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2018 Rules proposals


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1 hour ago, chaddyt said:

I don't get Hop's logic for the ordinals given that nothing would change with the judging system or what information the individual corps would be privy to.  It would just be less information for us fans to chew on.

Am I missing something?

He contradicts himself. Throw that in with the horrible spelling and grammar and the confusion is understandable. 

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So I know many of the proposals this year hinge on Music Analysis.

Just so that we're all clear, here's how Michael Cesario defines the Analysis captions:

The Music Analysis and Visual Analysis judges are the classically trained judges, the most scientific in their approach. They analyze how the pieces of the puzzle fit together and they focus on the detailing … how is the music or visual orchestration done, how well is that utilized, what are the developmental phrases, and how is the show composed and constructed.

I think a lot of us seem to misinterpret the Music Analysis caption as currently being "how good the overall musical ensemble sounds" rather than "how well the show is constructed from a musical standpoint." Music Analysis is about the compositional elements of the show, not the brass performance (Brass), nor the percussion performance (Percussion), nor the creative content/overall entertainment factor (GE). That being said, the term "Analysis" (as opposed to "Ensemble") has only been used since the 2012 season, so we're all still getting used to this more "scientific" approach rather than a more "sonorous" approach to the musical aspect of DCI.

How any changes to Music Analysis will affect a possible second brass judge and/or second MA judge has yet to be seen, but I hope this was enlightening to some of you.

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 Its one thing to adopt a relatively new policy in DCI for Corps now to essentially keep Drum Corps fans completely in the dark in the off season on what is going on for approx 9 months out of the year.

 But it takes this " Sound of Silence " to a whole  'nuther level, when a DCI Proposal is made , that if passed, would have Drum Corps fans all across the country have no idea what the scoring was in these Drum Corps shows. Nor what the spreads were between the Corps, nor how Corps did in Drums/ Brass/ Guard. captions and so forth  There would essentially be NO transparency all all in how the Corps  became " ranked "., Nor would judges scores be made public immediately after the show competition. Whenever an activity  has less transparency, it naturally invites something else to fill the void. Those " somethings ", in the absence of full and open transparency, tend not to be " good things ", I hope this proposal... especially this one... goes down in defeat to the intelligent " Sound of Transparency ", not to the cynical, " Sound of Silence " that would thus extend for Drum Corps fans everywhere now even into the summer competition season.

 

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Just now, mingusmonk said:

He contradicts himself. Throw that in with the horrible spelling and grammar and the confusion is understandable. 

Yeah.... I mean, if the corps are still seeing the scores in critique, then what's the point except to keep fans from knowing them?

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3 hours ago, Liahona said:

Proposal: No scores – ordinals only

Summary: Instead of scores, this proposal calls for corps to simply be ranked by ordinals (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). The order of finish will be determined based on ordinals, with General Effect judges as the exception. The effect judges will still assign scores, however, those scores will only be used for tie-breaking situations.

On the record: “This eliminates the ability, more or less, for someone to spread big or someone to make no decisions. All decisions are equal. Now, if someone wants to put someone in fifth in brass … OK … that is a substantial decision and that decision will weigh into the total.”

 

This proposal makes the least sense to me and honestly leaves me scratching my head.  Can someone please explain the logic here as to WHY ordinals would be a favorable way to RANK corps with the absence of scores?  

On paper to make judging and scores more stable, but in reality that doesn't happen. Also spreads are important.

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I finally had a chance to read the details of each proposal. My only issue is with the two that, after reading, don't make any sense. "No Scores until July 1st" and "Ordinals Only."

 

Fundamentally, I struggle with solutions for problems that don't exist.

  1. Will Pitts doesn't convince me in his document that he is addressing anything that is a problem.
  2. Same for Hopkins. Granted, he is a poor writer. So maybe that is the reason I am not seeing it.

 

I think the reason for the confusion coming from their proposals (proper English aside) is that they are dancing around their real concern. Slotting. For whatever reasons, they don't seem comfortable in calling a spade a spade.  They would make a better case if they said something like this: "Early season slotting makes overcoming numerical deficits problematic." 

 

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10 minutes ago, Cadevilina Crown said:

So I know many of the proposals this year hinge on Music Analysis.

Just so that we're all clear, here's how Michael Cesario defines the Analysis captions:

The Music Analysis and Visual Analysis judges are the classically trained judges, the most scientific in their approach. They analyze how the pieces of the puzzle fit together and they focus on the detailing … how is the music or visual orchestration done, how well is that utilized, what are the developmental phrases, and how is the show composed and constructed.

I think a lot of us seem to misinterpret the Music Analysis caption as currently being "how good the overall musical ensemble sounds" rather than "how well the show is constructed from a musical standpoint." Music Analysis is about the compositional elements of the show, not the brass performance (Brass), nor the percussion performance (Percussion), nor the creative content/overall entertainment factor (GE). That being said, the term "Analysis" (as opposed to "Ensemble") has only been used since the 2012 season, so we're all still getting used to this more "scientific" approach rather than a more "sonorous" approach to the musical aspect of DCI.

How any changes to Music Analysis will affect a possible second brass judge and/or second MA judge has yet to be seen, but I hope this was enlightening to some of you.

Thanks for this very helpful information.  So am I right in my understanding then that this is basically a scoring of the show designers' work, not the MM's performance of that work?

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15 hours ago, MikeD said:

Proposal: No scores – ordinals only

Me: I understand this one too. It is not as bad an idea as some make it out to be. It completely flattens out the impact of how various judges create spreads in their captions. On the other hand, the historical purpose of judging a caption has been two fold...ranking (the placement)  and rating (the spread). This eliminates the rating aspect of judging that has been around as long as there has been judging. So I am on the fence on this one.

I'm still debating yes or no on this one. In general, I'm for this idea but I don't like this specific implementation of it. As you said, the judge's job is to rank and rate the performances.The first thing judges have to do, basically their primary goal, is to make sure the best corps wins their caption, period. The ordinal system keeps that intact. The rating part has always been something I've had an issue with through the years. First off is how the score itself changes throughout the season. Every season starts with the 1st place corps starting around 70-75 and ending the season between 97-100. The first corps to break 90 is around the San Antonio regional and the first to break 95 is around Allentown. It's pretty formulaic really. The other issue I have is the fact that the caption numbers matter but don't at the same time. By that I mean, getting a 20 in a caption doesn't necessarily mean you had a perfect caption. Let's say that the second place corps had a 19.8 so it just means you were 0.2 pts or more better than that second place corps. You got a "perfect score" just because of number management, not because you necessarily had a perfect performance. Obviously judge training tries to combat getting in that situation in the first place but sometimes it just can't get avoided.

Just for arguments sake, let's say it's a really good year in guard where the 12th place corps is performing at the level to receive a 19.3 or so. But due to the fact that they are the 12th place corps in guard, they can't possibly get a 19.3 and instead will go down to a 18.5 or so just to make room for the other corps. That 18.5 helps to come up with a score sure, but it's artificially low compared to their actual performance level. From a competitive aspect, all we care about is they are in 12th in guard. From an educational aspect, we care we are scoring a 19.3.

I would like ordinals to take over as the primary competitive score but corps still receive scores from each judge, however each corps can only see their own specific scores.

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7 minutes ago, RetiredMusTeach said:

Thanks for this very helpful information.  So am I right in my understanding then that this is basically a scoring of the show designers' work, not the MM's performance of that work?

It's kind of a combination of both, but moreso of the music arrangers/composers than of the MMs. For sure, something that is well-composed by the designers but not performed well by the MMs can be reflected as such in the MA score, as would something not well-composed but performed well. But in general, the credit mostly belongs to the musical designers.

(Off-topic, but this is why I'd prefer if the Analysis captions were sorted into their own category instead of being part of the Music and Visual scores.)

Edited by Cadevilina Crown
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9 minutes ago, wilme861 said:

I'm still debating yes or no on this one. In general, I'm for this idea but I don't like this specific implementation of it. As you said, the judge's job is to rank and rate the performances.The first thing judges have to do, basically their primary goal, is to make sure the best corps wins their caption, period. The ordinal system keeps that intact. The rating part has always been something I've had an issue with through the years. First off is how the score itself changes throughout the season. Every season starts with the 1st place corps starting around 70-75 and ending the season between 97-100. The first corps to break 90 is around the San Antonio regional and the first to break 95 is around Allentown. It's pretty formulaic really. The other issue I have is the fact that the caption numbers matter but don't at the same time. By that I mean, getting a 20 in a caption doesn't necessarily mean you had a perfect caption. Let's say that the second place corps had a 19.8 so it just means you were 0.2 pts or more better than that second place corps. You got a "perfect score" just because of number management, not because you necessarily had a perfect performance. Obviously judge training tries to combat getting in that situation in the first place but sometimes it just can't get avoided.

Just for arguments sake, let's say it's a really good year in guard where the 12th place corps is performing at the level to receive a 19.3 or so. But due to the fact that they are the 12th place corps in guard, they can't possibly get a 19.3 and instead will go down to a 18.5 or so just to make room for the other corps. That 18.5 helps to come up with a score sure, but it's artificially low compared to their actual performance level. From a competitive aspect, all we care about is they are in 12th in guard. From an educational aspect, we care we are scoring a 19.3.

I would like ordinals to take over as the primary competitive score but corps still receive scores from each judge, however each corps can only see their own specific scores.

Hop should've commissioned you to make the argument.  This at least makes a little more sense.

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