ajlemm Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 I like how you put that. You're right that judges are imperfect, but they don't deliberately judge according to their own tastes and values. They unconsciously judge according to their own tastes and values. Seriously though, I think the judges believe they are qualified to understand enough about all the well-known genres of music to sense how well a corps is expressing the passions in that kind of music. They may be wrong about that, but anyway that's part of their specialty. Thus it is the apparently intended audience that the judge is in effect emulating in order to judge effect, not the actual audience. And that leads to decades long controversy over entertainment. Any high GE-scoring selection should be very entertaining indeed - to it's intended audience, which may not ever go to drum corps shows. This is just my sense of how they approach it, as a fan. I wrote about this in another thread. The sheets clearly state that judges should evaluate how the activity "engages the audience". Who is the audience? It's the judge! Maybe... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornTeacher Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dnUs2AqWvs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
84BDsop Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 I got it! (Maybe...) "I wish" is a BD tradition going back to 1992 with "When a Man Loves a Woman" when an enthusiastic audience member yelled it out (in response to the guard's suggestive dance). It was repeated one or two years later as "I still wish" sounding like the same guy. Of course Clara is referring to the characters in the stories, but i bet it's also a nod to BD history. Uhhh...no. "I wish" is a common line in the source material. In 92 the line was "I'm wet." 94 was "I'm still wet." Not even remotely close to ":I wish." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornTeacher Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 (edited) Uhhh...no. "I wish" is a common line in the source material. In 92 the line was "I'm wet." 94 was "I'm still wet." Not even remotely close to ":I wish." Well...a case could be made.... Edited August 12, 2015 by HornTeacher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowtown Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 drum corps has been stuck in a postmodernism phase for a while now (with a few exceptions) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrothgar15 Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 drum corps has been stuck in a postmodernism phase for a while now (with a few exceptions) Completely agree. When the one or two exceptions each year do happen though, they are glorious (which ones do you have in mind btw?). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowtown Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Madison and Regiment in the top 12 were the exception this year...and they both suffered DCP’s wrath…I found them refreshing and enjoyed the levity in the context of finals this year, they were like a cool drink 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodchuck Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 I would like to make two comments: 1,I have learned more about BD 2015 from this than from watching them four times live. I know little about Into the Woods,and nothing about Kpop.The show won for me because of the talent on the field. 2; With all due respect to the OP,Troopers "Wild Horses" was not just a show about some horses. If you listen to the lyrics, she wants to be"like" the wild horses. Great theme,excellent potrayed and preformed. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasgre2000 Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 Loved Finals and I love DCI. But I have a concern about what DCI shows are becoming. I don't like the pseudo "spirituality" and incomprehensible meaning in many of these shows. It seems as though we are valuing "nothingness" and afraid of anything with meaning (because we're afraid of offending someone). Vague, valueless, and relativistic are what some of these shows are becoming. For Example: a show about wild horses [not a substantive story about a horse(s) or a metaphor of individualism, freedom, the West, etc., just about "wild horses" in general]; a show about numbers [not the values behind numbers, but just numbers themselves...what does that mean?]; a show about "Ink" and the written word [but one that was so incomprehensible and so busy with randomness and irrelevant (in my opinion) hip hop, I had no idea what they were trying to communicate.]... Are show designers trying to outsmart everyone by coming up with these ambiguous shows? There aren't even metaphors in these shows...it's just nothingness. It's up to "the interpreter" to decide what the show means to him or her. Well, that leaves the audience more confused and dispirited. I'm not saying everything has to be Pollyanish entertainment. I loved the Bluecoats show. It was brilliant. But too many shows I see are devoid of any meaning whatsoever...and they play to the audience's head, not the heart. Some of the only corps that buck this trend are Madison Scouts, Phantom Regiment, The Academy, and a few others. I'm not saying it can't be abstract, but even abstract breaks down something that has value. It's like Jazz music, even though spontaneous, still follows distinct and recognizable patterns. I've always found critiques like this to beyond bizarre. Music is inherently abstract, especially instrumental music. You can't have music without abstraction. Music doesn't inherently have meaning ... you may assign meaning to music based on how it makes you feel, the lyrics that go along with it, what you know about the composer, the imagery (film, art, photographs, drill, etc) that is associated with it, or what others have said or written about it, but the concept of attaching meaning to music is fundamentally a function of abstraction. It seems completely oxymoronic to love music and to believe abstraction has no value. If you need everything spelled out for you, and can't handle something that asks you to apply your own interpretation (or to explore your own feelings), then maybe music is an art-form you are better off staying away from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasgre2000 Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 Well said. As somebody else pointed out are we building this for the casual fan to attract more or to the DCP Ph.D's on here. There should be a balance in the show programming to give something to both groups....and judges.There seemed to be plenty of "casual fans" at Finals this year, so I'm not sure what we are worried about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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