Leaderboard

Hello… it's been a while. First thing's first - let's applaud BOA for doing what it needs to do. If you read their statement, they're basically saying "you're cheating, and we see you". Good on them. However, what we should do is dig into the subtlety of what's going on, and how for the marching arts we can move this forward. IMO, they've laid down a challenge, but have forgotten the Piano Principle. I'll get to that, but I'm going to write this stuff out and *anyone* feel free to use it. I've been arguing this position for about 18 years, so it's not a difficult one to regurgitate, but there are some subtleties that might not be evident at first read. REINFORCEMENT This concept is where an analog sound is made louder to achieve a different balance. Initially brought (en masse) for pit instruments, this allows your 4 marimbas to be trimmed down to 2, and still be the same in the ensemble texture. Why is this good? Logistics for dropping 2 marimbas might be an annual budget savings that's material, and the wear of hard mallets protects the longevity of the instrument. When the Blue Devils did this the first time, they had one small amp per keyboard, and it was excellent. Now it's all evolved to scenes and two large stacks of amps. It's debatable that this is ideal for a number of reasons -- particularly because when techs talk about scenes, they're actively changing the volumes of microphones. The original intent of instrumental reinforcement was to raise the overall amplitude of specific quiet percussive instruments. Altering the volume takes away some player responsibility. Adding effects is altering the original signature of the instrument, and should be avoided. More on that... Amplified voice has been a lightning rod since The Zone and The Cadets. In addition, it should be noted that the Blue Devils were also shown to have altered a voice amplification by taking "that laugh" down an octave but were not penalised -- and they won the title that year. Effects should 100% be off-limits, with some very light exceptions for equalisation that's set-and-forget, particularly with keyboards. Any digital signal processing that is intended to alter the timbre should be off limits. In this statement by BOA, they are effectively saying that the bands are cheating, and they're right. In olden times, we'd call someone marching a spot but not really playing a "plug". It happened for several reasons, usually injury or someone quitting. What BOA is describing here is effectively mic every instrument, and play the ones that are better. This means that a band can easily and effectively have lots of plugs all over the field and still give a more full sound. It's my opinion that if all reinforcement was limited to the Pit Box, this would not be a problem. You can also give the 12-15 feet behind the Pit Box a pass so you can set up a STATIONARY mic for soloists. Drum corps and brass solos basically don't need this (though some might debate), it's definitely more reasonable for a clarinet solo as an example. If you don't allow wireless mics, or more specifically microphones cannot be moved/carried during a show, it eliminates this cheating. SAMPLED vs PRE-RECORDED vs SEQUENCED If you've made it this far, you're into it. Simply waving these three words together is a blunt exercise. Let's define them: Sampled instrument - A set of recorded notes of an instrument that are intended to be played back to recreate a real instrument, often invoked through computer software and triggered by both analog and digital methods. Pre-recorded - A playing of multiple notes, sounds, or a combination to emulate an instrument playing a passage with the musicianship as part of what is recorded. The playback of a passage. Sequenced - The playing of a synthesiser or sampler with the automatic triggering of a digital ordering. It is the modern equivalent of a player-piano sheet. Invoking a sequence allows the playback of any passage without the need of memory or musicianship. So this is where we come to the Piano Principle. If you want to have a piano sound, do you bring a piano? No; it's unreasonable. Should you bring a keyboard that can create these sounds? If you want a piano, it's the only reasonable thing to do. Should you allow a piano sound with a marching ensemble? That's a creative rule decision. But what about a tympani, as was brought up? Maybe there should be some consideration to not having to bring tubs if you're only going to use it as an effect for a few seconds, etc. There is a correct method to interpret this, and a basic flow of questions would help put marching organisations back on the right path. Is the instrument analog? If yes, is it allowed? For example, many associations don't allow double-reed instruments to be marched for safety. Assuming it's conventional, you allow it on the field. Is your instrument in need of amplification/reinforcement? If it's a marched instrument, then it should only be allowed to have reinforcement by a solo-ing mic stand that is stationary. If it's a keyboard instrument, it should be reinforced, but the volumes should be maintained by the player, or should be set by a technician and left for the entirety of the show. No scenes. Technicians should only be given the option to turn a system off in case of malfunction. If the instrument is a sample, there are some guidelines that should make it fairly simple to maintain musicianship. Notes should be played by the student. Volume should be played by the student. The motion of triggering a sound is done by the student, and triggering must be restricted to a physical implementation. For example, a pedal can be used to imitate a piano pedal. Pressing any button/key should cause a representative note/volume, and one press should be one sound. A sampled instrument should also be fully licensed and allowed for the use of playback without copyright concerns. From this, an artistic question should be answered by the governing body - specifically where the sampling of instruments should be for a similar kind of trigger, and the instrument should not be equal to any other. You should not have a piano-style keyboard playing flute sounds when you have flutes on the field. You should not have a piano-style keyboard playing violin sounds. The implement should match, thus if someone was playing a tympani sample, it should be played in the manner a tympani would be played, and that's with a drum trigger. Sampled instruments vs Sampling Thus far, we've discussed sampled instruments, intending to be played back to represent its analog. Sampling can also be unrealistic. For example, sampling a car horn for an effect. The sound can be modulated, but it's not a traditional instrument. Ensembles should be encouraged to use the real thing when possible, and judged better when they do. Sometimes that's not realistic, so in the case where a sampled effect is used, **it should not be modulated**. This also applies for sampled instruments. If you sample a car horn that honks in F, it should not be used in other pitches, nor modulated or effected or signal-processed as part of a performance. Any non-analog instrument should not have effects used as part of the performance. As part of this requirement, any sampled/digital sound needs to be triggered by a student, in real time, in the Pit Box, and should not be altered or adjusted by a technician. Conclusion, for now The overriding principle behind all of these considerations is universal; the virtuosity of the student shall not be altered, hidden, or improved by the use of technology. There are some logistical and artistic wins to be had, but the Huygens-Frenzel Principle is undefeated, and there's no room for cheating. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens–Fresnel_principle) Electronic sounds, even sampled analog sounds, need to work within the ensemble, and you cannot hide kids or over-present your best. The ensemble sound is what makes marching so amazing in person, and to effectively cheat and remove what is the soul of marching is something that I'm glad is finally having a stand made. Think back to SCV doing Miss Saigon, and all the Foley work. That is the soul of marching arts. A quote that has always stuck with me is that "art is in the resistance of the materials". It's true; marching music isn't supposed to be push-button music box cranks. Moving forward intelligently can leave the soul of the art in a very good place, while providing artistic help and remove logistical nightmares. I listened to this evolution over my years with DCI in the capacity of audio recording, and it's never been different at any level. Leave the musicianship to all the kids. That's why we love this activity.

We should also remember that it's the CADETS that have the most championships when you combine the championships since before the inception of DCI. BD has been the most successful corps in DCI, but the Cadets have been the most celebrated drumcorps in history. Both are great accomplishments!

Have they won the last two full competitive seasons? Yes. If they win the next one will 2+1=3 in a row? Yes. It is most certainly a 3-peat. Not that hard to compute I would hope😂

Don’t forget to tune in to the 2023 Phanathon happening at 10:00am CST tomorrow. Lots of reveals to be seen! SUTA!

I can't, but I can tell the difference between a So. Cal Boomer vs. GenX & Millennial (other than looks): "Like, I was going down the, like, 405 to Venice for my, like, pilates class, and, like, the traffic was, like epic, but my class is, like, fly, so it's, like, totally worth it." Drives me insane.

I admire the consistency of The Mandarins. They've entered the top twelve and since then never looked back. I see how much they are infused, with so much creativity within their shows. The themes are truly intriguing, and refreshing among the top twelve, they can go very far with their approach. I really wish them best and lots of success for this season and forward. @Chief your son is going to be amazing like you've never seen him before. GO MANDARINS!

Mandarins music selections are extraordinary. So looking forward to their show.

This isn't a DCI thing. We do this in sports as well. The Super Bowl has been around since 1967. But the NFL has been playing football since 1920. Nearly a half century of championships won by teams, but we (in general) only look at and care about the SB titles won by the teams. And we are all guilty of it in some way. For example, the Detroit Lions have never been to a SB. But they do have four titles from the pre-super bowl era. But if some Lions fan tried to talk to us about the championship they won in 1935, we would laugh them out of the bldg. We live in a "What have you done for me lately" society.

Yep. Leaving weaker players off of harder passages isn't anything new in DCI, of course, but it's magnified now that standards of musicianship have gotten so high. It's pretty clear to me that DCI corps' solution will be to shrink sections down to a small handful of excellent players and then just mic them up. It's already being tested more and more every year. Instead of having weaker players go and scatter/dance/move around equipment, just convert them to guard and crank up the amplification. Duh. Does double duty with reducing costs, making rehearsals more efficient, and maximizing the visual-heavy rubrics. I remember saying that Bloo's onesie/hatless look for downside up would become the norm quickly, and people on here told me I was jumping to conclusions. I don't think the changes I'm anticipating will happen as quickly as that concept caught fire, but I do think it'll be faster than a lot of people think. I honestly think most of today's fans and future fans will be perfectly fine with it if/when it does happen.

Here's the difference: Amplifying only the top players is an artificial sound enhancement of an acoustic sound. Telling your freshmen 3rd trumpets who cannot technically handle the unison 16th note feature run to sit out is not. In theory, a field judge near where the feature is playing would have an opportunity to catch some of this. This is no different than having a symphonic band with a technical passage have weaker trumpets sit out a passage at contest/festival. That is not optimum, but it is not an artificial enhancement or addition to an acoustic sound. Regarding the last sentence, not at all the same thing. You're trying to conflate adding something that isn't real (artificial amplification of acoustic sound using electronic means) with subtracting something that was never there to begin with (kids who cannot technically handle the part and likely weren't playing it anyway).

This tiresome fixation on the "correct" math to describe BD's streak is energy-draining. It's like the debates over whether the year 2000 was the final year of millennium A, or the first year of millennium B.

They sound fantastic! Dang!!!

You would go crazy down here. No one is from here. Everyone has a different accent. It kind of drives me nuts. And there are no hard core Chicago accents like mine. Chi CAW go.

This repertoire is cool. Can't wait to see what they do with it.

This is, IMO, ridiculous. Back in 2002 our town went from one HS to two. Our already small marching band ended up having a total of around 32 people, with 6 being guard and 6 percussion, plus a DM. For our few winds, we ended up putting mics on every wind instrument except for the two first trumpets and 4 piccs. We micced the one 2nd trumpet, the clarinets, alto saxes, tenor sax, baritone horn and our tuba. The band sounded great given it small size. We actually had the 6 percussion play both pit and battery during the show. The six started all in the pit and as the show progressed the players ended up moving to battery, and back to the pit near the end. Our goal was to make the small band sound as good as possible at both football games and competitions in order to provide the students with the best experience possible. IMO there should not be any such rule telling the staff what they should or should not do to maximize that experience.

Respectfully … Isn’t it a little early in the season to be letting this stuff get to you so much? No one on this thread has really talked out of turn about Crown so far this season, but the prevailing attitude from your end has felt a bit negative. Crown is a great corps. They can survive the occasional snide remark on the internet. But that hasn’t even really happened in this space. You really gotta lighten up.

June 24th can't get here fast enough!

Thanks brother! Going to be a great year! BD going for the three peat! Mandarins could be fielding their best show ever...............LFG!

Let’s all take a step back from the ledge. Albeit minor, I understand the posts and why ZTW took exception. On the other hand, I’ve been a fan of SF1128’s contributions, and have found him to be not only knowledgeable but measured and thoughtful in his comments. Some of you might recall the Saturday Night Massacre [not Watergate] the Mod’s had on this thread last season. Discourse had devolved to such a low point that some long time contributors bailed and snark/ad hominem attacks ruled the day. I’ll do my best to keep a positive attitude. Crown might put out a train wreck or the second coming of FTCG crossed with ‘13 and ‘15. Anybody’s guess. But at this point we simply hope for the excellence that Crown has consistently shown over the last decade and a half.

I guess you don't get what I'm trying to say. " The right way" = The way it's always been done since the first DCI 3-Pete by St Ignatius. “helped maintain interest in the activity”= Getting the fans used to going back to drum corps show after a year of nothing. Getting the judges an opportunity to judge after a year of nothing. Call it what you want. Three wins over 5 years or Three wins over 3 years. I won't put more thought into it. A fighter wins by disqualification or Knock Out. A win is a win.*

The member GoPro videos that I have watched on YouTube have shown me how LITTLE some members actually play their instrument during the 11-12 minutes on the field. Shane spent quite a bit of time hiding behind props waiting to come out for his "wink" moment, for example.

Good for you and good for them. What works in one circuit doesn't necessarily work in another. I've worked with a band with 9 winds, no more than 4 on brass. Literally the textbook of a small band as well, and from the historically poorest region of the country. We did what we had to in-order to stay competitive in the circuit that we competed in. It worked for us. Just because you "personally see no justification in the excuse of small numbers" doesn't mean it doesn't help the students be more competitive and have a more successful season on that aspect of competition, and just because you score with your head on your shoulders doesn't mean that every judge does.

I am one hour southeast of you in Murrieta (Riverside County). I know EXACTLY what you are talking about.

I don't really give a rat's patooey if it's called a 3-peat or not or how much debate goes on about it through eternity. All I know is if it happens, it's an ungodly number of victories over history and is the only drum corps prediction I'll ever make- a record that will never fall. Of course 30+ years ago, people were saying the same thing about Gretzky's records and now they're being challenged, so maybe predictions are like putting a sushi bar in Pearl Harbor - just a bad idea.

It would be better than what they done since the Drum Corpse Bride show. Disappointing. I thought they were on their way. A cautionary tale for the Troopers.

I think that three years ago (May 2020) if someone prophesied that in May 2023 we would be arguing whether a three-peat was feasible, many of us would have thought that this was a hopelessly optimistic situation.

Any chance a mod can pin this thread and unpin the 2022 repertoire thread?

I get the ideas of the policing issues and that's why I think it's just important to have clear stated rules instead of the let's play how far we can take it game. The organizations should come out with you can't reinforce an ensemble. You can reinforce a soloist for the solo. Or a small group for their respective passage. But the entirety of a show can't be reinforced from an ensemble standpoint.

So now that we are railing against bands who mic/amplify their better players to sound better (which I agree is not in the spirit of fair play), when do we start railing against bands and drum corps horn lines who cut their weaker players off of their parts to make the ensemble sound better? Same concept of hiding an ensemble's flaws, its just the electronics aren't involved. We all know it happens and everybody does it and has been doing it for years. I'm a percussion guy and its a lot harder to hide us because everyone can see hands move but its a lot easier to fake playing a wind instrument. In the spirit of "you are only as strong as your weakest member" people should believe that is unacceptable too.

Ok. That excites me.

Or they call the organization Music for All. Which sounds pretty inclusive to me.

High school marching bands used to want to emulate Drum Corps, not the other way around. But we live in upside-down times, so.......

Which one?

I have seen marching bands go without trumpets (or name any other section), and mimic or replace their sounds via pit-based electronics. But I did not interview every such band to ascertain their motivation/reasoning for doing so. Good for you. I guess your career has permitted you to focus on your own successful ensembles, and not notice what is going on around us. If this was "Technology of America", then fine. But I could have sworn they called it "Bands of America".

I was born in Rumford and got my degree from U Maine Farmington....small world.

that can happen when corps size limits are increased twice. i don't think that's been a good thing, either, but the antecedents of that conversation go beyond this. tuba lines are smaller because they've been replaced by thunderous goo. and plenty of corps have already strategically placed small groups of trumpets/mellos/whatever right in front of the mics in the front of the field so they can sound fortisssisisisisisisisisisisisisisisismo while the rest of the section runs to move equipment or scatter wherever. and i'm not just talking about micing soloist/small ensemble features. everything i'm talking about is already happening incrementally. obviously i don't like these aspects of current dci i'm talking about, and i'm pretty confident in my assessment that DCI will soon be little more than WGI with a group of horns about the same size as a battery section all mic'd up. more opportunities to maximize the visual-heavy sheets and certainly more cost-effective which is really the main driver of these changes, imo. i know there are plenty of peeps to replace me as a fan when/if it ever becomes too WGI-ified for my taste. i don't take it personally lol.

Been proud of the Cadets being an east coast corps. Erie is almost the midwest. I hope they don’t become a west coast corps in my lifetime!

I'll respond to this bizarre comment with this image taken from a designer's fb. This keyboard warrior hopes for a remake of the 1996 show...

I don't know. I get what you are trying to say but this sounds like coming up with your own definition of what the "right way" is. Who gets to determine the "right way?" If DCI was cancelled in 2020 and only held a few exhibition shows in 2021 then Blue Devils winning in 2019, 2022, and potentially 2023 would be a three-peat. If this happens they will have won the last 3 competitive years. They do not have to be consecutive years unless a competitive year was skipped by the corps. It is not the fault of Blue Devils, or any corps, that DCI had to scrap 2020 and go exhibition only in 2021. So to me if Blue Devils do win in 2023 I would absolutely call that a 3-peat.

Heck we have synthesizers, why have brass in Drum Corps? Just put 3 synths out there and play all the formerly brass parts on synth. Heck, arrange it in key of G. While you’re at it, put all percussion in pit as well. Amp the whole thing to the max. And then add about 80-100 more guard.

The limits are "instrumentation" and the "skills" of the students. If you don't have a trumpet student that can play a double "C", then don't write for it. A "keyboard" is a "keyboard" and a "tuba" is a "tuba" that last time I checked. This gets us into the whole "Thunderous Goo" conversation that doesn't need to be rehashed. You write to what you have. If you don't have it, you adapt accordingly. I can't tell you how many times I have heard directors and arrangers say "We'll cover that missing part in the pit" as a response to the instrumentation on the field. That sounds like a cop out for someone that can't adapt to the challenge.

Sure. And if you have a tool available to amplify a few trumpets to sound as loud as a whole section, why bother with having a whole section?

I had to "Adapt" how I was arranging with the smaller band I worked with based on the available instrumentation. If you don't have the skills to adapt, why claim to be a teacher or arranger?

No no, that would be an Oboe. Bassoons are for whale, wait. By golly I think you're onto something!

Specifically, here's what's proposed banned: All music from traditional wind and percussion instruments or electronic instruments must be performed by a student live and in real time. The use of sampled, prerecorded, or sequenced sounds of woodwind, brass, and/or percussion instruments is not permitted.

Career/Korea was one that threw me a few times with some folks.

And its already started over in the Predictions thread.

Burn the Boats has been a Boston Univ. hockey slogan since the 2009 campaign for the National Championship.

True they’re redundant, but it’s always nice to see the fresh faces and the excitement IMO!