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perc judge on the field or in the stands?


Jeffsjetta

perc judge on the field or in the stands?  

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  1. 1. perc judge on the field or in the stands?

    • on the field
      46
    • in the stands
      15


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My personal feeling is that the main purpose of performance is for the audience's benefit. Judges are there to quantify how well a group does is pursuing the goal of giving a musically and visually rewarding experience to the audience. Therefore, a judge can best give an accurate ranking of this from an audience member's vantage point in the stands. From the field, phasing between the pit and battery sounds completely different than it does from the stands. So does dynamic interaction between the two. Plus, from the stands, everything is visible. If the front ensemble gets a nice little lick, but the judge assigned to them is backfield of them and watching the bass line, than a lot of performance and a lot of attention aren't really where they're best utilizes. All sections, no matter how far apart they are, are visible from the stands.

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.  From the field, phasing between the pit and battery sounds completely different than it does from the stands.  So does dynamic interaction between the two. 

Agree....hopefully no field percussion judge is making comments about THOSE items from the field level.

My personal feeling is that the main purpose of performance is for the audience's benefit. 

That is certainly one valid POV. If there is to be but one judge, I too think he/she should be in the stands.

If the front ensemble gets a nice little lick, but the judge assigned to them is backfield of them and watching the bass line, than a lot of performance and a lot of attention aren't really where they're best utilizes. 

Historically that has been a problem, even before front ensembles. Proper location of the percussion judge to evaluate a single section (e.g. snares) means that the rest of the line goes unevaluated in that spot. Basically you as a judge are taking snapshots along the way of what is in fornt of you at a given point in time.

Mike

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  • 2 weeks later...
you had me til the end. I am in charge of a grounded ensemble, placed 4 steps behind the center X.

Why is this? Are you saying that none of these marching drumlines that you're trying to arrange judging for actually march? :huh:

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Judging is always a matter of perspective. The less defined that perspective the less objective the outcome. The tick system was an attempt to provide the most objective outcomes but it lacked musical sensibility. This of course was creatively too restrictive and that stunts growth...which leads to certain death. Defining subjective requirements and allowing judges make decisions based on those requirements is really the best way to both provide objective outcomes. The weakness with this approach is found when too many requirements are placed upon one judge or caption. It seemed that for the longest time judging was not changing quickly enough. Now its changed so much I'm not certain it's the corps' or activities best interests that are behind their development. But this is another topic.....

Doing away with percussion as a caption I have always believed to be a mistake. A Music or ensemble judge seems fair enough in concept but I don't always have that much confidence in those that have never held a pair of sticks. Yes, musicality should be paramount BUT in a subjectively based system non-percussionist judges can make unenlightened decisions. I as a percussionist could also make similar mistakes with a brass section. My philosophy for judging is simple: one should not judge what one has not done.

As for where a single percussion judge should be placed I'd say on the field since Music and Ensemble judges will cover musicality from the box. If only one judge is possible (and I don't think even this is a fair option, there should be at least 2) then lines should be judged upon technical merit only. This eliminates any musical or ensemble comments of course. I'm almost tempted to say it's better to not have any if restricted to only one since this is such a narrow perspective. Why only one? Money? If so, then you get what you pay for and that's too bad. :(

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I think this is a very good question, and both sides have valid points.

I am a Percussion Judge, and I feel that the judge should be on the field if there is one judge. In a perfect world, there would be a field guy and a box guy (or gal lol) but that won't happen. Judging in the box is good if you are a) in a small stadium, and B) if the band your are adjudicating isn't too large. What I mean by the too large comment is, for example in Florida, if you are judging Cypress Creek HS, with over 150+ wind players and usually writes the drumline behind the band, it is hard to hear exactly what the battery is playing, so you almost have to go on the field even if it is a little bit to get a sampling for what is going on back there. I have viewed them from the box and the sound just gets lost in the thickness of the wind sound. But, I see what people mean when they feel that a judge that goes back in the back with the battery misses a lot of stuff---and if they stay back there too long they will. I try to stay up on the track where I can sample the whole program, and I can usually do a good job catching everything...I don't go onto the field too much and when I do I try not to go all the way back unless necessary--and when I do, I am not back for too long. This way I can get a sense for what the ensemble is doing as a whole. Also, if the judge is worth his salt, he will be able to pick up ensemble and balance problems, FOR THE MOST PART, from the sideline. This of course isn't a perfect system, but it has worked for me and it works for DCI as well. Hope this helps...

Jeremy Vest

www.chsdrumline.com

PS-In a perfect world though, the Percussion Caption would have 2 judges lol...would be nice. And I also feel the judge should have sufficient knowledge of battery and front ensemble percussion. :huh:

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you had me til the end. I am in charge of a grounded ensemble, placed 4 steps behind the center X.

Why is this? Are you saying that none of these marching drumlines that you're trying to arrange judging for actually march? :huh:

one does, one doesnt.

i dont like it either way personally. one is grounded and one has a brass/wind section over 100

Edited by Jeffsjetta
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  • 2 weeks later...

Wow, great topic...and yes this is my second post but..thinkg come to my mind the more i think about it. If a judge is in the stands, or pressbox then he looses the ability to hear all the music that's being playing, and to a degree, depending on the height of the pressbox he looses his ability to judge technique to a certain degree. Even in the stands you are going to miss some of the things. On the field though...well your going to get all the music but miss things because of a limited view of the field. And imperfect system to say the least.

That brings another point, should percussion judges become musical judges? In my opinion, unless the line, or pit is playing extremely out of the dynamics the band is playing, or the music is totally not with the band, then no. That's what the music judge is for, i think a line should be judged on what they can control, they are given music told to learn it, and play it as best they can, they can't change that. They can change being out of step, technique inconsistency's, intervals, clean beats..and so on

My .02

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  • 1 month later...

I am new to this site and I think it's great! I voted for a judge to be on the field. The problem here is, if you have one judge in the stands, they will see and hear all the great things the pit will do musically and also visually. However, they will miss things that the battery will do musically but still has the opportunity to see the visuals written into the show. But if we put the judge on the field, they will certainly miss things that are being played as well as the visual aspect of the show since they will be moving around the field to sample all the aspects of the battery and also the pit. So, with this being said, I feel the lesser of two evils is to leave the judge on the field. They might miss some things, but they will see and hear things that they might have missed being in the stands.

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