Schnitzel

Pretty sure Scott writes the entire battery.

Excellent point - I can assure you that the judges get very annoyed when their focus is distracted by staff members trying to "lead the crowd." We all know what that is: loud clapping at a spot where the audience reaction has been slow/muted/non-existent, yelling out encouragement disproportionately to everyone else, etc.. IMO: it's like anything else - it's fine to actually react to a performance, but some take it too far. I have a friend who is a veteran corps/band judge, and he says he always pays attention to where each group's "rooting section" is, and then he discounts any reaction from them during their team's performance. Back-in-the-day, so much of the staff paroxysms were on the track and much less disruptive. Perhaps DCA and DCI should make better plans for "upstairs staff," and leave the newbies to hype on the field.

1. https://judgesacademy.com/academy-central/ https://www.facebook.com/MarchingRoundtable https://www.facebook.com/JudgesAcademy 2. Yes. Clinics are sometimes held by the major acronym arts orgs: DCI, DCA, WGI, etc.. Most active judges pursue these things individually as well, as part of their lifestyle and professional development. You might be interested in the number of anecdotes concerning the use of "celebrity judges" in drum corps. You don't see that much, for good reasons. If you're interested, I could send you a document that discusses the latest trends in assessment (judging) applied to competition systems. It's a bit techno-geek, but really interesting if you're into this stuff - as you obviously are. Finally, thanks for posting the link to that article - it will be very helpful!

While there's no doubt that the Equal Advantage Scoring System has helped negate some of the issues of performance order, it hasn't negated them. Here's an excerpt from a Judges Academy document on the subject: "Recent innovative practices in Scoring Theory have been widely adopted and accepted as successful at increasing the validity of rating and ranking groups. “Equal Opportunity Scoring” allows judges to “hold” numbers over longer periods of time during the assessments. This provides a more consistent scoring potential to all groups and has proven to assist judges with problematic scoring dynamics, particularly at events with many participants. But even this evolutionary practice does not deal with the adjudicator’s actual perception and recall through the implementation of the Impression/Analysis/Comparison Model. This method of achievement-based assessment is widely taught and adopted by most major competitive organizations in the US, and increasingly world-wide." Oversimplified, judges compare achievements horizontally through time. The order of events influences the I-A-C model.

See: Markworth, Andrew.

Where did you go? I'm concerned. Seriously, I am.

For my two cents (if my opinion is actually worth that much), I just hope that no corps participant )be they performers, administrators, designers, or teaching staff) ever think about "if so-and-so isn't here, then we can get a place higher!" That is pretty much as antithetical to excellence and achievement as you can possibly get. Where do you get satisfaction from that? We're all fortunate to have Kidsgrove make all the "extra" efforts it takes to contribute to DCA in such an excellent way. Anyone that doesn't see that has a real personal issue. If all you want is a trophy, they don't cost much at stores . . .

While it's certainly true that "what's entertaining" is a subject of great and constant debate in DCA, DCI, WGI, BOA, USBands, and a myriad of other amateur marching music acronym associations, we would do well to remember which constituents invest the most time and money into these activities: that would be the performing members. What do THEY find most valuable that will engage an audience that is worth the performer's' investment? No doubt that a portion of the audience is there to support the members as much or more than be entertained. That doesn't mean that they have to be bored - just engaged in some way by a variety of concepts and approaches to the medium. Hopefully, they'll always be vets and others who like this stuff for what it is - a niche activity.

Do tell. How does this work? I'm truly and sincerely interested. Might explain some statistics I read on this site.

Hope you didn't go to see the Mini's @ WCs - TWO Malagas in 5 groups!

Were it only that simple . . . it's not.

My assumption, which may be incorrect, was that the latecomers would be filling holes or additions (usually to brass) that would make the corps better - thereby being a value-added thing for the members who have "been there" all Summer. I would think it very problematic if someone came in to replace a vet who didn't want to be replaced. Did that really ever happen? How could a corps recruit future members in that scenario? Incomplete Junior Corps are very candid about recruiting new members during a tour, but in an attempt to fill their blanks. I'm sure they don't demand full (retroactive) dues from these people, if not waiving everything except pro-rated tour fees, if even that. It's the parable of the prodigal son, right?

What was the philosophy behind that limitation? You would think that beyond any negative motivation to set a restriction like that, it would be difficult (and awkward) to enforce.

Where they can distract the judging panel. (JK, sort of)

Lee Carlson of Palm Springs, CA is the new AD. Another Visualist.

Relax a bit, Bobby. The truth is, a majority of DCI Corps directors are very "hands off" about rules and assessment policy. The norm is more like that of a pro sports owner or college president: they do the administrative things like governance of the institution and fund-raising, while their hired operatives deal in the weeds of competitive topics. If you think of Jerry Jones/NFL or Mark Cuban/NBA - they're outliers, just like your esteemed Mr. Hopkins or Mr. Gibbs. In fact, DCI Music Judges are often reminded that the number of performers contributing to an achievement is a foundational scoring principle. 40 BD trumpets in a virtuosic feature is "worth more points" than one performer singing, or pushing an electronic trigger for a vocal solo. You know, one of the things that I most admire about Mr. Peter Michael (Pete) Hodges is that, even though he is a trumpet player, he always is as tactful as possible, and puts those with whom he communicates first, by practicing a strong sense of empathy. One of the things that make him a great teacher and person! He certainly did that for you, right?

As an aside, one of the primary reasons for seeking to remove the Field Percussion from the performance area was to lessen the tendencies to overwrite the ensemble. So many things are written for the judge on the field that don't serve the total musical score very well. Tradition says it's a negative when a judge has access to the battery and they're not playing something - maybe because it's so difficult to actually physically sample a battery with anything approaching a position of focus. Research (which has been posted on DCP) shows that, at best, about 24% of a percussion book is actually sampled at a DCI show. Obviously, that's not an acceptable standard of assessment, not to mention a ranking. DCA made the change two seasons ago, and the results have been excellent.

As a practical matter, DCI likely wouldn't fund another position for judges. There are requests most every off-season for 2 percussion @ each show. In practice, some early-season judges have none. To be kind, DCI is thrifty when it comes to judging expenses - very thrifty.

I think it might be a mistake to assume that problems with sound reinforcement are not currently being assessed or considered in ratings & rankings. Actually, these conditions can affect ALL the music captions in particular ways. Perhaps the fact that most all finalist groups had issues with sound design in Indy makes it seem as though "no one is paying attention." DCI Music and Effect Judges are instructed in both the technologies and the expectations associated with A&E. Also, constructing some sort of "penalty" deduction is completely antithetical to the scoring system in drum corps. I can't imagine that groups would take these production responsibilities any more seriously with the addition of negative reinforcements. They are already doing their very best to develop a totally new aspect of the activity, and spending a lot of time, effort, and money in the process. Remember WGI Percussion when synthesized sounds and mics were "new?" It took smart people awhile to figure it out, and occasionally, there are still problems. Admittedly, sometimes we tend to "show off the latest toy" a bit excessively sometimes . . .

Great question . . . what would that look like?

Pure urban legend. Decidedly false.

This is one of the more substantive threads on DCP - a significant amount of actual information being exchanged . . . With regard to the above, has anyone crunched the numbers from 2016, when (at least in theory) judges couldn't see numbers from "other" judges/events? IMO this would be a very interesting opportunity to examine the lack of peer review in assigning scores. If the theory holds, 2016 should have been at least a bit more numerically volatile (at least in captions/sub-captions) during the season. Without the empirical data to back it up, I'm convinced there's a certain amount of peer influence at play - just as there is in professional analysis from other highly-subjective fields. In truth, we're "making it up as we go." This is not anything nefarious or "crooked," it's human perception at work. Perception trumps reality, and pros in our activity know that.

Bet U R correct.

Blue Knights 2016. For all practical intent, leotard from waist down.

I will introduce you to Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Collins. Hop loves a discussion of philosophies and goals - he really does!