IanKShields

Absolutely! Almost. Obviously, this is an activity -- oh ######, an ART FORM -- that has the potential to work like a complete fusion of Music and Dance, with the rather cool aspect of pretending to be a marching band as it does it. No argument there. I would still contend that it is currently out-of-balance in its fusion, though. As a result of being overly chopped and gerrymandered to fit the visual elements, Music is not being allowed its greatest strength -- to bring continuity to the whole thing. Music is the back-of-the-brain stuff. It can carry a listener from indifference to eruptions of joy, just from building energy naturally. No visual element has this kind of continuous evocative power. And this is not an insult to visual designers either -- even the most spectacular of Wagner opera stagings have always paled in comparison to the sounds coming from the orchestra pit, as stage designers have freely admitted. To understand how to completely fuse the visual and the musical, a show designer has to respect how different the elements are in their effect, and then find the marriage that doesn't stifle either of their powers -- the spectacular visual ones, or the sublime musical ones. In drum corps, I believe, this skill is mostly yet to arrive, but I can't wait to experience it when it finally does.

He wasn't condescending. He was right. And it's not about liking melody -- it's about being incapable of hearing anything else. This is not a difference in taste; this is an inability to taste the difference.

Good point your guests made about "longer-playing" music -- and finally we hit the button about what's really irksome in today's drum corps activity. We've falsely made it into an argument about "innovation" vs "accessibility", when the problem is just basic musicality. When visuals are driven by complete musical phrases, anyone can be swept along -- that is the power of Music. It doesn't matter how "modern" or "traditional" or "familiar" or "unfamiliar" it is; if the Music comes first, you're generally in good shape. Where we are now, it often seems that Music is given the short end of the stick. We don't trust it enough to let it drive the visuals anymore, and we're too impatient to allow it to breathe (or even catch a breath). There was a time when DCI could sell LP records of just the sound of the great corps performing, and we snapped them up because it was (and is) absolutely killer music -- it had continuity and normal musical development, and the energy was incredible as a result. I don't care whether a corps is doing original compositions, Billy Joel, Stan Kenton, Stravinsky, or Edgar Varese. If the music is respected, played with natural continuity and flow, and isn't chopped to bits to complement rifle throws, it can work now and forever. I...M...O.

I'm certainly glad you've clarified your point, which is that Music should be no more restlessly creative or forward-looking than a foot-sport.

Best argument for being a grumpy stick-in-the-mud that I've read yet, but it's still an argument for being a grumpy stick-in-the-mud.

Oops there, Brasso -- basic logic error! If you re-read the post, you'll see that the writer said "without deviation from the norm, there is no progress". They did NOT say "deviation from the norm always results in progress". It's just like saying you need liquid to make soup. Of course not all liquids can wind up as soup -- some liquids are deadly. But the right liquid is still a prerequisite if you do want soup. (So glad I bought that book about Logic...lol...)

I'm torn. On the one hand, I've got plenty of criticisms of BD's (and other corps') scatterbrained, impatient, and visuals-obsessed shows these past several years. On the other hand, I'm not ready to spin around and put audiences in the driver's seat yet either. Most of the time, the "general audience" everybody seems to worship doesn't even know what the hell it's saying about music. For instance, all the yakking about "hummable tunes" -- what is that? (Try getting Joe Audience to hum the Madison Scouts' 1982 crowd-favorite classic "Strawberry Soup" sometime, and you'll see what I mean.) Certainly, there's plenty that can be done to get the old excitement and musicality back, and it may take another generation of show planners to do it, but please let's not deify "the crowd". Audiences are a useful indicator of some things; but they also react unpredictably -- even stupidly -- towards great things that challenge them, and often badly mis-state or misunderstand why they like some kinds of Music over others. It's like dealing with a schizophrenic sometimes, except that the schizo doesn't have the false impression that he bought the band when he bought a ticket.

I've always been amused and dismayed at the same time, when I see statements like the one I've highlighted in red, above. "Recognizable"? All people are recognizable. We just don't recognize most of them. And, so it is with people in music -- we throw around words like "recognizable" and "popular", as though they meant far more than they do, when judging the quality of people's work. Who cares if they're "recognizable"? Are they GOOD? Anyway, glad you like the programs this year, whether you've heard of the composers before, or not.

First, many thanks for your thoughtful reply -- I've gotten a LOT of slams for what I wrote to you from some other writers here already. I'm overjoyed that the Scouts seem to be re-discovering themselves, and can't wait to see their special mojo working even better this next few years (I'm personally hoping for a re-birth of "Strawberry Soup"...lol..). I love getting fired-up by a great show, and have always felt that Madison, historically, has had a real Midas touch for sophisticated, swinging shows, played with both insane firepower, and consummate style. And, in spite of spending 4 years of my life in a hoity-toity music school, I've never once heard anyone, "intellectual" or not, begging for a purely "cerebral" drum corps show. Believe it or not, everybody likes a thriller done well. We're on the very same page, boss.

No, not until you get some cojones and answer the question, lol...

Which part -- the part about the Scouts exciting a crowd (which I agreed with heartily), or the part that insulted anyone who bothers to use their head a little (which was plain freaking stupid, ignorant, unnecessary, and hurtful)?

And you just mis-read the point of an entire post. Congrats.

"Self-proclaimed intellectuals"? "Haters"? Who? What are you talking about? Who here has ever gotten on here, announcing that they're intellectual, or "hated" the Madison Scouts? I mean, it's great that the Scouts get you fired-up -- I'm a fired-up old Scouts fan myself -- but how does this turn into a dismissive smear against smart people, or well-trained people, or people who don't only go to concerts to scream and shout? Maybe you've read some critiques that had some in-depth observations in them... you have a problem with that? It's like you think music has to be a mindless mob-scene in order to be thrilling... I hope that's not really what you mean. Face it -- some of us can be enthusiastic and thrilled, and still have our brains completely engaged! ENOUGH with the anti-intellectualism already. You know better. Peace.

Is that meant as an insult to the musical intelligence of "most people"? (If so, it worked!)

We all "call it how we see it" -- who doesn't? lol Do you call it how you don't see it? (I've always thought this was kind of like when people try to get respect for patently silly opinions, by saying "I don't know anything about ______, but I know what I like!")

PS: That said, I loved BK's show at Stanford too, and I would have loved it regardless of whether the music was recognizable to me or not. (There's always good music we haven't heard, isn't there? After all, we're not perfect.)

You mean, they played something that was recognizable AS music, or the music they played was just stuff you'd happened to have heard before?

Well, I guess it depends on how many feelings you have available, and make available. Personally, I'm not only open to "excitement", the usual thrilled-bored-happy-mad stuff, but also to the more layered feelings that come out of especially good music and imagery. For me, the SCV show works on so many more levels than most shows, that it's like switching from kid's books to grown-up books, or from cartoons to grown-up film drama. I saw, heard, and felt beautiful connections going on all over the field -- the "Game of Pairs" section was especially wonderful -- that appealed to me in ways that are almost unexplainable, and seemed to climb inside of Bartok's music in a way that was totally right. This is not a bad thing -- it's a very good thing. Emotion is as emotion does. I can't see any reason why a drum corps creation, like any other art form, can't appeal to more layered, subtle, and, yes, adult kinds of emotion. It's just as real as jumping around and screaming and shouting.

He didn't blast anyone. He brought up a valid question, you took it as an affront against the sacred "audience", and you blasted him. Why not try to address the question instead? After all, a lot of people DO act as though "the audience" were some kind of perfectly reasonable, predictable thing whose tastes never change, and which never makes mistakes in judgement or has something weird for breakfast that day. Any performer can debunk that nonsense in a split second.

As for why the judges gave SCV a better Visual GE than you expected, I might suggest that it's not so much for the execution as for the design, which is imaginative and often brilliantly "right", especially when taken as a visualization of Bartok's magical sounds. A judge well-versed in visual design and/or choreography will see exactly what's going on in that show, and be rightfully generous with the points.

I think we're getting a little too weird about the judges here, plenty of whom have impressive musical resumes, and would be perfectly familiar with Bartok's "Concerto". In fact, I recall that at least one of the DCI judges is a violinist from the San Francisco Symphony. Ya seriously think she's all flummoxed by "Concerto for Orchestra"? Riiiiiiiight.... lol (It's NOT that "out there" a piece, guys. A lot of us musicians have loved it for a long time, and may even have played it in good youth orchestras.) I'm willing to accept that whatever scores SCV gets are probably more a matter of how well they've put the details together and cleaned it, compared to other corps, than any lack of understanding for the piece itself. If we were judges, it's exactly the approach I'm sure we'd feel compelled to take, yes?

You're "ditto-ing" a comment that had no meaning at all in the first place? You're going to create an infinite loop of emptiness here...lol...

"Negative space", in visual design, is empty space that's taken on visual impact of its own, by virtue of what's around it. It can give the impression of being a solid object itself, complete with seeming physical "weight" and dimensions, or seem to suck you in like a vacuum, or be pregnant with meaning, or whatever. The beauty of it is that negative space takes very little in the way of resources, and can make a very big impression. In SCV's show, like the original writer here, I also noticed how well the designer used this powerful technique, often spreading the corps wide around empty spaces, moving around those spaces as though they were solid objects of great size, sometimes "puncturing" them with other well-placed drill moves, etc. At least, it made the corps seem bigger than it is. At best, negative space may be the closest response in visual art to the big subliminal impressions in music -- the inexplicable stuff that makes music special, and goes straight to the imagination. SCV knew exactly what they were doing when they used this approach with one of the most sublime works of the 20th Century. It works wonderfully. (I can't believe I'm talking about what's basically a marching band this way... lol...) Bravo SCV!

Nice show of even-handedness! BUT -- Why not admit it -- people's reactions to SCV's "Bartok" show reflect not so much differences in types of musical background, as differences in wakefulness and engagement. There are active listeners with a rich set of life reactions to music (and visual art), and then people who just view themselves as passive "consumers", easily bored, even irritated, by anything that doesn't shout to get their attention. It's clear which of these two groups are getting the full available buzz from this smart, sublimely-conceived, and very beautiful, SCV show. Side note: Isn't it kind of ironic how many people suddenly get very engaged and alert when defending apathy and passivity? (Where was this all this keen sensitivity when it counted, when the artists were appealing directly to it?! Go figure!)

Yep, just tickle their feathered chins, and the audience will obligingly lay a golden egg. They're just geese, every one alike. Just ignore every image you have in your own well-trained and talented head, and try to design something that exists only in their collective head (whatever it is they've got up there). Just ignore every sound you've heard yourself, every bit of knowledge, all the love of music you've accumulated, insult its memory even, and try to make music that's worth a #### -- strictly from the noises inside the cackling brainstem of that big imaginary golden goose. "Entertainment". Sure sounds simple, don't it? Try it sometime.