WestCoast7

yes, kids will be kids. The Blue Devils did make obnoxious sounds. And I watched one of their staff rip their tubas a new one when they finished, so don't believe for a minute that it wasnt addressed. The cavaliers, I believe, were engaging in seppuku, the ritualistic suicide committed by samurai warriors. I also saw their staff go thru the block and put a stop to it. Those kids get giddy out there and do immature things. They're teenagers. I'd take pranks and jokes over the full corps brawls I always hear of in the 60s and 70s though......

Actually, cleanliness (excellence) is the bottom half of the visual performance sheet. That score is almost entirely based on form. I'm not saying they were the cleanest corps....but they were really solid. Two out of three visual judges agreed with that. But you also have to remember that the vis perf judge is looking at the achievement level. BD being clean in their very easy drill achieves less than the Cavaliers being a little dirty at their more difficult drill. I thought the Cadets were the cleanest corps, and were achieving at a high level since their drill also "seemed" difficult. I put "seemed" in quotes so it would not presume to speak with absolute authority...just my perception. Actually, they do. Maybe you should stop while you are behind. I heard it was over 240.It is something to take into account....variety of effort changes, frequency of effort changes, phrase length, variety of challenges in effort changes....these all play into a performance or ensemble score. This is a good point, but taken the wrong direction. Lots of small groups doing different things is incredibly hard to clean. So many different places for cleaners and staff to have to look. I don't want to say that all curvilinear drill is easy, but there are definite advantages. Just look at how often individuals are between the same two people. In a soft curved arc like this, the responsibility basically becomes to keep the space the same on either side and try to hide any bumps in the line. I think this is a low level of demand, especially when combined with low-velocity. Geometric drill and lines are definitely more exposed than arcs and curves, which is why errors pop out more. I'm not trying to say one is easier or harder, but it IS possible to have a rational discussion about the difficulty factors of each. A well-informed, intelligent, accurate statement like this deserves no response. Please feel free to skip DCI next year and watch your 1978 DCI VHS tapes. I would agree...this was NOT their finest year. But it doesn't have to be to win the Effect sheet. They are competing with BD and Cadets, not 2006 Cavaliers. Maybe Marie was taking into account their color guard, which was amazing this year. Maybe she enjoyed the variety and depth of the drill design. Maybe she was wowed at the velocity and speed. Maybe she didn't penalize them for having no hash marks and kids falling down. There may have been lots of justified opinions in her mind that night, and she gave her number the way she did. Curtis probably had the same types of justified opinions in his mind too, but just different opinions. Is it really so hard to think judges have different opinions, seeing all the different opinions that exist on this forum? Anyone else notice the trend that when a corps is likely to win, they start winning other captions, ones they had been losing much of the summer? Seems like a lot of judges like to hop on the wagon at the end

I also heard that several Blue Devils members fell. Apparently the field surface is horrible. Friends who were there told me that many of the corps were complaining about it. Thin, slippery grass over a really hard surface underneath. The more you run, the more likely you are to slip in a direction change. I guess that is what happened to the Cavaliers. I imagine the visual performance judge simply did not hold it against the performers that DCI made them march on a slippery, disgusting, unmarked field.

Just something to think about: Most of the difficulty in a marching performance is based on heart rate and controlling your wind. Most high school bands can play on the move. That is not the difficult part. It's the "running" around and high velocity that drives up the heart rate, and the heart rate does not automatically drop the moment you go into a half-time phrase or cut down to a smaller step size. It can take several minutes. This illustrates the mis-direction of the gentleman who documented the time of playing on the move for some of the top-6 shows.

Most people that try to adopt a "pure" dot system(even though in reality there is no such thing, even Cavies talk form at the end of tour), simply don't understand what's required to make it work. Really? Are you sure about that? I might double check your sources..... With a Cavies-type dot system, you also give up parts of the visual vocabulary. Because the performers always take a straight line path from one set to the next, certain types of moves are difficult/impossible to create. Any move that would normally require a performer to take a "path" requires multpile subsets, or simply can't be done. Now thats just absurd. If anything, the Cavaliers have MORE visual vocabulary BECAUSE of their system. Look at the drill they've put on the field in the past decade.....it doesn't look like there's anything they can't do. Which would mean that a dot-system only ENHANCES what a corps can do. And you can try to debate that point, but there's no evidence to support it....select some FORM-system moves that can rival Cavies' drill of late.

Rather than debating which method gets cleaner, I think we should focus on what is really important. That is the difference in "clean" and in "achievement" I'm pretty sure that none of the judges sheets have the words "CLEAN" on them. But they all talk about achievement. Here is an example, using the arc scenario aforementioned: Dot-arc: 1 guy REALLY out....rest of arc hit dots...appears NOT CLEAN Form-arc: No one out....however, arc has that "form" look about it. And you all know what I mean....its smooth, but not shaped quite right. Flatter here, rounder there, several points of inflection. Appears CLEAN. Which has achieved more? The 63 right people, or the 64 people that kind of formed a shape that kinda looks like its right. Another example: Cadets performed a move in Liquid where 4 BIG arcs parallel to each other sort of move and then reverse arc (change inflection), convex to concave. Now at first glance, it looks pretty $#&* clean. But when you look closer, you see that the arcs aren't the same shape, there are several flat, straight portions on some, and the ARCS CHANGE INFLECTION AT DIFFERENT TIMES (notice by watching when the center of each flattens and inverts) I doubt Sacktig wrote for that to happen. So, its clean, but how much has it achieved? If all we talk about is clean, we'll be in 1975 again. Same with Phantom. They form many big, loping curves across the field that look pretty clean. But when you ANALYZE and look it terms of achivement, there is not much integration, much dimension, much exposure, or much opportunity to look dirty. Same with Cadets. How many people when watching them can really tell what a shape is supposed to be? And no, I don't mean a shower head...I mean pure intent of shape. I think Blue Devils expose their corps more than many groups. Same with Cavaliers. You see more dirt in them sometimes because they offer more opportunity to see dirt...which is ATTEMPTING....which is WHAT.....which is the first and primary aspect of ACHIEVEMENT. THEN you look at how its done....which is where the cleanliness aspect comes into play. The activity will move forward when these conversations change from CLEAN to defining what achievement is, what difficulty is (not speed), what exposure is, what integration is, what variety is, etc..... Cadets were pretty $#& clean though. Congrats to them on a great year.

DCI is scraping the bottom of the bucket this year anyway... Monte Mast judging Championships? Steve Suslik? JR Carlisle? These people have no judging experience in big shows, and most of them come from horrible backgrounds. That's WHY they judge....if they were good, they would be teaching or writing. Thats one of the problems with DCI...you have the best minds involved creating shows and then they are ranked and rated by lesser minds. However, Bob's numbers are pretty consistent with how the rest of the summer has been. Cavaliers have consistently won field visual all summer, except for Thursday night. (All of a sudden they were third?) But, I don't agree with him having Cadets over Phantom on the field. You have to respect what Phantom is asking of their performers....they are moving a lot, and their drill has more exposures than them, and they're cleaner. Cadets (as I have said already) are crawling through their program until the Medea closer.

Wow...there's demand? Where? I saw them tonight.... what portion of the show do you find demanding? The constant standing still and turning around? Or is the slow tempo and tiny step size during their chess game? Or could it be their drum solo drill that features the corps standing still in pods while people "speak" the drum parts, rather than play them? It's a shame you find their program demanding while Phantom and Cavaliers are performing demanding, integrated, drill that contains variety and creativity.

Then you haven't seen them march..........

I do see a clear edge in visual performance, because last I checked, achievement is what scoring is based on. Has anyone else noticed that the middle six minutes of the Cadets show moves at about 80 beats a minute? The drum solo drill moves a tiny bit, but its not really marching....its jogging in place. and then they stand in pods for the rest of the drum solo, and do a little bit of choreography. What is this achieving? Phantom moves a ton more than this! I haven't seen Cavaliers yet, but I'm sure they march circles around both corps...I've heard they're running quite a bit. Is content and responsibility no longer part of achieving? Or how about effect? How effective can incredibly slow marching be, especially when completely un-integrated? Just my opinion, going in to Nationals...... Hope they figure it out.... Go Phantom