ostinato

Cleveland1 NAILED it. It seems like to people on here, Drill: When performers execute synchronized visual maneuvers, whether organic or geometric, with integrated body, and I like it. Staging: When performers execute synchronized visual maneuvers, whether organic or geometric, with integrated body, and I don't like it. Guys, "staging" has always been paramount. Being drawn to look at the most important thing happening on the field is CRUCIAL to any visual performing art. Bluecoats' visual design is jut a great visual designer responding to the shape of the arena they chose to create this year. Michael's designs for Cavaliers did the exact same thing. To my eye, there were tons of WOW moments in the drill this year. Many groups had multiple! I doubt it's ever going to return to the 90's where everything stops for a box rotation, though. Every effect is definitely more layered and integrated.

Some people on here have some serious baggage that they choose to bring to their DCI experience. Seriously. If you have to negatively, obsessively bring up capitalized Art Forms and Ivory Tower Intellectualism and Artistic Show Designers in almost EVERY POST YOU MAKE ABOUT MARCHING BAND, the problem might be a little closer to home than the local show designer. And before anyone brings up anecdotes or experiences of how "normal people" or Joe Schmoes like one thing or another, for everyone: If you bring someone new to you with a drum corps show for the the first time, and you're sitting next to them making asides about weird uniforms and amplification and how it wasn't always like this and no one plays real music any more, they'll probably agree with you. People like to be polite. Especially if you paid for their ticket. Especially if they know you've watched this for years, and probably know more about it than them. No one wants to look stupid. You're part of their experience too. A really delicious expensive dinner with a bad date isn't a good memory. A crummy hamburger with someone you love can be totally amazing. If I took a 'Joe Schmoe' out to DCI and I just raved about what I liked in every program, I'd probably have a totally different experience with what "normal people" like about DCI. A lot of what 2 or 3 people complain about on here says WAY more about them and their need to be catered to than it ever does about the state of the activity.

By and large, we have these already! It's why you see groups like Blue Devils on top. Watch their show(s) again. Very rarely do you hear BD with pulse control problems by mid-season, if even that late. Now, keep that in mind as the sections go flying across the field, and the trumpets enter from behind the back hash and line up with the mellophones over mid-field on side two and the drum line who is in front of the front hash. We want our drum corps to be in time-- so when you see a drum corps keeping in time between the 35's, with the drumline centered behind them, and you see a group like BD or Crown achieving better results with outrageous staging and field coverage (last year's ballad from Crown illustrates the idea of this demand) , the judges will give the better overall number to the group with both CONTENT and ACHIEVEMENT. Tons of people can tell what great ACHIEVEMENT looks like-- anyone who's marched knows in time, in tune, and etc. But great CONTENT-- that requires both an ear/eye for what "works" in the moment, and also what is ultimately a more difficult/impressive effect. It's why we want vetted judges who have tons of experience. Example, from this year: form control, which is a visual ensemble concern-- Blue Devils have multiple spots when they are running and marching through much-hated "scatter drill" moments and picking out big blocks and curved forms out of nowhere. Often these target sets of clarity are on the move themselves. Their paths likely will change from rep to rep with some of these moments. They still achieve these target forms and transformations with small but noticeable errors. While Crown has plenty of moments of truly high demand, rarely (if ever) is this quasi improv-path approach necessary. Often it is regular, 90's-00's picture-to-picture drill, if a little sped up. Many of their impacts are merely halts with added body. They hit their forms with (again) small but noticeable errors. Who do we put ahead??? The judging community, achievement being equal, will ultimately reward the group with more challenging and effective content. It's why we see many of the results we do.

This, so much of this. If every person who wanted to see The Academy go on a full tour took a second to vote, they would have the 250,000$ in the bag. We can make this happen with such a small gesture!

It's an interesting idea, but it is by no means trivial in implementation. Just because you can describe something simply, or feel an intuition that it would be a simple process doesn't mean that it actually IS simple. Case in point: 2-legged locomotion-- "so easy, even toddlers can do it," but a massive challenge for robotics engineers to replicate the effortless dynamic equilibria we utilize to move forward without swaying or tripping. Anyone ever played THIS game? So when we talking about creating a program where all you do is simply "feed in" drill and music and it immediately is able to parse everything in terms of affective impact, flow from one texture to the next, and so on and so forth (there are like ten other impossibly vague categories I could list here) it's hardly a project for a grad student, it sounds a lot more like creating Strong AI! The perceptual apparatus that we employ when connecting intellectual and emotional reactions to sensory input is what we're assuming the computer would have-- even the ability to decode what a drill set IS, visually, would be massively complex for a computer, which doesn't immediately perceive a circle in the middle of negative space, just a long set of ones and zeroes. There is no 'seeing' or intentionality going on inside a program, so the amount of "ooh, circle textures resolve into company fronts 45% of the time in 1980's era DCI" done by the computer is ZERO without that legwork being done by a human with an immense amount of intuitive processing on their side. Computers cannot "intuit" what should have happened. Eyes and ears aren't cameras and microphones that record what IS directly into your brain. It's more accurate to imagine them as sensors that work by analogy, mapping phenomena in the external world to mental constructs with little to no direct perception going on. The proof of this: We can listen to a chord played with intonation errors and still immediately perceive it as a major or minor or whatever chord. We can see drill marched with less than 100% accuracy and perceive the flow intended by the designer, because you're going off of constructs of circles and boxes and whatnot. If it was direct perception with no phenomenal shortcuts going on, you would be blinded by the array of differing colors and forms and saturations of light surrounding you at all times without your brain immediately shutting out 99% of this stuff and filtering it down into "oh that's an apple on a table in a room with a green carpet." The best example of this is asking an 'untrained person' to paint an eye, and then to ask an artist to do so-- the untrained image will be essentially a cartoon, the simplest mental construct of "eyeness." The artist is trained to bring more elements of direct perception to the table, and will render reflections, the different colors of the iris, the complementary colors in the shadows, the specific forms and proportions of THAT eye they saw. Again, there's a huge amount of intuition, taste, and fuzzy thought that goes into this that can't be reduced to "drag Star 93 into the playlist and learn the SECRET CODE TO DCI." This is all really a longwinded way of saying a very short thing that has been said a few times already in the thread: This isn't something you can mechanize easily. At least I would think so. I disagreed with the first post in the thread and this is my attempt to think aloud on why that was.

The amount of coded language in this thread is really awesome. Just say what you mean, people! I'd like to submit that the concept of dark shows (and not liking them) is more of a problematic concept than some folks are admitting; someone mentioned Phantom 08, and it's a great example of this. Some really dissonant music, rhythmically fractured, some really obscure composers, etc. etc. Oh, don't forget that the arrival point of the ballad is ruined by a murder. Yet it's one of the most exciting and accessible (and dare I say---UPLIFTING?!) shows of the last 5 years. The problem to me isn't dark or light so much as it is good or bad design. Don't worry about raw materials, worry about what corps do with them. And I will admit: I really get off on shows that push the envelope. I'd even (seriously) use BD 2010 as a counter example to the above "no big band jazz with groove in DCI" argument. But one thing that's not different is this: when I go to a show, I want to be entertained, amazed and excited--and however it happens, I'm down for it. I'm not really into walking into shows with a checklist of "what drum corps should be," cause it seems like that's a good way to ruin my enjoyment of an activity which has been super generous to me as both a performer and teacher.

The thing that I find most necessary in drum corps (not to say it's "missing" right now) is excellence-- the performance of feats that dazzle and delight. Many of us would agree that what we remember most fondly from our years marching is the sensation of being a 'superhero', the thrill of doing something difficult, and doing it *very* well, for a screaming crowd. This doesn't really have much bearing on what kind of drill or music is being used, simply whether it works or doesn't. But this is kind of an aside. Some things I noticed in this thread: (get ready to have your buttons pushed!) --Those of you advocating chasing the mainstream in any way, well, just NO to that. Genuine musicianship and emotion, etc. doesn't cut the mustard for mainstream performing artists, rather it is 'image,' 'attitude,' tons of superficial spectacle. The music is just. plain. BAD. If we used a bunch of pop, country, and r&b music for our shows, you would be even unhappier with the "sameness" of performances. This art has a very limited emotional bandwidth (if any), and an even more limited range of tempi, dynamics, etc. You want to talk about flat, and boring? Let's have everyone field shows of top 40 hits. Ugh! Besides, pandering is always really obvious and everyone hates it (Star 92, Cadets 03, Sarah Palin, etc.) --In general, the amount of fear and distrust towards "creative types" in this thread is not cool. I was not aware that my corps' design team was getting off in some sick way watching us all sweat to create their glorious vision back when I marched. A lot of people complain about designers and their narcissistic self-expression...and then complain that shows don't have enough emotion! Uh, a key requirement to the experience of good entertainment/art is that you submit to viewing the world through someone else's eyes. Sometimes, it just doesn't jive with what we enjoy or are comfortable with....I mean, they can't all be nuggets of gold. That's kinda the way it goes, and hurray for that-- it makes finding a show we really enjoy all the more worth it. --Also, since when did having some sort of specialized training or sophistication automatically make someone an Enemy Of The People??? DCI is being destroyed by MUSIC MAJORS and ELITIST JUDGES with their WIND ENSEMBLE MUSIC! Really? Sorry that the design teams for the Top 12 corps didn't just stumble off the farm with a corn cob pipe and a satchel full of jug wine, but it doesn't make them bomb-throwing anarchists slavering to submit you to boring atonal nightmares. This whole attitude is one of the most poisonous things going on in America today-- catering to 'normal folks' (whatever that means) is why our politics are a joke, why our popular culture is a wreck, and why our school districts still have trouble teaching facts in science class. --An irony: many of you wishing the activity would become more open and relatable to these aforementioned 'normal folks' are also the same people who are all "G BUGLES" and "AMPED PIT"....I can't think of a better way to terrify my non-DCI friends and turn them off to the activity than to show them the kind of petty, byzantine arguing over minutiae that this forum displays on a daily basis. I'm pretty sure, however, that I could show them a video of like the Bushwhackers and then one of the Cadets and they wouldn't have the kind of trouble some of you do at instantly identifying them both as DRUM CORPS. --Also, regarding WIND ENSEMBLE MUSIC, I think it should be a new forum rule that anyone using this phrase should be forced to list at least three non-Glassmen examples (let's face it, it'd be too easy any other way) of boring uses of said music in DCI. Methinks that phrase is a catch all for "music that I don't like." That kind of show is easy to do without going anywhere near wind band...I mean, look at that Billy Joel year from the Cavaliers, it proves like three points of mine.

I saw this in the "Is music an art?" thread, and it's not the first time this forum has aired this idea, which is a very bad thing. The idea that any instrumental music group with a fixed title like "jazz band," "orchestra," "wind ensemble" has NOT changed dramatically is just completely false. 300 years ago, a composer would be baffled by valved brass instruments, mallet percussion and indeed the role of percussion in general, electronics (GASP) and hell, even PIANOS were new instruments that were just invented and hardly perfected. All of the above can appear in an orchestral setting without shock and hatred from the audience.....just ask John Adams about that Pulitzer he won for his 9/11 memorial piece which uses electronics in many ways throughout. To a person of that era 300 years ago, when the orchestra was a young, vital and growing thing, such innovations would likely seem ludicrous as they happened. Beethoven, Wagner, Berlioz and others all caught major flak from critics for their progressive ideas and the new families of instruments they added to their music. Sound familiar? Call the change of drum corps evil and Orwellian, but if that attitude of blindly preserving tradition had held in music like some fans demand it to in DCI, we wouldn't have the Firebird or Rhapsody in Blue or any of Chopin and Liszt's piano music or Symphonie Fantastique or Debussy or.......etc., etc. The reason there was never a gigantic uproar like "THIS ISN'T AN ORCHESTRA!!" the same way DCI fans cause uproars is this: The idea of "the orchestra" is far stronger than the mere number or type of instruments being used. It is an image at once both clearly defined and abstract. I think it belittles our activity to suggest that the idea of "a drum corps" is so ill-defined and lacking in its own specific mystique that a frickin' casio keyboard can turn it into marching band.

This is likely the lion's share of the tale, right here. Often we (and design staffs do this too, I'm sure) put pieces on the table as "awesome potential drum corps music" because they are cool, they are loud/rhythmic, etc etc. but there is an additional element of *adaptability* that exists independently from all these other features. This can take a number of forms. Good arrangements of a tune with lots of "big tunes", like SCV's excellent distillation of Scheherezade, can take the music and simply cut the fat until the uneccessary repetitions, discursions, and other indulgences are pared away. Or with a piece that relies more on motives and textures, like PR's arrangement of Wild Nights in 2003, more freely abstract it to fit the spirit of the production as a whole. But this isn't the important thing; it's that an awareness of how best a particular piece should be arranged is maintained by a design staff. A lot of hack and slash adaptation is likely a lack of sensitivity to this, or even worse, trying to shoehorn music into places it shouldn't be. To accomplish that, slicing a tune to ribbons is sometimes the only way. Also, a lot of the "old-school" tricks that everyone is hungering for in this thread are all just principles of good orchestration. If you clutter up the bottom range of your ensemble with close harmonies like a jazz band, you'll sound like a jazz band. Octave doublings, wide spacing below the mid-range, sectional contrasts.....these aren't magical old school techniques, they're about the only way to write for a large ensemble and not have it sound like grey mush.

THIS....except for Phantom. Turangalila is a fantastic piece of music and I think could be a great DCI success, now that we have electronics. But, Phantom's musical product is increasingly "not-classical" in a similar way that recent Blue Devils shows are "not-jazz": The stylistic traits of the music are often lost in the larger, synthetic flow of the program. With Phantom, this has been harder to notice than with Blue Devils, because they have wisely stuck to music that lends itself to drum corps histrionics: Ginastera, Prokofiev's wilder stuff, Corigliano, all music that can be reduced to pounding open fifths, drones, and cluster chords and still sound fantastic. Tearing out the thick harmonies and watering-down the textures of Turangalila to only leave in the skeleton rhythms and loud aspects would really miss the whole point of using Messiaen's music in the first place. I wish Star was around to tackle something this intricate and bizarre (They did Belshazzar's Feast after all!), but Crown's eclecticism and facility with technique seem like the best match to me. Your mileage may vary!

I aged out this previous summer in a World Class corps where the staff made it more than clear that competitive success was only a facet of our organization's mission, and it was clear in my experience with them that it wasn't just talk. I marched my 5 years surrounded by people of vastly differing body types, social classes, and cultural backgrounds. You say there are dozens of things that drum corps can teach us that are more important than competition (and I agree!!)- but the fact of the matter is, if DCI member corps made their first priority teaching THESE lessons, they would come off as cheesy Hallmark-card feelgooderies and not the enduring truths that mark us. In my opinion, the only effective way to learn the "drum corps lessons"- that the race is more important than the finish line, that hard work can forge eternal friendships, things like this- is incidentally, in other words, these things occur to you as you are working towards competitive success. ANALOGY: If great literature blatantly hit you over the head with what its deeper meanings actually were, it would be cliched trash. You pick up the real value of these great works incidentally, while following the surface plot and characters. And as a side thought, the only way I think drum corps is successful in even doing that, is by providing an environment that stands in stark contrast to the pop-sociology of there being a "million equally right answers", of "everyone being special in their own way, just as they are now." The simplest and most enduring drum corps lesson perhaps might be "you can't reach perfection, but you can sure as heck chase it." Unfortunately, if you aren't open to the idea of there being things about your body, fitness, skill level, attitude, or personality that need optimizing, that lesson will go right over your head. It certainly isn't being taught via mainstream education, is it? If this be elitism, make the most of it.

Not to throw total flamebait out here, but it's definitely interesting to see that the list of "do not use music", with the exception of a few overprotective estates, is mostly film, band, and pop composers, all of pretty uneven output. Folks like Adams, Corigliano, Danielpour, Higdon, Rouse, and their ilk- the ones actually being commissioned by major orchestras- seem to be just fine with their music being used. I wonder if it is just a coincidence.

It's strange, but I could've sworn that this is EXACTLY why I marched drum corps the last 4 years, and continue to do so. It's something that neither I nor the vets from earlier eras could know for certain, but I get this idea: The reason that something so seemingly archaic and pointless as putting on a strange costume and running about while playing a horn has endured in any form, when so much of our society has changed, has more to do with (as many have already said) something deeper and harder to define than the outside manifestations of the activity. The key of the horns, the cut of the uniforms, the show programming, they all differ from decade to decade. I would guess, though, that the things I love drum corps for, the things I think the activity exists to do, have nothing to do with those surface details and are unchanging. I bet if i had marched a year every decade instead of consecutively, I could find the things I liked under all the superficial differences. Tour? check. Hard work? check. Playing a great show and loving every minute? check. You get the idea. I bet drum corps' purpose lies more with these sort of things...which it has provided for me in spades.

For the last 2 years I've been quite busy around this time but for various reasons I had to take this year of corps off. So tonight I was in the stands and not the field, which is a bummer, but despite that I got to see old friends again tonight, and got a small taste of what this season's drum corps are putting out. With no further rambling, here's what I thought: JESTERCORPS was a bit upsetting, you've all read what other reviewers have had to say and my voice can only join the chorus on this one: First come the basics of marching and playing, second comes the Janacek. They're good kids, and it bugs me that their investment of time and heart is being mismanaged by the corps staff. MYSTIKAL is a mixed bag- there were several bright spots in this corps, especially for its second season. The guard, I thought, was nice and big and had several great moments. There's a good range in the trumpet section, but it's a bit bright and intonation is (as always) treacherous. Body movements were fairly abundant, and for the most part well-integrated. Mystikal was a big surprise for me, having seen them only once last June beforehand. There is definite growth potential here. THE ACADEMY has grown up fast, and stepped up demand smoothly with each year. This year's show is a lot more cohesive than last year's, and is a lot more accessible, I think. At the end of the C section phasing nipped at the show's heels slightly- but what do you expect when you take 'light' Shostakovich to the field, with all of those boom-chick patterns? Visuals are confident- but as the push towards full tours and higher divisions moves inexorably onward, visual demand will have to ratchet up to remain competitive. Until then, I'm as happy as a clam anyways. PACIFIC CREST moves ever forward in execution and design- another pleasant surprise. This show had several great moments- in particular that long held chord at the end of the first slow number. Body movements were definitely well chosen and well-performed, everything fit quite nicely. Corps volume and tone quality were best I've heard out of this corps. I have only one major quibble, and it's not so much a criticism of the show as a criticism of a trend. PC's theme was Water, and the music fits, there are a lot of 'effect' moments that work. But with the delineation the program notes made (the 'various states of water- fog, ice, etc.') I found myself often wondering how what the corps did was representing a section of the theme instead of enjoying their hard work and fine performance. Point being: Concept shows are fine, but either keep it simple or it could end up like those horrid Key Poulan marching band shows that start with a fairly inoccuous concept title like "The Industrial Revolution" and have movement names like "I: Textile Factories!, II: The Displacement of Unskilled Workers," etc. Not a pretty sight. SANTA CLARA VANGUARD was weighing heavy on my mind all tonight before I saw their performance, and I come away with mixed thoughts. Hello, let's move to list format! Things I liked: -From the talk on here (and boy howdy I'm a long time lurker) I've come to trust a lot of people's opinions and those opinions were pretty negative on SCV. My worries were allayed, in terms of performance. Vanguard is loud and lovely. -If Academy played 'light' Shostakovich, then SCV brought his bitter other half to the table- and it sounds just like he'd want it to: searing. -I'm not the biggest drum corps expert, but Vanguard seems to lead the field as far as pit goes. I know technically there are others as good or better- but SCV always crams a lot of orchestral-seeming detail up front, and amped or not, it gets through and adds a ton. I think the pit is where the biggest revolutions in drum corps orchestration will flow from in the future, and this is a step along the way. -The dramatic arc of the show is managed really well (until the end, but that goes down here VVVV) Things that went 'eh': -I've never heard the infamous first appearance of RCM that older and wiser members of this forum venerate. I have heard the original version and played the orchestral transcription, so I did know what I'd be listening for. As far as the show construction goes, bookending the caged animal of Shostakovich 12 with RCM works the first time and just goes 'pthbbpbpt' the second time. It just doesn't flow from where Shostakovich leaves the show- which makes me believe that it doesn't matter if this is the second or fifteenth time RCM's been played by Vanguard, it's just tacked on a bit in general. -Drill design was mostly unintelligible from my point in the stadium, but what I did see were several Rosander tropes that have filled the last three or so shows. I want to see it again (who wouldn't) but from a higher point to see what's really going on. -While these uniforms are a neat return to yesteryear (as seen through the myopic eyes of Cesario) I preferred the bolder look of the previous set. That's about it- I can only remember half of the scores at this hour so I'll leave that to our pal DCI.org.