Pete Freedman
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Posts posted by Pete Freedman
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Maybe they should use these ...
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The tic system was as subjective as it is today...maybe worse... Whats a tic , what isn't. It would bring back the horrible saying of " I called it like I saw it" No accountability. It was less predictable in the past merely because of lack of accountability or criteria being enforced. That and also corps are very consistent and have figured out what works for them year to year. Even in todays world, define difficult? Everything is difficult today and skill levels way higher than ever.
You are quite right though about judges evaluating a drop and in the big scheme of things has it deterred from the overall effect and was it plainly a hot mess or not . There is far more today to evaluate than it used to be. Far more elements to a single 8 counts than there was in a larger chunk in the past. This doesnt make one better than the other just that we have evolved to a much more complex presentation. Even musically, today there is so much movement around the field when during the tic system we even stood still for a song ( for many ). Looking for a " tic " would be a daunting task and how realistic would it actually be.
Bring anything like the tic system back? I sure hope not. JMO
I agree. You would have to give up accountability to get volatility because the kids don't get significantly better or worse from one day to the next (that is, the corps all improve pretty much together.) Judging has to be predictable if it is to be accurate and accountable (the teacher way of thinking), but you have to give all that up if you want volatility (the sports way of thinking). It's not worth it. The goal is to max out the student, not have wild and unpredictable outcomes.
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I've been pondering how to introduce more sports-like randomness to the scores to add volatility in placements. The tick system had that, but was a poor general indicator of ability and encouraged easy content.
See, that's just it. Team sports isn't interested in ability. Team sports is interested in who wins in spite of ability. Team sports is full of arbitrary pseudo-random events that can disrupt the effects of skill. Team sports requires people to adapt to events as random as a dice throw. That's why the better team might not win.
But teachers (like DCI judges) grade students on their actual ability, and try to see past the frack or drop. They know that a student who fracks twice may be a stronger student than one that doesn't, if the demand was higher. And they will still be stronger tomorrow, and six weeks from now. Take the average of 150 kids and it's even more predictable.
I'm fine with that, but if your really want to make things less predictable, add a tick system to the existing system. Yes, because then they still have to play difficult material to get the demand score, which increases the risk of mistakes. And they have to play it well generally to get the achievement score (and the better they play it the better the score, which the tick system lacks). But ... they have to make few mistakes. And that combined with the demand score which forces the material to be difficult, now that's interesting.
I'm not recommending it, but it would create volatility, and few would say that BD or anybody else has a lock on the title even one day before Finals.
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I would say its a combination of both. As for your 2nd question, DCI could have more competitive parity( and thus more excitement, more fan growth, Corps numbers growth, this would bring, etc ) if it was willing to forego its acrchaic, obsolete, non progressive, backward policy of having no sensible and reasonable transfer policy implementation among its member Corps. All successful amateur youth sports leagues have this ( Drum Corps circuits prior to DCI used too as well... and successfully ). However, the elite DCI Corps that have so much influence in DCI would not sign on for this, plus there is no widespread appetite among the Scholastic Marching Band community, nor within DCI, for even a discussion on how this might work and be potentially benefical, long term to both the overall health and stability of the activity, and for a jump start for future growth prospects of DCI. Since there is no clarion call for what all other successful youth sports leagues do regarding this, DCI is pretty much stuck forever, imo, with treading water as an entity, and with little to no chance to ever substantially grow this activity both in the numbers of Corps, number of participants, numbers of fans, number of more Corps competing for titles, etc and so forth. Doing the same things over and over again, tends to produce the same results. As such, the Blue Devils are going to competitively dominate DCI in Titles won for the next half century, imo. Its ok, by me, as I'll be dead and gone during most of it, and the younger, newer fans seem to be ok with the status quo on this as well it would appear.
Nope. I'm calling you on this. The NCAA had a very limited transfer policy designed to address college concerns about recruiters partying and generally 'not bribing' players on campus. It only affected players in the 'elite' leagues where that would be a problem. But they got rid of those policies years ago.
I just checked Pop Warner's policy, which states (Article 10, Part C)
C. Once certified for a particular age/weight division, a participantshall not be permitted to recertify to a lower division of playduring the current season under any circumstances, but basedon the information available shall be permitted to approverecertification to a higher division of play.Which means not only can they move up to a better team, they can do so during the current season, which DCI does not allow (DCI rule 1.2 IIRC)
What amateur sports league has transfer rules, Brasso?
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The term G7 is not antiquated (at least the concept isn't) because the ToC shows are still exclusively those seven corps, except that each corps seems to take one show off and is replaced by some non-G7 corps. Presumably this is a concession to the non-G7, although I've never heard an official statement about this.
As to the term G7 itself, someone objected to it on here last year but I don't think the G7 themselves have a problem with it. Some may prefer "the Seven" (their own term) or "Music in Motion" (their legal entity).
Now, is it a point of pride to march in a G7 corps, to work for a G7 corps or to contribute funds to a G7 corps? I would think so, especially the first. That gives them an advantage in solidifying their position. It could also cause kids to skip over the next best corps (Boston, Madison, etc.) and go for a G7 corps. Some corps were already pretty solidly positioned at the top, but some might have dropped out of finals by now if it weren't for the talent draw and other benefits of elite G7 status. They drop one year but bounce back up the next. So I think it does have an effect.
But, the kids and staff of all the corps deserve all the accolades we can heap on them for their intense dedication and great shows. Frankly I revere the directors themselves even if I criticize this or that about them. They're all heroes.
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The Cadets surge is due to statistical anomaly. All four WC corps at that show surged the same way, so it means nothing. The judges judged high. If BD had been at that show they would probably have broken 80 with ease, just following their trend line and comparing it to the bump those corps experienced.
Edit: clarification
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The general tenor on here is that BD is going to stomp everyone else. That at least has historical precedent, but all three top corps are extremely close.
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Re: the earlier conversation about drill, I just looked up the visual judges from last year's finals. They were: Michael Stone and Mickey Kelly on GE, Juno Orefice on Visual Performance, Tim Ochran on Visual Analysis and Marie Czapinski on Color Guard. All seem to have extensive backgrounds in both color guards and 'visual" i.e. drill. (except I couldn't find much specifics on Tim Ochran.) So it does look like they have extensive experience in drill, which leaves open the question why DCI judges allegedly don't consider it much in scoring.
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According to Corpsfans.com (the actual source of the Ascend Performing Arts standings frame), Bluecoats are undefeated so far with 7 wins, beating Cadets 5 times and Crown 3 times. Their average lead over Cadets is 2.040 and over Crown is 0.900. Anything can happen, but they are dominating those they go up against currently.
I wish we had demand / achievement scores, then we'd get some sense how much room to grow they've given themselves.
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But sometimes, maybe even more often than not, rapid movement and crazy cool formations are the most effective visuals.
Yep. Think of all the classic drill moves over the years. Spectacular drill is one of only two things that DCI does better than anyone else - the other being the big hit high acoustic volume moments. Together these things have really brought in the crowds and defined the activity. Student groups aren't normally the best at anything, are they? And indeed they rarely draw crowds other than school loyalists, parents and friends.
DCI drum corps has these two spectacular 'best-in-class" things which IMO allow it to plant one foot firmly in the professional column while keeping the other foot in education.
Let's face it, body movement is never spectacular, even when it's well done. There are no top ten body movements collections (body moves?) on youtube.
I like body movement, but it's no substitute for drill.
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Very cool! Thanks for the update.
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Interesting. Until the last couple minutes, there's very little of what I would think of as "drill" in the Bluecoats show.
It's not clear that drill is judged much anyway, either for technique demand/achievement or GE.
Marching Roundtable podcasts from about 486 to 491 went into a spasm of discussion and controversy about visual issues that touched on the lack of notes about drill on visual tapes. Presuming that this includes DCI, it leads me to wonder whether "visual" judges are drawn in fact from the color guard staffs of the activity and not from the visual staffs. Usually these are separate groups of staff but there is only one visual caption in the judging.
And while there is now a specific color guard judge, this creates the implication that the other judges come from the visual staff, but I wonder how many actually are.
This could also explain why there is so much body movement - that's what a color guard instructor would reward. They are basically dance instructors now. That's a good thing, but it should be more clear how many judges actually have a DCI visual (drill) staff background.
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Here's where I'm getting all this from. You'll want to bookmark it because it's hard to find from the home page:
Click on Current Standings
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And to whoever said the Cadets were trending up, that's a statistical anomaly caused by their absence from the show where the other east tour corps dropped together by about two points. The Cadets are following a normal DCI trend line. Cavvies, however, do seem to be trending slightly. Maybe their show wasn't complete at first?
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"The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet."
The following must be taken with the usual grain of salt about different shows and panels:
As of 7/3, BD, Crown and Bluecoats are in a dead heat. BD was behind, and is now ahead, but most of the east scores suddenly dropped together so that doesn't mean anything. They are all effectively tied, and there is a clear gap of 2-3 points between them and the rest.
Cadets and Cavs are currently about tied for fourth, although in the first week Cavs were clearly behind by a couple points, while SCV dropped back about the same amount. So, Cavs and SCV effectively switched places in the role of being tied with Cadets for fourth.
The biggest gap is between those six and the rest, with Phantom, Madison and Blue stars in the next pack running for 7th, 8th, and 9th. Phantom has a clear edge in that pack.
Crossmen and Blue Knights are dancing around for 10/11 spot, with Troopers, Academy, Crossmen and Colts forming a highly inconsistent pattern right behind them. One of them can make finals.
The rest each lie in their own niche so far - Mandarins, Pacific Crest, Oregon Crusaders, Jersey Surf, Cascades and Pioneer.
What do Spartacus and Angels & Demons have in common? Both were at least two points behind the lead within two weeks of finals. (And that's with the same judging panel). So of course there is no lock at this point. But no one should be surprised if all of those top three do in fact medal, in some order.
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I stopped episode 499 half way through. I tried to listen to this year's podcasts as well but I stopped. I wish Cesario would just state what he really thinks but he can't and that makes listening kind of pointless. Between the uniform design job and the DCI role I'm more inclined to take whatever he says with a grain of salt.
Maybe they hired him to silence him ... excuse me I've got to go get my tinfoil hat.
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Agree 100%. A Podcast has built-in subscription software to make it easy to listen without having to visit a website and navigate through what is, quite frankly, a navigational train wreck. I do not want to have to visit that, or any, website to listen to a Podcast.
Watching the season preview broadcast at DCI.org via their embedded player was almost impossible to figure out. The subscription software in and of itself is archaic...at best. There is no telling how much money DCI costs itself by using that software system.
Bump. As Hrothgar15 pointed out it is now a regular podcast again. Maybe DCI read this thread and finally fixed the problem. On my podcast player I now have Field Pass listed twice, once for the old version and one for the new. The new one has a slightly different logo - the grass background is blurry. Click on Add Old Episodes (or similar) to see everything back to where the old one left off approximately. Thanks DCI!
Also, don't forget the Marching Roundtable podcast, which is fantastic and includes actual debate from time to time. (Oooh!) Michael Cesario was on recently on there as well, episode 499.
I agree with those who say that as a DCI employee he has to upsell all the shows, even though my favorite quote of his, "Some of them are starting to get it." is probably more indicative of his actual opinion. In the battle of art vs. entertainment, I don't think he cares which you do as long as you put the effort into doing it well.
Here he is teaching a class at BOA:
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I'm bumping this because I just found it and also because I wanted to mention the 990s thread, which I'm convinced was read by every director and DCI mogul out there, and probably had an impact on the activity behind the scenes as well as on DCP. Yes it was all public information, but the power of information is largely in how it's collected and used. Well done.
The bullfighting thread was perhaps less influential :-) (then again, we'll see...), but in general all of your comments are either important or at least entertaining.
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Great stuff! Thank you.
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Right. to Pete:
It's often a misunderstood point. Obviously all of the slides have to be cylindrical or else they couldn't slide. But there are three sections to consider a progressive change in bore size.
1. The lead pipe is the smallest with a conical bore that progressively increases to where it reaches the valve casing (it plateaus if there is a tuning slide in there and then continues on the other side of the slide).
2. The valve slides all run in parallel, so they are the same in bore, but they are larger than where the lead pipe left off.
3. The bell picks up at a larger bore than the valve slides and then progresses (like a trumpet does) to the end of the bell.
On a trumpet, the bore is slightly conical from the lead pipe to the start of the main tuning slide, but from there the bore stays the same all the way to the valve casing, through the valve slides and up to the start of the bell.
It is not always easily perceivable, but if it is a cornet, then it has this progression of bore through these 3 sections.
It's true that both trumpets and cornets have a conical leadpipe, and that cornet leadpipes are longer. But apparently some cornets' conical portion doesn't really extend further than a trumpet's does.
Here's an interesting thread on this topic. Those who have measured actual conical bores along the length (not just at the ends) in various trumpets and cornets have found that it varies. A Schilke B5 trumpet supposedly is more conical than a Schilke A1 cornet for example.
I'm just going by what these folks claim, of course. My Ambassador seems to be very slightly conical, and my Besson doesn't seem conical at all. But without special calipers there's no way to tell.
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I went to world class corps last year to show my horn, the trumpet tech pulled out a mouth piece out of his Bach Strad case and played Hayden Concerto. I almost fell on the floor. I asked him to play a middle C with a fortissimo volume, but he couldn't do it. I had to show him what a old Drum Corps fortissimo was like. It hit me pretty hard realizing that today, a large number of the people working in drum corps have never seen or play a G bugle and they teach the line to sound like a nice concert band.
The G bugle is in a lower key. The G soprano is about 12" longer in piping than the Bb trumpets. If you push down the third valve on your Bb trumpet permanently, you turn your horn into key of G, and you can simulate the two valve G bugle that way.
Some reference here.
G Bugle vs Bb Trumpet
F = D
G = E
C = A
A = F#
When arranging for G, it's not hard to find the key that will work. As you know high C or above the third valve becomes irrelevant. So when you play a high "C" on the G bugle, you're really playing a "A." The only note that requires alternative fingering is A flat, so on the G bugle, you play it with first valve and adjust the trigger for intonation.
The Blue Devils is notorious for writing their music in higher keys than other corps (or original music). Specially in the 1980/90's.
12"? That's a lot. Wow.
And thanks for the info about holding down the third valve. That's cool. And that photo of the raiders; if you right click and open it in a new tab it becomes a lot bigger and you can see your horns better. They look great. Congratulations! They will be getting Ooohs and Aaahs all summer long for sure!
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I have always thought G bugles were pitched higher, as the length of tubing is shorter than a trumpet.
G Bugle
Trumpet
Follow the wrap on the bugle and you'll see it leads from the mouthpiece forward, down and back almost to the player, then wraps tightly back to the valve block.
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Yes.
I'm not trained in theory, but I figured out firsthand how skillful corps arrangers were before Bb when I tried to make Downey's arrangement of "When A Man Loves a Woman" work for brass in Bb and C. The lower voices don't come through nearly as powerfully. As much as people loved the shrieking high notes, the most distinctive difference in sound between G and Bb is the way basses and baritones penetrated the ensemble on instruments tuned so much higher.
I miss the sound of G horns from a few corps, but those instruments are beastly to play in tune, which is where a really good sound comes from regardless of instrumentation or venue. There were maybe 3-4 corps per year who could make it work, and it was in large part because of gifted arrangers like Downey and Prime. I think the overall brass sound in DCI was improved by the switch to Bb.
Since drum corps arrangers wrote specifically for the instrumentation, wouldn't they take advantage of the lower notes available to the G instrument?
Maybe not. IIRC from the late 70s/ early 80s there was a lot of F major (I'm guessing relative to concert G major as 'C major', then?) which was playable with two valves. I forget what else we played, but we were pretty limited. (I played baritone, but those facts would apply to soprano too, right?)
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I'm not sure I would call this a bugle, but it is a fine looking instrument. Sounds great too, based on the youtube vid.
From what I understand, the role of bore size on the sound is considered much less important than it used to be, in that any effect a manufacturer can achieve with bore size is easier to do with subtle changes to the bell and elsewhere. Apparently many cornets today do not even have a conical bore. A cornet today can be thought of as a sweet sounding trumpet aimed for people who want a sweet sounding trumpet. Any way the manufacturers can achieve that will work. Trade secrets come into play. The conical bore may or may not be part of that. The distinct wrap and the mouthpiece type is mostly just part of what that particular market expects.
By the same token, you can call this new soprano instrument a bugle simply because it is designed to appeal to the bugle market. There are various trumpets out there with big bores and big bells, including 5.3" and 5.4" bells, and they are not referred to as bugles. But if they were, that would be fine too.
Returning to bore size, if bore size isn't such a big factor in the sound of a trumpet, then maybe it isn't a big reason G bugles have that characteristic sound. Supporting this is the allegation that not all bugles had big bores, and some trumpets had bigger bores.
Perhaps the sound is due to:
- G bugles are lower pitch instruments (1/4 octave longer tubing) with correspondingly lower pitched overtones. That should make a difference in the sound of the instrument. If so, it is not so much the width of the pipe that matters most, but the length.
- G bugles are lower pitch instruments and so they are in fact playing lower notes. That is, the music is scored slightly lower.
- G bugles with two valves allow fewer key signatures to be fully playable. When all the music is played in a very few predictable key signatures, a highly distinct sound is created.
- As someone else pointed out, back in the day the 3rd chairs weren't particularly solid players, and that led to the phenomenon of the future Chicago Symphony soloist standing next to a duffer. That also creates a distinct sound. Today the bar could be high or low depending on the corps but will be more consistent within a given corps.
- Back then corps tended to cobble together instruments from different manufacturers with different bells, different mouthpieces, different sounds.
In short, bore size was at most one of several potential factors behind the distinctive sound.
And I bet the Raiders will sound fantastic this Summer, even if they don't really capture that ol' time G bugle sound. But that's ok with me.
Good luck with this fine instrument.
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Any lock for Top 3?
in DCI World Class Corps Discussions
Posted
Just looking at the chart updated from last night I can tell that Crown, Blue Stars and Colts and probably Pioneer all went to the same show, because they all dropped together by around 3 points. Survey said ...
Bingo! The Thunder of Drums had only those four corps in WC.