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DCA is far closer to DCI age than ever before

Perhaps my wanting to celebrate Thanksgiving along with you Americans has caused me to suffer under a tryptophan high as a result of too many Swanson Turkey TV dinners. AKA - I don't know what the heck I'm talking about.

One also has to look at what was being done under each system. As some might think todays wouldnt survive under a tic system. corps from back then wouldnt survive in many ways in todays world ....all around...kinda pointless comparing They were great BITD for many reasons, including pushing the envelope to lead the way to today, as there are greats today for dozens of reasons

What good is the extending the age limit to 23 if you can't meet the 55 minimum requirement to field a competitive corps.

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.

I do feel for those that would have aged out to miss their last season(s). However, as others have stated, this is a pandemic....life throws people curves, and they have to face things. We wouldn't have a drum corps season if the continental US was under attack from a foreign invader....guess what....we are...the invader is simply invisible. For those who still have the urge and means to march, but have aged out, they can march with a DCA corps. I do think that those members who have paid corps most or all of their fees/costs...the corps should be mandated by DCI to refund these folks. "Oh, well....that's just the way it is....we don't have it......we spent it", are not going to be acceptable answers, and members could pursue legal action. If they already spent the money, they should have to liquidate assets to pay their bills and these refunds. I find your comment about "only full time college students be offered this opportunity" to be quite discriminatory. Drum corps has already become a "rich kids sport", as many young people are simply priced out of the activity. In this case, you could have a case where "rich mommy and daddy" are paying 50K+ per year for a member to go to college, also paying most or all of their corps fees, and you are blessing them with another year due to the covid cancelled season(s).....but you are not for the kid who graduated high school, could not afford to go to college, lives in his/her parents' basement, and worked very hard at a low/minimum job for 3 years to earn every penny needed to march....but you won't extend them..........really?? I think adding a "no props" rule and keeping it in place for awhile would be helpful. It will encourage corps to be frugal, and help those that must be in order to survive, and put emphasis on performances. One thing for certain.....the days of 2+ million dollar budgets are over....and corps management that puts the blinders on regarding this will find themselves bankrupt quite quckly......those who are already making plans to get by on 500 - 800 K may have a shot at survival. We will likely be in a depression when corps returns, and DCI would be wise to start planning for that now........an attempt to make it affordable to march, and affordable for fans to attend shows. ....the current "country club" approach is not going to survive; that money simply will not be there.

Yes, tics were absolutely subjective. Was event 'X' good or bad? Did it deserve a tic....two...three???? As I noted above, what was and wasn't a tic varied by circuit and level. Each judge had to decide what that event warranted. Yes, today's system is also subjective. As always. No problem with that. A judge had better provide the commentary to justify the score today. IMO tics led to vertically arranged music in brass, with clearly defined attacks and clearly defined releases. A staff did not want any chance for a phrase to possibly get hit because of overlapping horizontally arranged phrases. In drumming, one trick I remember was having nice big cymbal crashes at the end of a snare phrase...made it more difficult to tell if the line hit the release cleanly or not. It is all judge opinion, and it always has been.

Look again, it's pretty darn perfect today. With that look back at some old videos, not as perfect as one remembers. Skill level is through the roof today, no denying that Youre right though about creativity, the icons of the activity back then were the ones who pushed the activity toward a more creative activity. SO, if we want to blame anyone for change we have to look wayyyyyyy back in the day.

The 55-minimum is for new Open Class corps seeking evaluation, Currently-competing corps still have the 30-minimum.

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". 😎