danielray

Isn't it better to seek to strengthen all groups in order to strive for a limitless potential in each, rather than weaken some groups so that their limited potential is on par with the maximum potential of others?

I'm loving Bluecoats this year. One of the best shows out there... can't stop watching it. Drumline is incredible and their scores will move up as they clean things up. Their guard is also not so readable because of the uniforms. Cool concept with the street clothes, but doesn't read well. A bit more continuity in the uniforms and the guard would magically "feel" a bit tighter. It is pretty psychological. The biggest problem though, is their feet. The technique is a cool experiment, but it isn't working. It just looks messy. I remember being a young designer and trying these sort of funky slotted poles (silk was coming out through a slot in the pole, rather than being wrapped around) with one of my guards. I was so married to the idea because of the novelty of the concept, I couldn't let go of the fact that it wasn't effective. Really, if they just changed their foot technique and tweaked guard uniforms, they would jump up 2 places.

Not really wanting to get into a such a silly argument, but a few interesting facts... - BDE is almost entirely kids that have aged out - System Blue events are largely staffed by recent age outs - The entire cast of the recent trip to Lithuania was all recent age outs

Read deeper. Part of Viacom's original complaint was that some of the content they broadcast they did not own, but was only under license to them, that having it out there could expose them to additional liabilities even though they had no ability to directly enforce. This point is very similar to DCI.

If you read the ruling in Viacom vs. YouTube, the court ruled in favor of YouTube, saying that they could not be liable for something they were not aware of, though once it was brought to their attention, it mus be taken down. DCI would not be liable for anything they could prove they had no direct knowledge of (they are not obligated to be out policing the internet), but any time it could be proven, for example, that an infringing video was stumbled on from an IP address directly affiliated with the organization and they DID NOT make a request to take it down... that is where they are most likely liable, as it demonstrates a potential awareness of the infringement.

Drum book, alone, could often be considered an entirely original work as it usually does not contain any licensed material. Once that drum book is combined with licensed material, different case.

No idea what the actual strategy here is, but it really isn't all that easy for drum corps to get license to a lot of copyrighted material in the first place. I would suggest that enforcing this wouldn't really be about finances or the potential of being sued, but showing some sort of good faith effort that would make a license holder feel comfortable with granting license to corps to play their stuff. Anyway, I'm all for anything that will help copyright holders feel good about granting license to drum corps.... so we end up with a wider variety of music out there than just wind ensemble stuff.

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Well... best I can figure is that they somehow missed something, misunderstood or didn't read through the whole thing (I don't really have a habit of being brief).

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Just went back and watched their past several years back to back. There is a clear difference. The best way to describe seems to be a change in the level of maturity (nothing to do with age). Everything just seems to feel a bit less mature (design, execution, even the way the kids carry themselves feels different... ) Look at the first minute and the ending of 2012, a lack of maturity would be the best way to describe. Again, it isn't the age of kids... or necessarily the kids themselves. It just feels like a change in both a maturity of environment and design. I would love to see them return to the level they are known for. Maybe what is needed is a different style of leadership? Drum corps tend to be more consistent with strong personalities at the helm, particularly someone quite good at saying no.

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I mean... if your audience is primarily composed of teenaged boys, probably a good idea to run it by a few before launching it. My students were giggling about it for about half a rehearsal when they saw it.

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Drum corps is band. Arguing that it is not or better or different is not only geeky, but a huge missed opportunity. Even a 5-year old kid recognizes drum corps as band...

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Except for the fact that there are hundred of warm up videos online viewed a crazy amount of time each. This is not a warm up, it is a performance, because it is being seen all over the world. I needs to start being treated more like a performance.