fsubone

That may very well be true. I think the biggest difference we've seen since the switch to Bb instruments is the instructional pedagogy has definitely improved, as has the build quality of the instruments. Way back in the 70s and 80s, the instruments were not made to the same standard as a current set, and the instructional philosophy and pedagogy was different. That also leaves out the skill level of members coming in. Without wanting to go too far down the "more talented/less talented" member rabbit hole, would certainly appear that the skill level of members coming into drum corps is different now than it was back in the tick era. Less local kids needing something in the summer/kids being forced into corps, more music college level music majors.

Some did to spread costs, but I remember a similar one-section rule being used back in the switch form two- to three-valve G horns.

Maybe so. Blue Devils and Cadets were the only ones to switch over in 2000, I believe the rest of the Top 12 followed by 2003 or 2004.

That would be a solid title for the 2017 show for their 50th anniversary.

The change in key was pretty gradual though. If I remember right, the addition of F horns came on before the switch away from G, and not all corps switched to Bb horns in 2000. The last World Class corps to do so was Pioneer, and they didn't change until 2007. I think Madison held on as well until 2004.

Yeah…. That cowbell player from Boise State is actually blind.

Most of the vis staff has been there since 2013. Have seen posts from staff members about leaving the corps.

2012 was the last year green feathers were worn for the Finals performance. In 2013, they switched it to during retreat.

Maybe the inverted pyramid related to the classical map of Hell, which is an inverted cone? Would be a bit tough to make a conical form, so a pyramid may have been the closest thing?

Because what am I supposed to put on hot dogs?

And now a vast majority of DCI alums and fans can sleep at night knowing that a 10 year old now has a gold medal and a ring. The future is bright for this girl. Anyone know the record for most rings? At this rate, she'll have a good shot to top it.

Visual Analysis is the up-top, ensemble visual caption. VP looks at individual performances, same with guard. The VA judge is supposed to take in the entire visual product. That's why you can see discrepancies. A VP judge might miss someone being out of the form or off-step because of where they are currently sampling, but the VA judge has a much higher chance of catching bad forms and big errors.

A good tape usually has a lot of information about the good things and bad things that are going on. But when a tape talks about the difficulty of a program, and the amount it's being achieved, but the number is nowhere near what they say on the tape or critique, then it's strangling time.

Those are the worst days, a number that the tape doesn't back up, in either direction. Or when the numbers are slow to load, so you have no idea how idea how a judge scored before critique to know if their number backed up their tapes.

There's pretty much three guard judges anyway. Guard is one of the only captions that gets judged for multiple sub-captions, i.e. Visual Proficiency and Visual Analysis are usually heavily tilted towards Guard as well. Then you throw in Visual GE, and guard comes across four different sub-captions

Or corps get a really good tape, and a number that isn't anywhere near that

Great shows from top to bottom tonight. A couple of corps were flat from the stands, but didn't effect placements. Devs just had a better run in the judge's eyes, congrats to them on 17. On judges, it's good that DCI is starting to bring in some new people to judge. The current crop that does Finals week seems to be getting up there in age, replacements will need to be made at some point. Then we can complain about an entirely new set of judge's biases

It's a Chinese character that translates loosely as "to live," which ties in with the Terra Cotta warriors coming to life

Sly was also Vis caption head for a few years, so maybe he can get a good read on what Pete Weber wrote? Just a thought, not one to get to conspiracy theories or anything

That's the Erie, PA show that was last night. It's a cool little stadium, but getting from warm-up to the field is tough with that big hill and bad road

To get 9 full 6ft trampoline drums would probably bankrupt the corps, and would need their own trailer. At least the pit patch matches them hitting the drums, so it sounds like they're playing

Sophistication in design can mean many things. In my case, I mean an intellectual show design with multiple layers that can be added and exploited. Kind of hard to make a shopping trip intellectual and add layers to it

My only question is how they thought this show would be competitive at the top? With what BD, Crown, SCV, Coats, and Cadets are putting on the field, Phantom's show design just seems a step down in terms of sophistication and competitiveness. A shopping weekend in Paris?

It happens when over a third of a corps is sick. Happened a bunch in 2009 when everyone got sick. Now please replace your tinfoil hat for judging conspiracies

Interesting to see how they get seeded for Allentown, seeing as the Atlanta scores set the brackets. And Prelims is seeded by using the three Regional scores, in which Cavs have a 0 in one regional