BRASSO

The criteria the judge would use to measure " audience reaction " would be the same intuitive tools all successful commercial performers use when they gauge an audience response to their performance that night. They know when they connected with the audience that night and when they did not compared with other nights performances and with a different audience. Ask ANY successful performer...... they know when they connected. And this is true if the performance is a rousing emotional one, or is a quiet, contemplative, intellectual type show. They just know. Ask them. They'll tell you. They know when they connected, and when they did not........ and keep in mind that " connecting with the audience " would only be a portion of the overall point credit given. Right now, as I'm sure you are aware, " audience reaction " to the DCI units show is irrelevant in the scoring. ( and this is the antithesis of what successful commercial performers and show designers aspire to FIRST and FOREMOST and above all else )

Well, we've never had at any given point in the activity " all shows programmed to get the same response from a crowd ", so there is little to fear that we'll see that sort of change any time in the near or distant future. And Judging " audience reaction " it seems to me is no less subjective than judging any execution caption from a booth 100 yards away from where the executed move on the field below is being made. Plus, have we've seen countless times before, judges on the same night have given much different scores on the same caption from their colleague evaluating the same performance. So it's clear that judges can oftentimes disagree just as much as fans on a performance. As far as what criteria a judge would use in evaluating " audience reaction ", the judge could use the very same subjective judgment that he or she uses to judge all the other components upon which they judge...... including " voice " and " narration " and " amplification", and " guitar execution " and so forth in the show under the current " execution" and " general effect " captions. I don't see evaluating " audience reaction " any less difficult for judges than judging these components in the show their training and qualifications give them the tools to effectively judge already.

It is the judges..... Look, I have a lot of respect for judges. I respect their training, qualifications, commitment to the activity and trying to do the right thing and judge the almost impossible...... a DCI competition. That said, lets be brutally honest here. None of these judges are commercially successful performers or show designers on broadway, etc in their own right. They are predominently teachers..... academic technicians. And most do a fantastic job as teachers. To help make future musicians proficient in their craft. However, would a commercially successful performer judge these DCI units in the same way ? What do others think ? I know what I think . For example I think Maynard Ferguson would have judged "GE brass "a hell of a lot differently. I think his GE Brass caption would be different than the current GE Brass caption. And why stop with Ferguson ? I think if Ravel, Mozart, and other classical composers were alive today, they too would judge " General Effect " much differently than the GE judges we have today.

It is inconceivable to me that any commercially successful performer or show designer would not have the audience response as the predominent barometer as to whether or not the show was a success or not. I do agree that in order to see substantive changes, it will be IMPERATIVE that the judging sheets reflect more influence re. audience response. Absent such change in judging, it is hard to see substantive changes in what is rewarded and what is not. Right now for instance," proficiency" and " demand " in the judging sheets heavily outweigh " emotonal and intellectual connection to the audience". Put this back in more balance, and I can guarantee you we'd see better audience connecting shows on the part of these DCI show designers.

Every point made on this thread is correct..... and these exact points have been made on this forum and among veteran fans discussing this among themselves. And for several years now too. The question is what show designer will have the cajones to break out of this stale formula and break new ground where other musical genres are given fresh play in the activity.

To stay with the football analogy, I think maybe you should have punted........... ( haha.....'just kiddin')

Good reply to my remarks., Bob984 .'Enjoyed reading it. I might quibble a bit that Cadets '84 musically would do well with the brass judges we have today and specifically under the current music captions. I loved '84 Cadets. Still do. And it has stood the test of time in my opinion, which is how we define " classic ". I'm just not sold that these current judges would give it the " Demand " points in the" Demand " subcaption categories it would need to sustain it's scoring and ultimate placement today. But who knows, maybe they'd get the neccessary demand score to hold up and you could be right. Speaking of former DCI Corps music arranger and DCI judge Larry Kerchner, it is good to hear that he has reportedly done quite well professionally and commercially since leaving the DCI activity. I read an interesting article on him not too long ago where among other things, he writes music for national advertisers that is catchy with audiences, and some of his music arranging we hear on tv and radio. Many in Drum Corps are not aware that Mr. Kerchner is the actual creator of these catchy tunes that keep us whistling long after the tv and radio are turned off. I miss his input into the activity. He's done some outstanding arrangements in the past for many DCI Corps, and he still occassionally writes for a few non DCI Corps, I hear.

I see what you mean now and what prompted your response above ...and I agree with you on both these points here too, Grumpy.

I see ...and I agree with you on both these points here too, Grumpy.

Not really. I see no change at all in the overall ethnicity ( or gender ) in the Cavs, Scouts, for instance. The members have changed, but the overall breakdown of ethnicity and gender is exactly the same as in was in ( say ) the 60's. The Troopers, Boston appear to have integrated a bit more. Blue Devils for sure. Cadets however look about the same. Phantom Regiment looks the same. SCV looks the same. Bluecoats the same. Glassmen the same., Crossmen the same. Blue Knights the same, and so forth. Yet, the predominently all Asian, All Black, all Hispanic units have pretty much all disappeared. Thus, as a percentage of minorities marching in the DCI activity today, it appears to me that it might be about the same low numbers, but more likely there is actually less diversity in the overall DCI activity. But you are correct that there is no data to bolster or refute one's position on this. So we are let with one's personal perceptions as to whether or not there is more diversity, or less diversity in the overall activity today compared with earlier eras. I wlll agree with anyone that suggests that there are more females marching as a percentage of marchers compared to earlier eras where males outnumbered females more sigificantly in the overall activity as a percentage. And I believe that Asian- Americans probably have increased their overall percentage of marchers a tad in the activity compared to earlier eras. But without any research studies by DCI re. the demographic make up of their activity, we are pretty much left to guesswork on this.

I hear you, but it's not WHAT you play either it seems to me. One can take a classic and completely ruin it. It's all in the presentation..... it's appeal. Lots of new and unfamiliar concepts can be accepted by mass audiences too if presented in a pleasing and entertaining manner. It's not WHAT you play for the audience, nor HOW LONG you play for them either. It's how it is presented. Highly successful performers " get it ". They may not even be the most proficient at their craft either. They just know how to work an audience, that's all. They have " it ". Their shows have the " it " quality ". Is it usually the " most proficient " ? Hell no. These entertainers are not out to be " the best " in their craft neccessarily either. It's much more important with highly sucessful performers to have the most paying customers in the audience love their show and become really moved by it. Of course it helps to be proficient in order to grab the audience, but the presentation is much more important than the proficiency.

I do agree with you that Corps today would be hard pressed to do these type of shows of ( as you said ) " running their ##### off at 220 BPM " for much more than 10 minutes or so. We just disagree a bit on " Blast" being more of a popular success, due to a " time difference ". I don't think the length of the " Blast " show was relevent. " Future Shock " the additonal reincarnation of Stars production to theatre after " Blast ", went bust. Shortening the show,or lengthening that show would not have mattered to any degree. If the show concept and offerings don't connect with the audience, they don't connect. If the show designers thought that by lengthening or shortening that show would work some magic with audiences they would have done so. But while a couple of music critics seem to give it a lugewarm review, the audiences pretty much concluded the show was not worth the price of admission. This was the only "judging " that really mattered and so the show's tour was cancelled by the show designers within a few weeks. Also, I think the purpose of " Blast " was fundamentally to be a profitable enterprise that entertained a lot of people. The purpose of a potential Titlist winning DCI unit is fundamentally to " be good.....to be VERY good ". Entertainment quotient is nice and all, but he design had better not have this as it's primary function or it probably is not going to secure the winners circle. " Being very good " is all over the scoring sheets. the word " proficient " is mentioned multiple times on the judging sheets. It's every where.You will not find the word " entertainment " in any of the judged captons. I assume most former or current marchers here are familiar at least in a cursory way with the current judging captions. If so, they will confirm and acknowledge that there is no phrase " entertainment ", nor " audience response to show " in any of the written components of the judging captions upon which the DCI judges are instructed to use in judgement of a Corps in competition..... but " proficiency " and " execution "is mentioned. Lots of times. So, to little surprise, DCI shows are written, practiced and and executed time and time again to be primarily " proficient". And if you are the MOST proficient and well executed unit in DCI than you're you get first place. The " audience " and " entertainment level of show " are non factors in the placement and scoring of DCI units in competition.

Ae you suggesting with your comments here that if the DCI show was longer than 10-12 minutes, that the show would be designed more to " hold an audience " ? If so, I fail to see that if the DCI extended the show time to ( say ) 20 minutes would make a difference in the show design. Or for that matter, a two hour DCI competitive show by a Corps. The length of the competitive time a Corps is judged in DCI seems insignificant in my view. It's seems more a function of " how " a Corps is judged, not " how long ". It's not the length of the show that motivated the show designers of " Blast " to go in a much different style than their DCI style. It's that they were free to design a show where success was determined not from acceptance from 6-12 people judging them in competition..... but rather a show that was designed exclusively to how it would connect with the largest number of potential paying customers who would conceivably buy a ticket to the show. THAT'S the critical difference it seems to me.

Well, I really never said (nor implied )" that "Blast" was a success primarily because it played" old DCI favorites ". I did however state that the Star of Indiana staff did not go with their latter days of DCI style when they left DCI and went and designed the show " Blast ". I think it's clear that the designers were going in a MUCH different style with" Blast" than their more esoteric, cerebral, high brow DCI shows they produced in competition at DCI their last 2 years. I don't think that's even debateable frankly. "Blast " had " Medea " and other Star of Indiana musical offerings, but it had mostly non Star signature concepts for the most part. " Blast " designers took a decidedly different approach to grab the audiences emotions than what we saw from Star in their last couple of years in DCI.. In " Blast ", they went with concepts that were known to be entertaining. Some were " old DCI favorites " to be sure , but some were the latest concepts that were shown to have wide appeal with the summer DCI audiences of recent years too. The key it seems was to make Blast appeal to the " judges " in the audience. The paying customers. They were brilliant in designing a show that people woud be entertained by. They knew what would work ( and wouldn't ) with diverse audiences with varied tastes.... and they designed" Blast "for as wide an audience as they could. Which is precisely what highly successful show desgners and successful perfomers in stage and theatre are intuitively tuned into. ALWAYS.

I think it's literally impossible to compare different era's. For one, the judging system has changed so radically that shows in the 70's would not have been designed the way they were. Yes, the " tick system " is radically different from the build up system we have today. But the points are even allotted differently. The Visual Captions for instance have more point allotment per precentage of overall score. Knowing this, is't it more than likely that show designers in earlier era's would have designed shows quite differently than they did ? Of course they would have. And the Captions are even " different ". Are the General Effect Captions the same General Effect Captions of earlier era's ? No, they are not. The General Effect Captions in terms of what constitutes superior, mediocre, and inferior GE are COMPLETELY different in terms of this criteria.... to the point that earlier era General Effect scoring has little to no resemblance to these GE captions of today....' Comparing Corps from one era to another is a foolhardy exercise as show designers design shows to maximize points from the judges based upon the judged criteria at that moment in time. And there is no way in the world a show designer from a previous era would design the shows they did with the current judging system we have.. And furthermore, there is no way in the world that Corps of today would design music shows like this if Dr. Baggs, Dr. Crawford, Dr. Opie, Donald Angelica, Larry Kerchner, etc were judging under the previous judging captions either.

I think most of us would agree that watching a DVD of our favorite Corps performance from last year is not the same as seeing the Corps perform live....... and that it pales in comparison to seeing our favorite Corps show performance live ..... that live is maybe a hundred times better. And of course, this would also be true when one watches a show from an earlier era. It's likewise " not the same as seeing the Corps perform live..... and that it pales in comparison to seeing the Corps show performance live.... that live is maybe a hundred times better "' And earlier Corps had no DVD. They had crappy video tapes, with bad unbalanced mics, and terrible audio reproductions of the " live " event, etc. The technology of audio- video reproduction is nowhere near as good as today's ability to recreate the sound and the visual. These old tapes are not the same as " seeing and hearing it live ". Not even close.

One can draw 2 columns from 1999-2009 : On one column list the DCI Titlist for that year ( over all others) On the column beside that Corps cite if they were the national fan favorite that year (over all others ) What that research will demonstrate pretty conclusively is that more oftentimes than not, the Titlist is NOT the audience favorite that year. As a matter of fact, it is rare where the Titleist is also the audience favorite. This is because the judges really don't care a wit about the audience reaction to the show. It is how THEY react to the performance, no one else. And the judging captions ( particularly the General Effect capions ) make no provisions for audience receptivity one way or the other with the performance.

Well, I think the US Census Bureau might be a worthy place to look for comparative data : According to the US Census ( latest, 2006), African- Americans make up 13.5 % of the US population. Hispanics and Latinos make up 14.8 % of the US population. Together, approx. 28-30 % of the American population is African- American or Hispanic-Latino. If DCI " looked like America " this would mean that more than 1 out of every 4 current marchers in DCI Corps of today would be African- American or Hispanic- Latino. One look at most of the units of today and it's pretty clear that few if any Corps in DCI have numbers approaching this demographic ( although Blue Devils of late look to me like they might be far and away the closest in the top 12 Corps). The CCMC Warriors,, Carver G. Blades, H. T. Cadets, and many many Corps from the past had African- American percentages that were in the 80-90 % range. Perhaps no demographic study or data would convince you of that.... who knows. But I just named you 3 Corps that had marching member African American precentages that were over 80 %. I 'll make it much easier for you however. Can you cite us 3 DCI Corps that has had African- American percentage make up of (say ) 40% ?.....( less than the 80% I cited in the 3 Corps here as a small sample example I'm citing)

We've had Drum Corps in the past where as much as 90% of the marchers in that particular Corps were African- American. Several such Corps too. When has DCI of late had a Corps where the African- American % make up of the Corps approached the African- American % make up of the US ? Would you agree with the answer of....... " never" ? I think it's fair to say that ALL ethnic groups ( including Caucasians ) have less marchers today than in earlier decades. But the Corps have definately moved out of the cities and into the suburbs over the years, and as a result, we have African Americans ( that make up about 12 % of the current national population) making up significantly less than this percentage in DCI today. Are African- Americans underepresented in DCI ? Yes, I would say so. Are Hispanics underepresented ? Yes. And one look into the judges booth and we see few persons of color there either. Not that this is a bad thing either. It just points out the difficulties the activity will have in the future when the DCI activity increasingly does not look like the diverse America that America is becoming, that's all.

It's simply not true that " Blast "success in the US dwindled pretty quickly". This can be verified in a quantifiable manner too. Ticket sales and attendance figures. It's a verifiable fact that " Blast " grew ticket sales from year to year ( both US and abroad ) as it racked up awards, national acclaim, and word of mouth. It's repeat business at the same location in the US went UP in 2nd, third, 4th visits. It is untrue that it's" US success dwindled pretty quickly" Quite the contrary. And one way we determine continued success of a show in a theatre is the ability of that show to continue to attract sufficient audience members in order to continue to generate profits. " Blast " is still in theatres and on tour because of it's current appeal, and it's ability to still show a profit. No doubt " Blast " no longer packs them in as it used to in the US, but my goodness, this is after a decade of tours in the US.... year... after year... after year...... and with pretty much the same show that it had in it's opening show a decade or so back too. The fact that " Blast " had " professional performers " as the reason for their successful appeal to audiences is irrelevent as well. The show " Future Shock " by this same design staff had professional performers" in that show too. Very capable performers too from what I'm told. It didn't matter.

But that's the point..... it DOES work in DCI. One can count on one hand the number of times the DCI Titleist the last 20 years has also been the national fan favorite that year with audiences. Reaching an audience with your show better than another Corps is irrelevent on the judging captions. Reaching the JUDGE with your show and it's execution is EVERYTHING in scoring and placement. Thus, Corps show designers correctly design their shows based upon the criteria upon which these shows and Corps will be judged. The Blue Devils of '09 for instance would certainly disagree with you that " programming shows for the judges doesn't work". Not if we subscribe success in a competitive activity with placement and scores by whether or not you won or not,( which is how we ALWAYS measure placement and scoring success in all competitive enterprises)

" Blast " continues to perform....... and now a decade after it's first show. And it still draws good crowds to theatres around the world, both at home and abroad. It's still apparently profitable to do so. Very little of the show has changed, which just demonstrates it's lasting power and continued appeal and affection on the part of audiences from around the globe . The originators of " Blast " did attempt a more esoteric and high brow follow up to " Blast " about 7 years ago. That new show was called " Future Shock " of something to that effect. It did receive one or two fairly decent reviews from a couple of acclaimed music theatre critics. But it flopped with audiences bigtime. After horrible theatre attendance numbers became the norm after the show's first few weeks, the show producers cancelled the show for good.

No, your assumption would be incorrect if you assume that " Blast " is" old Star of Indiana concepts". " Blast" is the creative genius of many of the Star of Indiana designers. But only SOME of the concepts that are in the show were created by DCI Star of Indiana. More than half the music, visuals, dance, segments in" Blast" were actually borrowed from their peers in other Corps of DCI that were popular with audiences. " Blast" includes a majority of the show's concepts that the Star of Indiana never used in their DCI field of competition. And quite few of the " Blast " concepts that are used in the show come directly from Corps shows of the 70's......a decade in some cases before Star of Indiana began as a Drum Corps. And the briliance of this Award winning show is that the show designers knew what audiences would tend to like..... and not like. " Blast" was..... and is..... wonderful. And we can thank it's show designers with knowing how to wow audiences from around the world.

No,... I doubt it. " Blast " was meant to be popular. It was not judged with " judges ". It was judged exclusively by audiences. As such, when Star of Indiana 's show designers left DCI, they left behind the more esoteric and high brow music for music, dance and theatre that would be understood and appreciated by young and old alike, and with audiences with diverse tastes and backgrounds. It was " popular " by both design, reach. And was marketed as such. The result was that it became a "popular " success around the world. ( and still is ). DCI shows by contrast are designed with the tastes, preferences, and appeal to DCI judges. Judges tastes, preferences, and so forth are not neccessarily " popular ", as their background training, experiences, tastes do not neccessarily reflect that of " popular " culture. Thus, a " Blast " show would probably not score well with judges. And of course, this is why the Star of Indiana DCI shows, particularly at the end before they left us, tended to be more high brow and esoteric, yet really not all that " popular " at all.

The biggest difference it seems to me is that in earlier eras that upper tier talent level in the percussion, brass, guard was dispersed among a couple of HUNDRED Corps. Today, that talent level is much more constrained and is found in far, far fewer Corps. If a comparison was made to take the best available talent of yesteryear ( bigger pool),provide them the improved intrumentation of today, and put that best talent into a Corps, I think t would be folly to assume that such a super All Star Corps from yesteryear could not compete well against a winning DCI Corps of today ( which of course are really just All Star Corps drawing talent from all parts of the globe anyway ). There was just as much talent in Drum Corps in earlier era's as today. There was also less talented marchers on the field. To that extent, the activity was MUCH more diverse in earlier decades, in both talent levels, ethnicity, etc. There is no dispute that there are less marchers of color in DCI today. DCI has become increasingly a white , suburban, affluent activity. There are few African- Americans for instance in the current activity and even less in the judges booth. So yes, the activity is " different " today, but there is little evidence to support the position that there is more talent doing this activity today than in earlier era's. It's just been pushed up to the top where we have the few Super Corps, that's all.