I love this topic but I disagree with most of what your are saying. Drum Corps. has evolved just as all music does. Different demographics and more importantly different judges. All corps want to win, this is a fact, but in order to have the last DM stand up be your DM you HAVE to play to the judges. I marched my first season of drum corps. last year with Carolina Crown and boy did my opinion of the whole sport change. The judging system is broken.....it's built on a tic system and not on achievement or crowd response. Its like: "Oh wow that was clean...more points....instead of oh wow that was pretty ****ing hard!" It bothers me too, but it's where we're at.... That being said from my experience all corps play to the crowd...I don't ever remember hearing my corps talk about what judges thought unless it was to make our show better....quite the contrary...I remember us talking about where those judges could stick those score sheets. Finals week we were just trying to meet our standards and have a pleasing show for everyone to see. So I see where you are coming from, but don't worry too much in to it. Like you said DCI is working on the judging system and it is frustrating...this is coming from someone who marched during the problem. I do see an upswing with crowd pleasing"ness" from the corps today. But, honestly, like everything else it could all change next year and be different the year after that. Like I said...the sport is evolving constantly and corps just have to deal with that if they want to win.
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