karuna

Nice to see at least one GE judge acknowledge effect has a music component!

Thus her career change here!

Got a firestick and I have the same report -- just works.

JABDSAPBDS Just another Blue Devils show about past Blue Devils shows.

Kevin has done a wonderful job with Cavies brass since he arrived in Rosemont.

In fact they are largely responsible for SCV's percussion dominance. SCV battery books are interchangeable year to year (and of course they are pristine). But the FE is just extraordinary.

Go Crown!

Winning music but 6th in GE? IMHO the only way this happens is the judges have something deadly obvious in the visual they want changed and the corps is refusing to change. The only blatantly obvious thing I see is the guard getting lost due to lack of contrast in the uniforms. If so I can guarantee the design staff is all for the change. When judges have a united front like this, it’s never about subtle changes. Something no one can argue is on the table. Maybe the designers want to make the change and are being told no by the admin? If that’s the case, sucks for the performers. No way you can win music and not be creating effect! In theory maybe but not in practice.

I'm the last person who should be pointing out typos ( I end up editing almost every post!) but this one made me smile!

No idea if this is what they're hearing but after watching the run a few times (on tape delay -- I was out all day and just got in) , this is all that occurs to me: Transparency is not a very good design element. Intellectually it makes sense. Visually it just doesn't translate at all to the medium In fact LACK OF CONTRAST (from the box) is probably the single biggest issue facing the design. There are also too many repeated effects in the flag work. How many times do we need to see sequentials or A/B? Some of it could stand a rewrite. Look at how the GE scores are tracking guard scores right now. If they're saying "this doesn't work because it's visually washed out", that's a color palette problem and has little to do with excellence from the performer. Is the show doomed? Heck no the performers are BRINGING IT. Some new flag work and new guard unis. It's not too late.

Thank you for actually reading. I'll respond to your point about "soloist in broadway often aren't featured dancers". 100% agree. And when they are singing and dancing, their choreography is designed to allow the musical contribution to win. I'm not railing against drum corps dancing. I'm against the idea that somehow dance is replacing drill. This a bold face lie. DCI is fundamentally music in motion. The motion part is what sets it apart from concert band (standing still and playing). It has traditionally been held up as the highest level of music and motion (read EXCELLENCE). Now some programs are completely substituting standing for moving. And when they move, their movement is entirely functional. There's no art fluttering a blob from one place to another. The result -- while it can be rarely entertaining (Bloo & the GE caption) -- completely fails on the visual sheets if they were being used properly. There's no excellence at all. So we've transitioned from something musicians can learn to do well to (choreographed marching) to something musicians will never do well (dance). You'll note that is was not ME who brought up Broadway (or even more absurd -- ballet 😱). This is the explanation being put forth by some designers. But the argument is paper thin. When you start to look at a what makes Broadway, Broadway, drum corps fails on every single point. Sure what corps do today is choreography. After all choreography is just planned motion. But the product has moved from incredible virtuosity to outright bad. Colorguards "get away with" dancing because they work REALLY REALLY hard at it. They make hornline members look clumsy. But if you speak with most members of a guard, they will be the first to admit that what they do is "colorguard dance" (ie the excellence is not comparable to actual dancers). ((and exceptions made for the actual dancers who are colorguard members -- they exist but are a small minority)). So the excellence has vanished. And designers are effectively misleading their students about the whole broadway comparison (because most of them have no clue about it). And judges have been led down this path by the kings of reducing error-exposure. The effect on the sheets is (visual) judges simply accepting whatever corps choose to field. The criteria on the sheets don't apply to most of it and the judges are not equipped to simultaneously evaluate the 130 members pretending to dance anyway. If they WERE equipped to properly evaluate it, it would receive very poor marks (btw this is what DCI-age dancers in an ensemble, competitive setting actually look like). DCI designers made sure there's a minute and half of drill thrown in to give visual judges something to evaluate so they don't feel ENTIRELY useless because everyone would notice if the tapes were completely empty. All this is wrapped up in "look how INNOVATIVE we are". So we've transitioned from excellent movement and excellent musicianship while moving to objectively bad movement and musicians standing still when playing. It's sad. I have no objections to corps using dance when there are designed interludes where they aren't playing. It makes sense there and is far preferable to standing still. And the trend away from "body" to dance is a good one! Members are being instructed (albeit briefly) in sound fundamentals And yes it's bad but it's uniformly bad and it's NOT the core product. The core product was still music and motion. I'm not a dinosaur calling for a return to bugles. Instead I'm asking what's always been an elite activity at the TOP of it's game in excellence to stay there. Do what you do well. Abandoning "excellence in every moment" can't be anything but the wrong direction. A last point to consider. In the days before flutter-blobs were the preferred means of locomotion, if a corps moved from one place directly to another with the obvious and transparent intent of "traveling to the next stop", this was slammed as "functional". Instead the drill designer was challenged to creatively use their ART to accomplish the task in a pleasing and often surprising manner. Now we have corps moving members from one prop to another in an ENTIRELY direct, functional way. How is this is defended? "Oh have you never seen dancers travel"? Well, yes, we have. But there is ART in their motion. Nothing is functional.

FTFY. Did you READ the rest of the post? BTW I'm all for choreography. I'm just comparing good choreography (moving and playing to get from A to B AKA drill) to bad choreography (running to get from point A to point B). Oh it's all choreography no doubt about it.

lol you're going to go there. nothing -- i repeat -- nothing a drum corps does is remotely similar to a broadway show or modern ballet. sounds like you've been sold the same bill of goods. even the lowliest chorus member or junior ballet dancer makes anything anyone does in a drum corps look like kindergarteners romping around their classroom. but for arguments sake let's go to the broadway musical. during a broadway production the performers are playing their instrument (their voice) while traveling from point A to point B. i'm not seeing that in fluttering travels. why? because you can't flutter and keep the mouthpiece still. BUT if you choose a form of motion more appropriate to the venue (ie MARCHING) you actually CAN play and move. Not only that, the movement (instead of being functional and moving from A to B) takes on an entirely new dimension: it manipulates space and shape. Furthermore the movement keeps the instrument pointed to the audience (whereas fluttering is always traveling with the body oriented in the direction of travel). Finally the simultaneous demands of movement and playing place very high burdens on the performers (again unlike the functional flutter). So drill is actually MORE like a broadway show than fluttering around dude you do NOT want to keep going. this was (and is ) all about reducing exposure to error. it's why it was introduced. and it's why it's spreading. and it's a sin against god, country, the pope and zingali. (functional -- one the most frightening words you could ever hear from a judge in critique. now every single flutter is functional; it's sole purpose is move performers from A to B. is anyone hearing that F word in critique? somehow i doubt it. they are all buck naked sitting there admiring their new clothes)

not interested in how hard or easy things are for the instructors. that's a red herring. (and the only reason drill is far easier to teach is because they've been teaching it for thousands of years (come on, we have living dinosaurs) so tools have been created to optimize the transfer of information from instructor to performer. that efficiency has come through a lot of hard work) again. if a drum corps wants to be a real dance ensemble, have at it. but that's not close to what they're doing. mostly they're just running from prop to prop, maybe a little climbing, and then pose and play. hardly what anyone would call choreography. yes there's choreography when they're not playing but that has always been the case in the past 20-30 years.

I defer to your exceptional inebriation

Ridiculous. Even the best colorguards in DCI are not really very good dancers (although there are a handful of real dancers in each guard). Actual skill in dance takes many, many years of intensive training -- something most of them have never put in. There's an entirely different standard for "color guard dance" and "dance" and those judging the activity understand this. OTOH those guard members are amazing at spinning their equipment while doing "colorguard dance" underneath. The same goes for having corps members dance only 1000 times that. Don't delude yourself into thinking anyone's hornline is actually doing dance. The only dance I've ever seen drum corps do well is marching. They're pretty darn good at that. Amazingly enough that form of dance allows the musicians to -- wait for it -- PLAY THEIR INSTRUMENT while moving. It's pretty astounding.

No dispute. I was comparing "flutter step/running from prop to prop" to "drill". Choreography -- proper choreography -- is dance. Want to call drill dance? Sure. I've made that argument. But then let's start comparing tightly choreographed motion by 80 performers while playing with virtuosity to unstructured, loosely coordinated flutter running without playing during the travel. Then life gets very interesting. It's effectively this vs this only the dancers are playing this! Fluttering around is the biggest episode of "The Emperor's New Clothes" I've ever seen. And the judges are the guys caught in the buff! They've been sold a bill of goods and designers everywhere are laughing their arses off.

It's a football field. No amount of calling it a stage will change that.

I'm gonna quibble with your proposition! IMHO it should "marching drill" vs "flutter stepping/running". Choreography (ie dance) has been part of "marching drill" for quite some time. But to answer your original question: Real choreography (taught by a proper choreographer) is harder to perform than marching. Technically it's harder to clean as well BUT it's often not judged to the same standards as marching (at least in the hornline). Now to answer what SHOULD have been the original question: Drill is far harder to perform well than running about because the exposure to error FAR FAR greater. When a blob flutters from one prop to the next, it's nearly impossible to sample technique, timing, interval maintenance, etc... In fact mostly you're limited to sampling just a few performers on technique and watching for awkward pathways. And if the technique for the movement is "running" there's literally nothing to judge. Remember there's no standard for technique -- only a requirement that the technique be uniform! From an ensemble viewpoint, again most of the criteria judges are trained to use just isn't relevant. So they're left with just a few items. AGAIN -- exposure to ERROR is RADICALLY reduced. While this may be smart programming, I think it actually eliminates one of the key strengths of activity: organized, precise motion with fantastic brass music. I can't type anymore. Just thinking about this gives me a migraine. If judges were actually measuring the demand and level of simultaneous responsibilities, this nonsensical blob-fluttering would be credited FAR LESS than demanding drill. Instead we have corps trying (mostly badly) to be stage performers. Regardless of the number of props, it's a field not a stage. There's no proper lighting, no proper way to change sets, no "off-stage", no curtain, and no sound system that's even close to adequate (as compared to the broadway stage). It's really kind of pathetic. Blast worked because it was indoors and had all those things. Drum corps will never have them. The End. </soapbox>

Some need Crown to drop (for my corps to move up your corps has to move down). Some stayed at a Holiday Inn (i've never taught or marched, but I've read DCP so I'm very informed). Some need their corps to stay above Crown (self-explanatory). Some want Crown to win every year and want to "fire them all" if they don't. In short it's just like any other sports activity except our scores are mostly imaginary and not based on any physically measurable criteria. And I agree, Go Crown!

IMO this activity is about music and motion not about engineering and climbing on playground equipment. It’s silly is what it is.

Crown is certainly playing the "march well, play well, spin well" card. I don't think they're going to stand still in the rankings. FAR more dirt to clean than the 3 above them. Does it have a chance to win? Maybe not. But can it MEDAL? Heck yeah. IMHO nothing would be BETTER for this activity than to see a corps that chooses to use MORE DRILL and less RUN TO PROP AND CLIMB ON IT. I'll repeat -- there's nothing INNOVATIVE about climbing on props and playing. It's been done many, many times in the past. Frankly it's boring. Bloo is NOT boring because Thrower managed to "not step in a steaming pile of doo-doo" while arranging the Beatle's for gods sake. IMO musically they are super engaging and that's why they're winning. (btw clearly they got the Beatles idea from Crown with Klesch's arrangement last year ) If INNOVATIVE is referring to ENGINEERING INNOVATION then sure BD is innovative. But I'm ready to put EVERYONE'S props in the dumpster right now. BORING. Move and play gosh darn it! </rant>

I think that makes you... a fossil?

this is exactly right. we haven't even had a regional (yet). and there's still a lot of the season left if you measure it in CrownTime!