jjeffeory Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 Quote from the mid 1990s, around the time of - 'Year of Audience Discontent' according to History of DC book. "OK, you've impressed me with your playing.... how about entertaining me now" - person didn't go to shows for a number of years not long after that. This happened to me after '94. I completely stopped following shows until '97. Yes, I missed a few great corps performances along the way, but there were too many overly obscure shows for my tastes at the time. Of course I bought the Videos, and have FN access, and I can confirm that as a whole shows didn't start becoming more interesting again until the end of that decade. It was just the strangest thing to see how music arranging changed from '94-'95. There was something similar that happened after the synth voice was introduced to our beloved activity recently... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowtown Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 BD 2011, that say a little prayer riff was the best triple tonguing recently IMO Trends Odd, considering A corps has to follow trends to do well but also create a new one to win – trends are drum corps compulsories – imposed by the corps through the judges at the fans expense often disguised as demand While watching Bridgemen 80 recently – during that red wig big, that’s a musical trend I miss, it was a common bit of arranging for the time, most every corps had a moment or 2 of sound like that in their show – I would gladly trade some blando-bando technique for some sloppy brass balls music has been a bit better, 2009 seemed like a real low, could be better still 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamarag Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 (edited) One thing that could really help would be to add a bullet like this to all the music sheets in the Composition box: "What is the range of variety? To what extent is there variety in style, tempo, orchestration, and musical structure?" This would really help the corps that perform multiple styles and demonstrate multiple skills, and penalize the corps that do one or two skills really well and beat you over the head with them for eleven minutes. Edited September 19, 2012 by Kamarag 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjeffeory Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 One thing that could really help would be to add a bullet like this to all the music sheets in the Composition box: "What is the range of variety? To what extent is there variety in style, tempo, orchestration, and musical structure?" This would really help the corps that perform multiple styles and demonstrate multiple skills, and penalize the corps that do one or two skills really well and beat you over the head with them for eleven minutes. This would encourage more chop and bop and schizophrenic arranging in my opinion. Gotta have more pieces of music that demonstrate variety instead of a complete musical thought... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamarag Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 This would encourage more chop and bop and schizophrenic arranging in my opinion. Gotta have more pieces of music that demonstrate variety instead of a complete musical thought... No, it wouldn't, especially when taken in context with the other criteria on the music sheets. What it would mean is less time spent at the extremes of tempo and arranging and more completing musical thoughts, at medium tempos. If you want to add a line about "extended musical phrases" feel free. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjeffeory Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 No, it wouldn't, especially when taken in context with the other criteria on the music sheets. What it would mean is less time spent at the extremes of tempo and arranging and more completing musical thoughts, at medium tempos. If you want to add a line about "extended musical phrases" feel free. My thought months ago on this subject is what I posted. Look at what has happened to horn writing in the past several years. Variety was the exact thing that caused and is causing the chop and bop arrangements we currently have. Adding extended musical phrases is only going to extend the phrasing of each chop and bop piece. Maybe we have a different perception of what this writing consists of and I'm not trying to belittle your comment, but it's just what I think is going on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamarag Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) My thought months ago on this subject is what I posted. Look at what has happened to horn writing in the past several years. Variety was the exact thing that caused and is causing the chop and bop arrangements we currently have. Adding extended musical phrases is only going to extend the phrasing of each chop and bop piece. Maybe we have a different perception of what this writing consists of and I'm not trying to belittle your comment, but it's just what I think is going on. Variety was in no way the cause of chop-n-bop. It's not even on the music sheets. The only mention of the word is on the Effect Music sheets under "variety of effect", which is a totally different thing. You may want to take a look at the sheets. Edited September 20, 2012 by Kamarag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjeffeory Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) Variety was in no way the cause of chop-n-bop. It's not even on the music sheets. The only mention of the word is on the Effect Music sheets under "variety of effect", which is a totally different thing. You may want to take a look at the sheets. I do need to look at the new sheets again for sure. I do not study them, but your variety statement stuck out to me as something that I've read before. Maybe I read it on the "Effect Music" sheets? I'm not against variety in show music, but I still stand by what I believe; I believe that adding that terminology to the sheets would affirm the chop and bop arranging style and urge everyone to try and cram as much "variety" into a show as possible without much regard as to whether or not it fits the intent of the original music or flow of the show. Sometimes a show calls for a variety of styles and techniques and sometimes it requires what the original composer intended without too many "enhancements". I'm just a little gun shy... I think both of us agree that we do not want extremes in either direction. You do not want the same style for 11 minutes, I do not want a different style every 30 seconds. I reread your first post and see what you're aiming for. I just see the big downside to it. Personally, I'm great with less than 5 styles in a show. Many 3 part shows are going to get enough variety regardless of what is stated on the sheets. I don't like it when corps play so many different styles in 11 minutes. Your corps and my corps were pretty guilt of that this past year. It's just too much to be musically coherent to me. Edited September 20, 2012 by jjeffeory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fsubone Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 As much as people claim to not like that show, Cadets 2007 had some amazing brass parts in it. There is a crazy trumpet part where they are marching and playing with some pretty extreme exposure, and it's either double or triple-tounging, it moves back and forth. It's right after the quote, "When we all work together, as a team, we can do stuff like this." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mello Dude Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) As much as people claim to not like that show, Cadets 2007 had some amazing brass parts in it. There is a crazy trumpet part where they are marching and playing with some pretty extreme exposure, and it's either double or triple-tounging, it moves back and forth. It's right after the quote, "When we all work together, as a team, we can do stuff like this." So did we really need a verbalization of the obvious? Did it make musical sense or was it simply Arbans running on the field? This get pretty much to the point of defines "music" vs notes on a page. Granted very hard lick, but when you have the talent pool you select and pretty much unlimited time to rehearse..meh. Would love to see this piece on the field in its entirety. Edited September 20, 2012 by Mello Dude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.