incompleatangler

WOW! Expand the percussion caption on the recaps. Percussion Dave Carbone Percussion 2 Jeff Prosperie didn't seem to see things quite the same, huh?

Curious: would these individual judges have seen all of these individual corps already? Is is possible that they're still making the rounds? If so, tough job tonight. If not, phooey. Go Bloo in Atlanta! Either way... Hope they were all great shows if you were there, and let's see some great ones all day tomorrow!!!

Aw, jeez! Did I just spill my Bloo-tini all over that nice shirt of yours?

Thank God! The Simpsons. See you at 11:30...

Fine, there WILL be Bloo-tinis... Now who wants to sit with me and wait?

Ahhhh, the waiting. Anyone wanna sit over here? I'm gonna paint something and watch it dry. :P

WOO-HOO!!! I have to work ALL FREAKING DAY on Saturday, 10am-9:30pm, and wasn't going to be able to catch the WebCast. :( So today, DCI announces one of their little extra perks (seems like there were a lot of short notice additions last year too, no?). The Atlanta Performances WILL be available through Platinum Fan Network membership as Encorps videos!!! I'll be able to stay up all night watching the performances! Over and over and over and.... Here's the link: http://www.dci.org/news/view.cfm?news_id=4...54-ed6045f483f1

Duly noted, but I think Columbus may be catching the Cleveland curse. Anyone else notice the Scarlet and Grey losing 2 national championships this year... both to Florida? Tell me that didn't hurt fellow buckeyes. The YouTube video is a nice, quick look at the curse basics. As I've always understood it, the curse was supposedly originated when the Indians traded Rocky Colavito to the Tigers. Terry Pluto, a writer for the Akron Beacon Journal, wrote an enjoyable look at the Indians 1995 season (which of course resulted in the Atlanta Braves taking the Series), called "Burying the Curse." He refers to the team being cursed from the moment Rocky left town. I've always linked the other tragedies back to that moment. As to the list of "occurences," I think the video leaves out Red Right 88. For that story you'll have to turn to a Browns fan with a better memory than mine. Here's the spoiler: the Browns lost.

I was surprised to see coats so far down in the visual categories (a lot of 6th places in there), but look closely. The spread in Vis/Perf/Tech is only .4 That's CLOSE!!! The other sub-captions are similarly... err- smooshed(?) together. Another hopeful note for the bloo faithful, the coats percussion is sitting in 4th -- just .3 out of first. Mac won't let this talented line slip. I think this looks good for bloo. Keep working hard and see how the scores come out. You'll be right in the hunt in Pasadena. That being said, what a race all over this page! I see the BC stuff right away, they're my "home team." But this is incredible!!! Blooooooooooooooo! Thanks to all the corps for making this such an entertaining and competitive year in Division I !!!

I was there last night, and just got caught up on this thread. Thought I'd comment on the brass question. (Disclosure Statement: I ama HUGE fan of Bloooo dating back to -- perhaps in spite of -- the '92 Beatles show) (Qualifications: I did actually teach music until recently, and have a degree in music education. I studied trombone) Overall, I agree with a lot of what others have said about the nights performances. As well as memory serves, I'll try to add only new thoughts... BD- absolutely deserved high brass, specifically because of their performance. It felt like late season form early in july. The trumpets and tubas were SUPER hot, and the whole line was hella-clean. I agree that there could be some more commanding, intense soft moments, though. BC- Holy Cow! Go BLOOOO!!! This is the "biggest" I think they've sounded this early ever, but there's room to grow. The visual book is leaving some exposed moments (especially for the trumpets in the opener... mellos here and there) in a very difficult music book. These tubas are for REAL!!! I've been reading the posts from others, and looking forward to seeing/hearing them for myself. I can only confirm the spirit of claims like "best tubas ever!!!" even if actually picking a definitive best section ever is preposterous -- though certainly worthwhile and good old fashioned fun. So coats were not quite as loud or as clean as devs, but right behind (remember we're focusing on the perfomances elements here) Cavies- Great lush balanced sound! Magnificent soloists and exposed moments (expecially in the lead trumpets -- holy $#!+). Cavies line had odd problems with phasing though. The fugue in the middle movement (Invention #1 in "insert correct key signature here") has the corps spread out over most of the field -- east/west and north/south), and they seem to be having a hard time locking in here. You could tell what was going on, but for 30-45 seconds it just never got to that precise signature cavies sound. That will come. There were a handful of similar moments -- sadly most of which did NOT seem to be pinched by the visual book -- but the fugue was the most glaring to me. On a seperate note, the cavies played the encore and played (perhaps unveiled) the rest of the closer. Sounds nice. Still not quite at performance level as I imagine Mr. Fiedler sees it, but entertaining. In fact, I don't know if the show design has what it takes to win (brass book), but what a FUN show to hear! I know when I look back at this season on DVD this will be one of the shows I NEVER skip! As a Billy Joel fan I could nit pick with arrangers for months over how I'd have done it differently, but I REALLY enjoy this music! Anyhow, there's my 2 cents and I guess a little bit of a tip thrown in. Red Dog BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

So I was checking out one of my favorite scores pages http://www.bknights.org/scores/standings.asp?caption=TOTAL I've always loved the way this line graph gives me a slightly different perspective. It's fun to watch the corps' scores go up over the span of a season. Anyway, I got to checking around in some caption scores, when I came upon a bit of an oddity (I think). Take a look at the Music Percussion scores: http://www.bknights.org/scores/standings.asp?caption=MUSp Now look closely at the Bluecoats. Their last 4 performances drew the same percussion score? Wow! And there was a pretty good break in there without a show. The total score for the coats went up significanty in that same span. (okay 2 days isn't all that long w/o a show, but...) The shows fall on 6/19-6/24. The percussion score stays at 15.6, while the total score gos from 74.4 up to 78.35 then back down a touch to 78.2 (cumulative rise of 3.8). I realize that different judges see different corps from night to night (although Todd Foxx rated the coats percussion exactly the same down to the subcaption on 6/19 and 6/23 -- not back to back shows... and I promise I don't intend to make a big deal out of that, just observing). And I certainly understand that scores are often relative to other performances on a given night. All that being said, isn't it odd to see a single caption stay the same for so long? Maybe it's perfectly normal in the ebb and flow of a season for a caption to sit still for a while, I didn't used to read caption sheets so closely. I'll admit I only noticed b/c my blood runs bloo, but I'm not complaining or praising. I just think it's odd. Anyone know how much of the book has changed lately? Does the line or pit (or both) seem stagnant? Judges not responding? Visual changes might be the focus? I may be making to much of a VERY small anomaly, but it's one in the morning, I can't sleep, and I honestly can't think of anything I'd rather do at the moment than geek out about drum corps scores. If you're with me chime in. See any other stiking stats? Let's crunch numbers. Best of luck to the coats and all of the exciting young performers in DCI this summer, Sleepless in Ohio

Question: If !mpulse holds on for the win tomorrow, does that mean they'll be back in D2 next year? (Does it at least make it likely?) Just wondering. Don't know the system all that well.

So I was at the Columbus show tonight, and I have to say I was impressed with Crew Stadium... up to a point. The "concert side" is filled with great seats. It's huge! The upper deck makes for WONDERFUL drill viewing, and I only lost a little pit sound. Good overall ballance, all things considered. The distractions were overwhelming, though. Throughout the show, other corps' warm-ups could be heard bleeding through from behind. I don't know where else they could have put them to warm up, but it made hearing lush soft moments in a lot of performances an incredible challenge. Pretty annoying. Helicopters were EVERYWHERE! I don't know if they were taking pictures of the State Fair going on next door or what, but the sound and lights were a constant distraction. Plains, Trains, and Automobiles! Really! At least two times big old jets flew overhead. One completely drowned out Mandarins for several seconds. A train went by (never did find the tracks) in the middle of at least one of the early shows, blowing its whistle for all to not hear the corps performance. The busses were parked within spitting distance of the stands, and throughout Capital Regiment's home show performance that proved to be audible static that we had to block out. Now I did sit just 3 rows from the top of the stadium, in the upper deck, so I'm sure it was less of a problem downstairs, but I vent nonetheless. One other distraction was both annoying and delightful, though. About 2/3 (?) of the way through Crown's performance the State Fair's fireworks show started. It was distracting, to be sure. At the first boom and sparkle I turned to the person sitting next to me and said, "You've got to be kidding." It was a nice display, though, and most kind of enjoyed it. It didn't hurt that the finale timed out almost perfectly with BD's "F Tuning" warm-up. We got a pretty good kick out of that. Okay, now that I've got that off my chest you can empathize or tell me to pipe down and pay attention to the corps, but at least I can go to bed with a clearer head. G'nite!

Don't know about cavies, but BD was DEFINITELY on FIRE tonight. The crowd was a mix of CR homers and those following their corps to madison. Didn't seem to be many BD homers (up in the stratosphere where we were sitting). The folks around us (including the folks I come with) just kept gasping and wowing every 30 or so seconds. BD was HOT HOT HOT!!! They do still have a few touches of visual dirt (I suppose no one ever really gets it perfect, huh?), and just a couple spots where brass tone spread. Overall though... Holy Rising Scores! The Guard was AMAZING the Drums the cleanest I've heard all year. When I saw BD and Cavies next to eachother in Massilon, I definitely felt that Cavs deserved the win, but judging by what I saw tonight, BD WILL challenge them this week in Madison.

bump

Bump Capital is definitly at Walnut Ridge HS (address available on their website) I checked SCV BD and Crown sites, but found no info. :( Can anyone help? I'd sure love to get "in the mood" for drum corps (like I need any help) by watching some great rehearsals!

Right! Another great tool is a little app called flip4mac. (Google it, I'm not sure of the url). It has finally been updated for those running intel macs, and it simply takes the windows media stream and plays it in quicktime. Very handy! It seems to have taken care of all of my seasonpass streaming woes!

GE caption scores should reflect how a corps' execution balances with their design. We could get 135 DCP posters to march 8-to-5 and play "Come to Jesus" in whole notes INCREDIBLY cleanly, but that wouldn't earn us much in the GE caption. Similarly, the Cavies (since they seem to be the GE Vis standard this decade) could presumably design a show that they either couldn't execute because it was too hard or one that just didn't have the same pop. Now Mr. Gaines (another of the drum corps gods-with a small g-in my opinion) and the rest of the Cavies' design staff aren't pushing the envelope in the same way the Cadets are. They're designing shows that they are almost CERTAIN will score well, especially when cleaned to the Cavalier standard. Cadets, on the other hand, are trying to challenge the paradigm. Last year they hit a home run. This year it MIGHT turn out to be just a basses clearing double. Not everything pops like the saw it in 3D Java. That's okay! They should be commended for continuing to challenge us and the activity artistically. To bring it back to the original post, G-men and Boston have shows (I'm drawing generalizations based on what I've heard for the most part) that make total sense, challenge their members, please crowds and judges.... You get the idea. Cadets' show is maybe just a little under-realized right now. That's been the case before for them and they make the changes and do the cleaning to bring the score up to where they want it to be. This year they might be too stubborn to bow to judging trends. That's okay, too. I wonder, though, if Mr. Hopkins is drinking some of his own kool-aid (to borrow another sports world catch phrase) instead of listening to the feedback he gets from these VERY qualified judges. Again, no authority here... just my $.02 Okay, long post... $.04

Well, I havent' seen G-men in quite a while, and haven't seen Boston this year, so... That being said, we've been hearing WONDERFUL things about both of these corps (and the whole top 12) all year. Meanwhile even diehard Cadets fans seem to be saying that they see issues with the cadets visual show. It's a terriffic show (imo), and while it's not one of my favorites I like what the designe team has TRIED to do here. The problem is that some of the visual design elements just aren't working the way they want them to. I, for one, would LOVE to hear the tapes that those judges recorded on those nights and hear THEIR explanations for the scores. I'm betting that they reference the box criteria quite nicely. If not, Mr. Hopkins (a true drum corps genious, who knows how to get the most out of his people... and push other people's buttons) would be making his plea to the judging community or other DCI brass, not the online community that chooses to read his blog. Just my $.02

Full show on seasonpass for esperanza. Nice surprise!

I don't suppose anything's stopping corps from actually doing this on their own. I know your idea was to have it cover the activity, but seems a more likely change if someone maybe leads the way. Or maybe then no one else would do it out of respect/spite. Who knows. Interesting idea, but I voted no, nonetheless.

Great idea! Let's come up with some others! Crazy unrealistic ones are welcome as long as they make us laugh our ###es off. Here's a serious one, though: Weekly check-ins with important staff members from DCI member corps in their "well" paying gigs with school bands. I know most of the folks who teach this terriffic activity teach other amazing kids, too. Wouldn't even HAVE to send a correspondant. A lot of schools have digital cameras. Just ask corps staffers to do a "day in the life" video diary or something. Get kids to comment... Could be fun. Pimp my band is way better, but this might be a tad more practical.

I think it may have defaulted to a windows download. I googled adobe flash player and found the flash player 9 beta for mac. Works perfectly now. That being said, HOLY ####! That's a leak of biblical proportions! How'd you like to have those seats! "Honey, didn't we put our hot dogs under our sea--- NOAH!"

<cough, cough>

Hmmm... sounds like I might be too sick to work that night...