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I remember looking at some of the contest scores on Fromthepressbox.com and seeing ridiculous jumps/drops between prelims and finals held on the same day.

Not really an argument a reality. Either this stays an youth activity for young people or it becomes DCA. You got to have rules. The maturity between a 16 year old and a 23 is just too much IMHO. Seriously, someone could join the Marines, do their 4 years (go overseas and fight a war) and then march in this situation. Speaking of staff and members, their have been enough issues with that as it is; we don't need to make things worse. Either this is a youth activity or it isn't. Either we install the value of life lessons and reality or we keep people from reality and growing up. DCI has some big boy decisions to make and I hope the adults are running the show. We have already have DCA for those so inclined. Off soap box.

The Tic system was a hot mess and just as now opinion. There was little to no accountability back then and proved pretty much nothing. Nothing consistent and what some called exciting when a corps could jump or fall many spots one day to the next, others would say impossible and shows one judge to another...just opinion..I also taught and judged under both systems.

I learned and started judging under the tic system as well. Totally agree with the above. I judged in the Garden State Circuit from 76-80'ish. The circuit decided at the winter meeting one year, either 76 or 77, to judge on the "National Linear" scale...in other words, the lowest beginner corps was to be compared to the very top corps (e.g. Blue Devils/Santa Clara, etc) in evaluating the performance being adjudicated. This lasted about two weeks once the season started and the directors and staffs saw just how low scores were going to be. So they immediately decided to change to a "Circuit" tolerance level, much more realistic. What that does show is that a tic is not always a tic, as some try and say. It is only a tic if the judge decided it was a tic based on whatever criteria were being used. There were also group tics where one phrase could result in more than a single tic, based on the judge determination. Also, a judge had to be in position to mark a tic. In drumming execution, we could only mark a tic when we were standing in front of a particular section. Even if we heard other errors in a section behind us, for instance, we were not supposed to mark it down. As mallets and other instruments became prevalent, it really showed the limits of tics in percussion. Even timpani. I was judging a GSC show in the summer, and one corps had a timpani section that was doing a lot of cranking to change pitches...except that as they cranked, the notes never changed. I spoke to the instructor at the judge critique after the show. He told me I was the very first judge all summer to catch them...turns out they disconnected the cranks before the corps started their show. It just looked like they were changing pitches. They used to get credit in analysis and effect for all of the note "changes". 😎

How many pages did you have to go back to find and resurrect this? Happy Thanksgiving! 😀

Not only judges but I competed with 3 Senior circuits. DCA execution driven, ICA GE and show driven (Empire Statesmen started there), and RCA which had a lot of the really lesser corps so LOT of leeway with what was ticable

The tic system is dead. Please don’t dig up bones!

Happy Thanksgiving...be safe, be happy, be thankful

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!!!

Yes the percussion caption was only decided at finals. Due to the tie, the DCI powers that be decided to break the tie by which line had the highest General Effect score (vs. Execution) which in my opinion execution would have been the most objective but I was just a horn player in Spirit 1980.... anyway Bridgemen had a higher General Effect percussion score so the high percussion award went to them.

I marched 79, 80, and 81 Spirit and 82 Blue Devils. The tic system was still in place when I marched Spirit and also in 1982. In 1982, we beat Madison's old hornline score that year that had been set in 1975 before finals and had a record horn score with only three tics at finals. If I am not mistaken, the horn caption was the first to do away with the tic system. I know scoring a 95.25 as we did in 1982 at finals with the tic system still in place was what we shot for all winter and season long. The execution judges sometimes varied between sides and within captions, however, I can tell you as a horn line member and marcher, it gave us a sense of accountability and I know we felt we had control. In Spirit, one of our marching instructors told us to get the first 30 seconds of the show flawless and the execution judges will go easier on us. In BD we were told the same thing. We worked to get the first 30 seconds flawless and both times we saw the numbers go up.

Happy Thanksgiving and be safe

Got that sent to me last night by a lady friend. Cats expression and dog stealing silverware are the best imo

Unlike the video below, we're celebrating Thanksgiving with our small immediate family unit only. Happy Thanksgiving DCP!

In defense of my percussion brethren (not one myself). 1980 - Bridgemen/Spirit of Atlanta

I love this recording made from the stands - 1976 Stillwater Drum Beauty - Concord BD. This is night #2 of Drum Beauty...I think the horns cut loose a little more than on the first night. Be sure to use ear/headphones to enjoy the clarity, emotion, and intensity....and a few errors, but hey..it is organic!! Since I only had audio, I had to quickly add a slide show. Hope you like snares, cuz that's all I could grab quickly. Anyway - Frank, You probably don't remember me since I wasn't in the hornline, but I think you'll like this. I enjoy it mostly because I never got a chance to stand in front of the horn arc, but this is how I always imagined it sounded.

I'd also say, they can add individual competition where individuals compete on each instrument. Now THAT, would be interesting to see.

Yes Mike was a member of the Sparks that turned into SCV.

Yes... some might have possibly seen Carolina Crown ranked in 1st place on the DCI website ( and other poster rankings ) as recently as 60 hours ago (this past Friday)... and concluded because of this 1st place ranking that Crown MUST have beaten BD lately in head to head matchups. Maybe thats where the confusion might have come from. BD is 16-0 the last 16 head to head matchups with Crown going back to July 17th of 2011. BD finally catapulted back into 1st place in the DCI rankings for 2012 approx 48 hours ago.

so the answer is yes youre going bonkers

I am guessing what you probably saw, was there were nights in different competitions, where the Crown score was higher than BD. However in head to head competition, BD is 4-0 vs Crown. However, it wouldn't surprise me if Crown beat BD at least once this season.

Mike was, if I remember correctly, a charter member of SCV.

Yes...

To respond to the "win as team, lose as a team" mantra....did the entire team particpate in the cheat? The adults that were in charge, were in charge. They, and only they, held the power to determine whether the rules would be followed....not some 15 year old kid playing cymbals. The corps director ought to have been banned for life and the organization that chose not to implement appropriate procedures to ensure they had honest adults involved with their kids ought to have had sanctions imposed that were appropriate to the infraction. It is terribly wrong minded for a youth actvity to impose the penalty upon the kids, for what was done by the dishoest adults who stood in a fiduciary relationship with them.

I'll go with that. Sometimes instructors get spotlighted more than the corps.

In my opinion, that was one of the biggest creative limitations associated with the tick system. Everyone doing something different might be read as a whole bunch of ticks even if it produced a desired effect. But, IMO a redefinition of the tick could fix that. If there is any question, meaning if you have to ask if it's an error, then it's not a tick. Simple as that, it puts the focus on clear mistakes that anyone, not just an expert, could see or hear. Also agreed with the poster who said that for drummers ticks can be a better measure than other systems. I still use ticks as a teaching tool. The kids get into the challenge of "beating the judge" and it can be an effective measure of progress. But, unless you see the same judge every day, it gets into all kinds of inconsistencies. A roll that's clean to one ear might be a little dirty to another. So, I think those kinds of things shouldn't be ticked at all in competition. But, bouncing a stick across the field or totally dumping on a featured lick should count. The old tick system wasn't good. It wasn't consistent or objective. I knew that the day Rod Goodhart sat down on the Bridgemen's drum major podium and played along with his pencil on the back of the clipboard through most of the show. He was obviously enamored with the line, convinced they weren't going to tick and wasn't even looking for dirt. And Rod was a great judge! But, I think they threw the baby out with the bath water and a re-tooling of the system might have been a good alternative. Also want to add that one of my gripes with the current system is that it puts so much emphasis on design, in effect judging the staff almost more than the corps itself. I teach an indoor drum line and the vast majority of commentary from judges is show design related (many of whom also judge DCI). When BD goes on the field, are they judging the corps or are they judging Wayne Downey and company? Obviously, show design is an important aspect of the whole package. But, I'd like to see more of the score in the hands of the performers. Yes, BD would probably still win, but it might give other corps with less bejeweled designers more of a fighting chance.

I never met Jim but I was there in Birmingham in 1979 and 1980 and saw his hornline blow the entire crowd away! I have NEVER EVER heard anything like the begining of Georgia... Wow! Some 29 years later I find myself standing next to Jim's sister (Bonnie) on the front sidelines doing our show with the Renegades at DCA in 2009 and while we are playing all I can think of, are those great Spirit hornlines! Thank You Jim for your gift... You made me fall in love with Drum Corps, and I am still stuck in love today!

You are correct, I marched #2 bass that year. We had a MAJOR tear and side one of the hornline and the drumline was a full 4 beats off from side 2 hornline after the solos in the opener. The corps never fully recovered from that blunder for the rest of the show. What a shame. The original poster was correct in saying we beat a few finalsts earlier in the week at Randalls Island stadium in NYC during the VFW finals. I do believe that was the last VFW finals with top junior corps in attendance. If you have a chance to hear the world open recording from 1976, You will be quite impressed, It was a great corps, YOUNG, But great just the same. Jay

Yes sir, Charlie...that was a really nice opener! And it was NOT easy! (Some really hot mello licks!) 1976 was my first year in drum corps, and it was great being part of the Muchacho Family! Looking back, the disparity in the scoring during the last few weeks was very unfortunate. Many of us were newbies, and we were taken under the wings of many talented veterans, and staff members, like you. For those that don't know him (most of you do) Charlie is an amazing marching instructor. He worked us really hard, and pushed us harder, and with more intensity than any staff person that I've ever worked with in my marching career! And we also had a few other famous names on the staff, or marching in our ranks: Jeff Kievit, Jim Prime, Donnie Van Doren, and Frank Gerris, to name a few. There was a lot of heart, and pride in the Muchachos, and of course, a lot of talent. It was a wonderful indoctrination to the world of drum corps, especially for a quiet, inexperienced kid from Bergenfield! In 1976, this 16-yr-old rookie felt very fortunate to learn, and grow with such a fine group of people. Of course, the scoring/placement was very demoralizing, and we always felt that some of the scoring was suspect, but after listening to recordings from our 1976 performances, I totally agree with some of the earlier posts. The tempo/phasing issue during prelims definitely kept us out of finals, but our performance was still deserving of a higher placement. But that was a long time ago. And there were a lot of things that were strange back then, as others have already pointed out. It was a very different world both inside, and outside of drum corps. No doubt about it!

They were at prelims....but finished in 21st place...... GB

Most appreciated.... it was the best year and it was a joy.