cixelsyd

I hate to break this to you, but miking a marimba and blasting its sound over loudspeakers at a football field is also ridiculed in the concert world.

#5 - thanks for demonstrating the dramatic differences between the "logic" used to sell this rule change and the reality of its implementation.

Exactly. And why is that? A judge should be able to simply rate the corps, and in doing so, the ranking takes care of itself. The only reason a judge should ever be forced to choose between ranking and rating is where they do not have enough numbers to rate properly. And that is the problem. I have been shaking my head for years. I know what is coming long before the recaps are posted. Precisely. And thus, the solution has to be one that gives the judge more numbers to work with. Technically, a judge has 201 possible numbers they can give out. But the "box" system (aptly named) boxes them into far fewer choices. By the end of the season, the top 12 are crammed into a 12-point spread (typical semifinal scores are 97-point-something for 1st place and 85-point-something for 12th). To conform to that scoring expectation, the individual judge is left with about 30 different numbers he can assign to those corps. As you can already gather from examples earlier in this thread, it is barely even possible for the judge to assign numbers to corps as they perform, and still permit themselves to rank the corps correctly. Forget about rating. At a contest with all WC corps present, the judge has enough of a number-management challenge just allowing enough space between corps to permit subsequent performing units to rank in between. The challenge is far greater if extended to each of their two subcaptions. Accomplishing all that, and staying within the box scoring expectations too, might actually require the type of "homework" (slotting) alluded to in this thread. This is all easily fixed by giving the judges more numbers to work with. Either of these methods will work: - Allow the judge to use 0.05 increments. - Give each judge 40 instead of 20, and divide the total by 2. In a perfect world, there would be no "perfect" scores. Even if the 20 went to the last corps performing, you are left wondering if that reflects the full margin of victory, or whether the judge was boxed in by previous scores. Obviously, giving a 20 to anyone other than the last performing corps is telling all subsequent performers that you have slotted your winner ahead of time. Never mind what or how you perform tonight - you lose. No, you are not overanalyzing. It is actually disturbing to see how some judges are so clearly okay with sub-box ties, while others avoid them like the plague. No middle ground. Must be making the number management nightmare even a bit worse than it needs to be.

What? Sorry, but explain to us all how any judge can "assume" that the corps who placed 4th in a caption on Friday cannot possibly advance one spot in that caption Saturday... and how that assumption would not constitute slotting (or something worse). If we "knew" such things in advance, we would not need judges. Your phrase "done their homework" sounds like the definition of slotting to me. Glad you are not judging in DCI, and hope your local band circuit gets better judge training soon.

I am not sure anyone here claimed such a monopoly. What prompted your post?

Still there this morning. Place your bets on how long it will take DCI to notice, and fix the name. I am taking next Tuesday.

But the thing is, I know Hopkins and other Cadet staff have made a point of teaching corps lessons and life lessons, and drawing the connection between the two, for many years. In trying to convince us that his quote was not dismissive toward the learnings at other corps, you want us to believe it was dismissive toward the learnings at his own corps in past seasons?

Perception is often reality. Save us the histrionics - your freedom of speech rights remain intact. You can say whatever you like here. Where honkdom goes off the rails, however, is where it fails to allow others to do the same (i.e. say what they like, even if it - gasp - differs from what you like). You do better than some in this department, but clearly, some baggage remains. Feel free to share your appreciation for BD here. But while you do that, the rest of us might notice that your reaction to Bluecoats use of the bleachers never held the same fascination as when you were commenting on the BD chairs. (Come to think of it, I noticed in a recent webcast that the Bluecoats horn players were moving laterally on the bleacher planks while playing. That was a risky move. You cannot see your feet while playing and maintaining a proper horn angle. A few inches off, and you are falling from a high perch, possibly taking several corpsmates with you. If we are going to evaluate the difficulty of these types of visual show components, maybe we should take a closer look at precisely what is being done and how difficult it really is.)

The difference is that Bluecoats were not being touted by their supporters specifically for how incredibly innovative and demanding it is to stand on chairs or bleachers, and that they should be leading the entire DCI competitive field as a result.

Is it? I do not know where Rennick marched - did he have some prior affiliation with Troopers?

I went to his Facebook page, and I am sorry, but I am not buying your explanation. It sounds to me as if he was referring to other corps (i.e. other than the Cadets organization).

Of all the things you have posted here, this is one of the silliest yet. Tom Float, your "perfect example" of disloyalty, continued to write the drum book for the 80s editions of the Kingsmen at the same time he was becoming better known for his work with Blue Devils.

At the risk of oversimplification - it was performance quality and consistency that kept Crown out of the top 3 in the percussion caption.

I see the confusion. Video on demand is usually edited and loaded a few days after the event (finals VODs are there now). When they said "August 10th", they meant the finals were taking place on August 10th - not that the VODs would be available August 10th.

From the Fan Network schedule page: "Live subscribers will have access to on-demand videos and webcasts through the Aug. 9 DCI World Championship Semifinals. Only Live+DVD and Live+BLU subscribers will have access to on-demand playback of the World Championship Finals on Aug. 10." In other words, your $69 subscription does not provide access to finals VODs.

So are you saying that it should not be possible for a corps to jump three places in a caption, even if they "had a completely clean run"?

Recap is up. Crown 4th in drums.

Did we break the Internet?

The latter. And not to be a "told ya so", but people here did try to provide some warning while these changes were in the proposal stage.

That is exactly what I was going to say here. But that is not the show sponsor's fault. Do not punish them.

Apparently, you need to ask yourself several questions. For starters, why is every subjective disagreement in this context an "insult", in your point of view? And do you really mean to equate booing scores with someone coming onto your property, getting in your child's face and insulting them verbally as they emerge from whatever vehicle brought them onto your driveway? This "insult" concept is quite the overreach. Say, for example, someone thinks the Blue Devils are the most impressive thing they have ever seen - until they see, for example, Carolina Crown. Say, also in this example, that someone thinks the Blue Devils are the 2nd greatest corps in all of world history forever, and only short of 1st by a few scant tenths of a point to that Crown show they also saw. Is that inherently insulting to the Blue Devils? Or is it only insulting when someone shares that opinion with others?

Yes. By all means, tell the other 7 judges that they flew/drove all the way out there for nothing. No judging tonight, because one of your peers is absent. And if there is no judging, then maybe we should not bother with the show. Leave the stadium gates locked, and refund the ticket money. Just have lot warmups instead, for four hours. Or why bother with a tour if one of the shows is missing? (And why bother with the scores even if all 8 judges were there? Finals has a double GE panel - who cares about single GE judge shows?)

What do you mean? Are you suggesting that the brass and analysis judges would have given different numbers if the percussion judge had been there?

Okay, THAT was funny.

A few thoughts: Not sure how long it has been since you have been to a drum corps show... but in most cases, the "kids" are not on the field, or even in the stadium, when scores are announced. You are almost on the right track. As far as I can tell, drum corps fans (even the boo-birds) accept diversity in show design. They do not expect every show to be designed to their personal tastes. They do not expect their favorite show to win. They understand that contest results reflect comparative performance quality as well as the content of the shows. So it would be silly to boo the show of one corps simply because they like it less than the other shows. Now, when it gets to the score announcements, say a corps they thought should have finished 6th ends up winning. What then? I do not think it has anything to do with "Blue Devils" winning. They have won a great number of championships with more popular shows and better reactions from the audience. If their 2013 show was pleasing fans, and fans felt the show had the requisite combination of content and performance quality to win, there would be no problem. How would you know you dislike the show if you do not see it?