. "What do you mean we were 3 points behind so and so we were so much more prepared than last year". We've all been there. I guess I'm taking to the time to write all this to let you know that every thing is fine and this is all just part of trying to make sure that you get your monies worth for every show especially finals!

That's a good conversation. I'm not sure, I think in reality it only accounts for a small percentage of recruiting, but I think a lot of corps think that it does. If nothing else it might get you one or two marchers who are looking to switch corps and it might help wrangle in those one or two vets that are sitting on the fence but I'm not sure. You're right people should just march the corps they want to march just based on their desire, not the show. I marched 04 Cadets cause it was the Cadets not because it was Jethro Tull, haha. I think, however, in DCA recruitment efforts that every little bit helps. We can disagree on the strategy thing, that's fine, but I think there's some merit in looking at the trends of last season. Cadets fired one of the first shot in terms of major show design announcements, it bit them in the rear end a bit. I love my former corps and I try to never speak poorly of them. There were a lot, and I mean a lot, of changes that happened over the course of the season. By the end they had a nice product, they could certainly play and march well but the concept never really settled until late in the season. This could happen in the early 90's because the concepts were like "Flying" or "The Planets" so if you wanted to change a whole half of a show no one cared but as a fan every time I saw them last year I felt like I was trying to understand a whole new show. The members probably felt that way too which affected their performance. I feel like if I didn't know the title was originally "Stoned" I probably would have enjoy the show more on my first viewing. I think the final version we got was great and think over time it will grow on a lot more people. Crown and Blue Devils didn't let their show announcement go until spring training. I would say they were successful, there was a lot of energy and excitement about their shows when they were released and solid concepts to go with them. The biggest change for Crown over the course of the season was does the person at the end of the show live or do they die? It worked for them, I think they released bits of info at the right time. The clip of Medea was the only thing we had for a while and it was stellar, I loved it. It intrigued me. Then they announced the rest of the show, then the title with like a month to go before the theater show, it built the right kind of excitement for me. Bluecoats are the other extreme of the spectrum they didn't even announce their show title until everyone was sitting in the theater and I think as a result most people were blown away. I thought maybe they were being pretentious and I was annoyed but I'm glad they waited. I can tell you with 100% certainty that I personally would have not enjoyed Bluecoats if I heard their title first. In fact someone I know leaked it to me, I thought they were joking, I literally went "that sounds dumb" and forgot about it. They made such an impact on me with that show that I forgot that someone had told me the title until I just remembered, literally, right now. I have no evidence to back this up but I'm a data kind of person. Of the top 12, Bluecoats released their show at the last possible second. I believe Crown, BD and SCV were all in late April/May. I don't remember Cavaliers but it was around this time. Cadets and Phantom were the earliest announcements. The rest, Crossmen, BK, Boston, Blue stars and Academy were somewhere around this time. Who was the top four or five and who wasn't. I don't think there's a direct correlation, I'm not saying Phantom didn't win because they announced their show the earliest but it is interesting.

It's all good. I'm just as excited about show announcements as anyone. I've got students and friends either marching or teaching in a bunch of corps at this point. I keep asking them for info and the response I keep getting is "to be honest we don't even know what the show is", most of the time they are waiting on the rights to clear. I don't think any corps would come out and say we haven't announced our show yet because of rights because in my opinion that's not the kind of public relations you really want out there but like I have said George has been pretty open about that being the reason for the Cadets. No one is as transparent with the inner workings as that man, so you would have to believe that's why some teams are holding off. A large portion of DCA corps have announced their shows or selections just for recruitment reasons but I can tell you without diving into it too much into it, it has caused a small hurdle that we are trying to jump right now. That's how I know of the struggles that all corps are going through with rights. The rights issue is a real tricky one because it's only recently come to a brutal head, many lawsuits, many settlements. Everyone is trying to be as careful as possible. I also think that corps have found recent success with how and when they release their show announcement. If Bluecoats announced their show early on most people would have turned their nose up at the concept of "Downside up". Not to mention that none of their musical selections actually supported that concept. Then they came out in the theaters and floored everyone, then all of sudden the source material and title didn't matter much, it was just awesome. All that excitement carried them through the entire season. Sometimes corps announce too early and the momentum for them fizzles out, how many years have people nitpicked a show apart before it even hit the field? I've done it myself hahaha. So to your earlier point I don't think it's a matter of corps "getting over themselves", it's a matter of rights issues and strategy.

I'm sorry, do I know you or do you know me? I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, just curious because I most certainly deal with this issues on a regular basis, unless you know something about myself that I don't know. Secondly I have no false narrative, just my own experiences, which are in the know because I'm dealing with all this stuff right now. There is no false narrative performers, artists, rights companies are actively and regularly going after arrangers, ensembles and organizations (they have a right to), that's not "fake news" that's something we're all dealing with and are trying to avoid becoming the target of. I don't know about any one else but I don't have a surplus of money, and most corps don't either, just laying around to fight legal battles over rights. Third things have happened with sync and performance rights in the last year. They've been happening in the last ten years. Just because you don't hear about them doesn't mean they aren't happening. Why do you think the all that stuff happened with fan network a few years ago? Why do you think DCA wasn't able to produce videos to sell last year? Why do you almost every year there's at least one portion of a corps show that has been edited to remove copyrighted material? Don't insult me by insinuating that I'm part of some conspiracy of copyright and licensing issues or grossly misinformed. We're all on the same side here. Be nice.

Yeah but sometimes concepts change as you do rewrites and you see what works and doesn't work. I've done about 3 million rewrites on shows before it's where I've wanted it to be. I think Cadets learned a valuable lesson last year with the changing of the title of the show. The show had a hard time settling in to what it could be and by the end of the year it was good but I think people tried to hold every little change over their head then. I can almost guarantee they aren't the only corps to rework their concept late in the year, sometimes having an expectation for what the show is supposed to be causes you to fit your square design into a circle concept rather than letting both the design and concept just evolve into a triangle.

Nobody needs to get over themselves.... all these corps have the rights to arrange at this point, they are probably still working on sync and performance rights. It's a really complicated situation and as more companies that deal with rights and licensing issues become aware of the the marching arts they have to legally define and redefine stuff that didn't need to be addressed before. There was a time where everyone thought the rights to arrange were also the same as the rights to perform and it's just getting more difficult to get it done. Cadets are an example of that, George has said multiple times that he wants to get the show out there but he just can't do it yet. We're such an integrated world now so you can't fly under the radar, every little thing needs to be approved and now with DCI broadcasts, Clash of the Corps, Fan Network, etc, all that needs to be cleared. Numbers of viewers, potential size of audience, viral reach, it all matters now. Secondly, of those Open Class corps some of them are just titles, which doesn't really mean anything. Of the corps that released repertoire some of them are just doing original music. No hurdles to clear there. I would say a few of those corps probably prematurely announced their selections without all the clearances probably as a way to help gain membership. I'm sure without a doubt that most of these corps have their press release or video ready to go and are just waiting until they can release it. Drum corps now-a-days are companies, they have a plan, a schedule and timelines. Crossmen are already learning drill they still haven't told their members what the show is. The members have a clue but they're not telling them until they can. Last year, I believe it was the Bluecoats who didn't put any titles on top of their music, full show in hand, not a single idea what the music really was. It's just what it is now. Remember when we had to read Drum Corps World to find out what the shows were. Patience. lol.

Okay..... hold on..... I'm not going to try and start a fight here but if the only two composers you can think of that write the emotion into music then you need to get around to more listening. I'm pretty sure most composer's intent is to write emotion into music. While they are both quality writers I think this is a weird comparison as the only two composers that compose emotion into music. I would suggest a little more Mahler, Copland, Shostakovich, who was being opressed and silenced by his government, maybe the Tchaikovsky symphonies 4-6 in your diet just to start. I would even say that both John Williams and Wayne while a fine composer and arranger respectively actually rely more heavily on compositional techniques to invoke effect than actual raw emotion. Again not picking a fight, I just am sad that you don't have a broader scope of emotional compositions than Wayne Downey and John Williams and hopefully this will turn you onto some other avenues because you're really missing out.