wolfgang

Let's list the World Class shows for the upcoming season here. Good luck to all guards this season.

That is a good point to ponder.... and is it possibly showing the Bluecoats a bit of disrespect??? At risk of highjacking my own thread: The missing center snare would affect the drumline. It's not unreasonable to guess missing drum major could make for some interesting music timing issues; the missing trumpet soloist would probably be the least missed, though there may be a slight noticable difference in the upper soprano ensemble sound; the guard captain would be missed at least to some extent. Hypothetically, if BD competed against a not-quite-but-close-to-the-top corps like Bluecoats, without their DM, tpt soloist, guard captain, and center snare, would they still have enough left in the tank to win (yes, I know GE is subjective enough it may not matter that much)? Perhaps they would... maybe their brass, percussion, guard, visual, and GE would still receive better marks from the current crop of judges, but that would be an interesting experiment..... and would generate a lot of buzz on DCP depending on what the outcome would be. Now... back to our previously scheduled thread.

There is no defense in drum corps. and corps typically don't pull out a performer during the middle of the show. But there are enough things to the analogy that it works (generally).

Here is an admittedly imperfect drum corps analogy (keep in mind, I live in Indy) Imagine the Blue Devils were undefeated through all the DCI regionals, and had the #1 seed (ie- last performance spot in quarters) locked up by Allentown. Then, they had one more show befor quarterfinals at Lucas Oil Stadium (say, a Sunday night after Allentown at the NFL Hall of Fame show in Canton). Now, 2/3 through their show, their director yanks their soprano soloist (you know, the BD stereotypical stratospheric high note guy), and puts in the soloist from the Blue Devils B corps. The kid is young, and may have potential, but while he can hit the high C all day long, he is too inexperienced to handle the lip trill leading up to the double C, and flubs it. Gibbs also pulls out the center snare, guard caption, and drum major (wouldn't want them to get a sudden case of carpal tunnel right before Championships). The Bluecoats, who are fighting for a top 6 spot at finals, wind up beating BD, thus ruining their opportunity for a perfect season. The BD Nation (ie- BD alumni and fans) are livid. They light up the drum corps media (DCP), and publications have editorials justifiably bashing the BD leadership (ie- Drum Corps World for example). Even non-BD fans are scratching their heads over the decision. Gibbs justifies his decision by saying that a perfect season was never the goal, but the drum corps public isn't buying it. He also asks rhetorically "what if our soloist got stung on the lip by a bee during the last part of a meaningless show? What would everyone be saying then?" Again, this is an imperfect analogy (the Bluecoats don't have the #1 ranked defense with BD's young replacement soloist backed up on his own 10 yard line after not playing a note in a show all year long, lol). However, it does say something about the difference between playing it safe, or taking chances to achieve great things (remember the Boston Crusaders undefeated regular season a few years ago? If it weren't for a miracle catch by the that Cadets rifle soloist, they would have won the title that year and capped their own perfect season). ** how long before someone who absolutely doesn't get this analogy protests that the Boston Crusaders have never gone unbeaten etc. lol **

2 things DCI needs to consider aside from acoustics (and my understanding from a credible DCI source is that one of them is being dealt with) 1) $125 tickets out on the goal line (re: 500 section). I know of people who paid top dollar and were furious where their seats were, and are not coming back next year. While my understanding is this is being addressed for next year, MY OPINION is that heads should roll over this one (ie- FIRE THE TICKETING PERSON RESPONSIBLE). That old saying "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... The excuse will be "it was a new venue", but that does not fly. Even if it was a new venue, the DCI ticketing person had a seating chart. Let me be clear: THIS BONEHEADED TICKET PRICING/LOCATION DECISION WILL COST DCI A FEW THOUSAND $$ WORTH OF TICKET SALES NEXT YEAR FOR PEOPLE I'M AWARE OF WHO WILL NOT COME BACK BASED ON THIS DECISION ALONE!!!!!! There. Point made. I could tell the first time I saw the seating chart this was going to be a problem, when you had "Super Premium" seats near the goal line. 2) This is not something DCI can fix. Sightlines. Specifically, persons sitting near an entrance, and in the first couple of rows, have to look through a plexiglass window that obstructs the sound, and even the view. Even if one can see through the window, people do not want to watch corps looking through something, no matter how clear it is. One idea would be for DCI to have someone actually go around and sit in each and every seat that is near an entrance, at least for the first 3-4 rows, to determine which seats could be considered partially obstructed and thereby lower the costs for those seats. I do realize this would mean maybe a $125 seat is directly beside or above a seat priced lower, but the "lower priced seat" would have a partially obstructed view, or partially obstructed sound. I realize this may seem like too much effort, but this was/is also a valid concern for persons who spent $125 to view/listen to corps (either in full or in part) through a plexiglass shield. Since DCI probably has no control over this, the next-best option would be to sell those seats as partially obstructed. That way, nobody would have a legitimate complaint, since you would know going in that your seat on the 45 yard line would be looking through a clear barrier.

Is it true that the only time(s) the members in black, and the members in white were together in the drill was when the Tony and Maria characters were together?

You make some good points, but I would suggest the #1 reason for our students falling behind (be a wide margin) is: crappy parenting. Too many parents want to be their kid's friend instead of being the adult. Also, if a parent doesn't care much about a student getting homework done, and isn't willing to be involved (living in a large city and having several friends who are teachers, I know this is a big problem), then LITTLE TO NOTHING that happens at school is going to make much difference. Show me a good school, and I'll show you parents that are involved and supportive of their kid's education.

Concert review (with open roof) The portion of the review that is relevant for this forum:

With the Scouts recent staff additions, the "competitive inertia" (to use a term coined by another DCP'er) seems to be that the Scouts will be a shoe-in for finals next season. However, if the Scouts are in, that means someone else is out. The $64,000 question is: If the Scouts make finals in 2010, which finalist from this season gets ousted?

If (a big if) the 22 World Class corps from this year come back out next year, and Teal Sound moves up as rumored, and Southwind comes back as they are supposed to, we just may hit 24 WC corps next year. I believe Capital Regiment has aspirations of moving up as well, but that may be another year or 2 away.

When DCI announced Finals would be held with the roof open, that was before the cost overruns in the construction of the building. For example, they had to pay millions of $ extra to haul dirt due to the results of chemical tests (there were several factories on the site years ago). So, one of the items cut from the budget was a drainage system. Also, my understanding is it takes the stadium crew 8 hours to remove the curtain. If they had the curtain and opened the roof in it's present setup, there were concerns about the curtain being blown with the wind (this may be able to be fixed if the curtain can be attached so that it will remain in place. Finally, the heat!!!! Last fall, during the BOA soundcheck, a stadium employee told me it can get VERY hot and uncomfortable the farther up you go when it's warm (hot air rises). I know the AC was borderline chilly at times, but the only way they could have made it tolerable with the roof open (and this may not have worked) would have been to run the AC with the roof open. Do you run the AC in your car or house with the windows open? Same concept here. It ain't cheap to cool a barn that big. If they did open the roof and run the AC on Saturday, we would have threads from people complaining about how hot they were and why didn't they close the roof. You can't please everyone.

Personally, I had a great time. Took a person to her first ever marching event of any kind and she was blown away. Sat in the middle in the upper level. From where I was, the sound was pretty good. Had no trouble hearing soloists and the balance between acoustic and electronic was fairly good. AC was on throughout, and I thougt it was comfortable considering it was 90 outside. Like the curtain as it gives the venue a more intimate (if such a word can be used for a gigantic building) feel, almost like a theater setting. Having been to BOA/ISSMA shows here last year, during the break I knew where to go to the restroom without having to wait in a long line. I imagine the complainers will have a field day with this topic, and if I paid $125 to sit on the 5 yard line, I would be irked as well, but I had a wonderful experience. Only gripe for me- food prices, but I would say that about the movie theater too.

What are the factors that have led to the demise of drum corps in Canada? Since I started following the activity in the '80s, we have seen quality groups like Ventures, Canadian Knighs, Les Eclipse, Les Etoiles, Dutch Boy (at least as a World Class group), L'Insolite, Academie Musicale, and probably another few corps I'm forgetting come and go. And, back in the 70s there were other Canadian corps that were finalist caliber.

email has been sent

Back in the 1996-2000 era, when Phantom was tying with BD, when SCV and BD tied, and Cadets and Cavies tied, over on RAMD, I remember reading a post that read, direct quote: "can't those guys (judges) get their act together and pick a winner?" Fast forward to tonight's unprecedented 3 way tie in VA, and at least one (maybe more) person on that thread has also questioned the judges competency. With that in mind, let us use this occassion as a teachable moment for those who are ignorant of how judging works. Each judge views the performance, and assigns their number. Having done this, a person (known as a Tabulator) adds up the totals. If the sum of each judge's scores (acting independently of each other) happen to equal each other, this is known as a TIE. This is neither good nor bad judging. It is simply how the numbers fall out after being added together. Now, if the judges did work together, this would be called COLLUSION, and would be ethically untenable, and could amount to something called SLOTTING, which is a term for the pre-determined grouping of corps within a narrow range of placements or numbers. This thread is not created to discuss the existence or non-existence of slotting. Rather, it is just an explanation of how ties happen to happen in DCI-land. Now that this has been explained, let us never see a tie and question the judges' competency again (at least simply due to a tie occurring). Now back to your regularly scheduled web-surfing. Wolfgang

Is Capitol (al, sp?) done for good, regrouping, etc? What is their current status and future plans (if any)? thanks

1. For those who saw them live in 1984, how loud was La Fiesta? 2. Which version of "One More Time Chuck Corea" did you prefer- 1982 or 1983? 3. If BD were to bring back any tune from pre-2000, which one would you love to hear again?

Was INT in finals last year? I know they appeared in semis and quarters ( maybe had 2 shots in quarters... don't remember)

Color me underwhelmed with the bold part. My understanding of Bernstein's marital conflict is he considered himself bisexual, if not gay in his later years. Not trying to get in a cultural debate, but WGI has had enough of that in recent years. I hope the Cadets don't attempt to portray the "conflict that was part of Mr Bernstein's..... relationships" and simply let the music speak for itself. Off soapbox.

This is my understanding- please correct if wrong. Percussion= groups evaluated during current season, and promoted (or in some cases, demoted) during the same season to ensure appropriate classification at Finals. Groups are not promoted/demoted in off season. Guard = groups evaluated during current season, in RARE cases (Spectrum, NEI) promoted. 99% of promotions occur in off season review. Seems to me the percussion guys have a better system for this. Let's look at Northmont. I am not going to discuss where/whether they would have made SW finals last year, or even if their book was SO or SW level. However, (not being from there), my understanding is they graduated a bunch of very good seniors. They were promoted in 2009 for what they did in 2008. Removing the territorialism of guard vs percussion, and the emotion- is it really a good idea, especially on a scholastic level, to decide what class a group averaging 20 people should perform in NEXT year based on their performance and makeup of LAST year? If a guard was like a band and had 120 people, that's one thing. However, in a group averaging 20 people, replacing just 4 seniors with 4 freshmen or sophomores is a huge difference. This thread isn't about Northmont per se (they are just the chosen example). It is about the broader picture. Is the current promotion system the best one to use? What would be a better one (if there is a "better one")? If groups were not forced to move up a class the following season, would there be full fields in Open or World? What say you?

Is it correct that Onyx and Zydeco, two groups from the same city, have not yet met and will not meet until the Indy Power Regional in 2 weeks? If so, hmm. Which one would be favored in a head to head matchup? Both seem to be doing well so far.

Just find an abandoned house that's been foreclosed on in the 'burbs and stay for free. There may even be running water.

random thought- What would the Blue Devils sound like if this were the primary tenor instrument for one year? Hang with me.... assuming they could special order a marching bass trombone as well for the 3rd (actually, 4th if we're talking big band instrumentation) tbone part, and also assuming they were to play a jazz show, wouldn't this give their sound a truer big band sonority? As long as the instruments were quality and not cheapo junk, it would be interesting to hear what a good hornline would sound like.

Have you considered checking their website, or emailing whatever contact email there is on their website instead of continually asking here?

Yes? No? If yes, what are the scores for this week?