Slingerland

There's an outlier score tonight (in Music Analysis) that should make Madison a little nervous. The spread in the one caption is actually greater than the over all spread in the scores between the two corps. Find Rosemont a judge who doesn't seem to be so repelled by the book, and the gap is a lot tighter than the score tonight indicates. Makes for a more interesting weekend.

Madison Scouts 77.50 The Cavaliers 76.30 Spirit of Atlanta 72.90 Blue Stars 71.45 Colts 69.40 Pioneer 59.50 Read more: http://www.dci.org/s...5#ixzz2YEUBXGav

Yes, but I don't expect the numbers to be significantly different. Madison and Cavaliers are pick 'em at this point, and everyone else in the potential finalist spot is 3 to 5 points behind. I wouldn't mind being surprised, but I see both the boy bands at 76-78 or thereabouts, and Spirit/Blue Stars a few points behind.

The corps usually do the parade mid-day, so you won't be able to see much rehearsal until afternoon. Check the individual corps' sites for rehearsal locations. Cavaliers' site says they'll be at Barker Middle School.

Very nice matching offer. Ok, I'll bite.

The members don't design the show. And Cavaliers' stock in trade in their 2000s run was being one step ahead of the curve, not going back to the past. The pyramid is cheesy, and I hope for their sake that they come up with something that is more active, and more drill-oriented for the 40 seconds it takes them to build a cheerleader pyramid. They can do more with that percussion writing than they are. It's not "picking' on anyone if you see them wearing a t-shirt with a suit, and let them know it might not be their best choice.

Even though they show no profit (trust me...), DCI is still a $10 million a year organization. If you're a lawyer working for Copyright owner A, you can sue the high school kid with a 97 Civic sitting in his driveway, or you can sue "the $10 million a year company." One is worth pursuing, because they could ostensibly offer a settlement if you found the right judge, the other isn't, because his net worth is less than the price of a Domino's pizza. In an ideal world, the rights for every corps would be such that they'd have all the mechanical rights in place they need to allow fan vids to help promote their product. That ideal world simply doesn't exist, at present.

I think they're going for a Fight Club moment, but the pyramid just ain't it. (and long-development is one of the issues, along with the "Greased Lightning" homage from the horn players).

It would require a huge amount of cleaning on their part, and for the brass staff to find fixes to a raft of almost shockingly obvious intonation, tempo, phrasing and balance issues (exposed unison staccato 8th notes at 180 bpm are a lot harder than anyone probably thought they'd be). Program-wise, yes, I think they could have a top 5 show. It's melodically more interesting and more consistently themed than Madison, Bluecoats, or Regiment's programs, imho. It's also being marched and played (in the horns) at a level significantly under what each of those other corps are offering. Percussion and guard are already top 5 material; they need to get the hornline and the visual programs cleaned up significantly in order to make a push up from the 7/8 position. The good news for them is that with the exception of the cheerleader-pyramid (ugh) there's not really that much in the show that needs re-writing. So they have the luxury of focusing on cleaning what they have, rather than having to totally re-think the show, as they did last year.

I don't believe that such a Panglossian condition exists in the United States of Too Many Attorneys. If another party CAN decide to file suit, whether the case has merit or not, you're living in a state of legal risk, and in the US it's really easy to file suit. DCI's policy of immediate take-down strikes many of us as over-the-top, but from their standpoint, it's the best defense they'd have if anyone ever DID sue them. They could stand in front of a judge and jury and point to a zero-tolerance policy with regards to people posting non-authorized recordings of their member organizations. That wouldn't protect the original posters of bootlegs, but it would put DCI in a better position to stay in the clear, financially.

Everything you're saying is something they already do. DCI spent well into the six figures last year on clearing rights for the corps. My position is that they shouldn't, anymore than they should be funding everyone's guard costume choices out of the general fund. Individual corps should have responsibility for choosing music with affordable rights clearance, and making sure that they have all mechanical licenses in place before the season starts. If that means commissioning more original music or using two or three pieces of music rather than twelve, consider that a bonus.

I imagine it won't be long until DCI is directed to go down the same road. Too many corps are acting like pigs at the rights clearance buffet table. Either put a modest cap on what DCI will pay, or tell the corps they're on their own to buy rights, with the understanding that using music that can't be mechanically licensed on FN and dvd's means that they lose out on any video product revenues from that season. The idea of using 25 seconds of a Bernstein piece just because you want to would go away pretty quickly once any corps that tried it realized how much they were spending for such a fanciful little flourish.

If Cavaliers can catch up to (and beat) Madison on Friday and Saturday this week, possible that those two will change positions, but otherwise, this seems about right (probably not a tie at 2nd, but pick 'em between BD and Cadets).

Those bands, in almost every case, are also the copyright holders of their own material. I'd agree that DCI is missing the boat when it comes to allowing social media to be a driving engine for their product, but it's a situation of needing to make sure that every i and t is dotted and crossed before they can afford to be benignly negligent when it comes to unauthorized postings of shows that they had to get rights clearance for in the first place. When they can't even guarantee mechanical rights for material that IS legally presented live, we should take that as a clue as to how many hurdles have to be cleared. Personally, I'd recommend that DCI turn the rights clearance issue and financial element of the process back to the individual corps. Right now, you have a few corps whose rights expenses are disproportionately high (either because they chose an expensive piece or because they're using 7 pieces of music that need to be cleared). Let the corps pay for that aspect of their program and negotiate their own deals to include social media clearance.

This is probably the most useful 'standings' philosophy, and the most accurate assessment of who's really where. Thanks for doing this.

Wait - you mean Drumline Battle isn't going to involve penises? Bummer. The history of sports and broadcasting is that owners worried that showing the product for free would dilute the audience. It rarely did. Every major sporting event is also on broadcast/free television, and it always sells out. Were I a broadcast executive, however, and I went to Finals, I'd ask myself "why is this thing about as much fun to be at as a high school graduation ceremony?" Bluntly, they need someone in the organization who gets how to produce events, not just sign checks and negotiate contracts. It's not hard to imagine that the right individual will also have some contacts in the corporate sponsorship and broadcasting worlds who could be brought along for the ride.

Except none of that happened. "The rest of the staff" is the same this year as it was in 2010 and 2011, when they placed 2nd and 3rd, respectively, winning percussion in '11. Vanguard's musical staff these days is Regiment's musical staff from 3 or 4 years ago. The numbers from this weekend make it appear as if they've got a bead on where they want to go with the show, and are making the right adjustments. No one really thought they were going to go from 8th to 1st, did they? 8th to "better" is reasonable, given how much more competitive things are now than they were 96 and 97, last time they had a relative rough patch.

June scores never really matter, except as progress reports on how the corps' winters and springs went. Having said that, I saw both Madison and Cavaliers this weekend, and suspect they'll be neck and neck for a few weeks to come, if not the rest of the summer. Madison's a lot cleaner and their horn sound is much more mature; Cavaliers have a show design with more potential for growth.

Wait for someone to tell you it's not really about the numbers at Finals, since that's what they were doing this spring when I pointed out the same thing. Lord knows the corps wouldn't want another 10,000 potential t-shirt buyers around on Finals week. If DCI is still talking about "the cost" of being on television, it shows they still don't understand the first thing about how it works. If you have to pay someone to broadcast your events, you're not "being shown"; you're buying ad time

The Hamm's Indians. Cooler uniforms.

There was a lot more obvious dirt in Rosemont's show opening weekend than there was in Madison's. it makes sense that them cleaning the easy-to-see stuff and modifying the WTF stuff would push them closer to the middle of the Finalist pack. The two corps get to see each other a bunch more times this coming week. Makes for a good story in the midwest.

That's one of the more bizarre misreadings of how sponsorships work that I've ever seen. Home Depot doesn't sponsor a NASCAR team because that's gonna, by itself, keep them in business. They do it to keep their name in front of people who go to NASCAR races, because it's a way to build affinity for their brand; because the people watching those races say "hey, Home Depot must agree with me that this stupid ___t is actually interesting - they're one of me! Next time I'm shoppin' for 2 x 4's I'm gointa Home Depot!" When Boeing sponsors an opera company, the same principle is at stake. They want the opera crowd to think "oh, Boeing's sophisticated, like me." DCI could find corporate support for their season, but first they'd have to hire a team who knows who to call and how to pitch.They don't have that at present.

The program is better this weekend than last week. The marching and brass performance are still issues. Guard was reading much more strongly. Drums are still very good. Anyone who thinks this won't make Finals is fooling themselves. At this point, they'll be duking it out with Madison for the 7 spot for a couple of weeks (the two corps see each other 3 or 4 times between now and the end of next weekend), and whoever opens some distance in that feud by San Antonio won't be looking back. If they both get hyped up enough, Bluecoats could find themselves leap-frogged by the pair of midwestern boy bands.

Probably not. The hornline had a featured choral passage instead. I'm guessing they heard enough guffawing to kill the pre-recorded cue for good.

Blue Stars were not (and are not) part of the G7 group. They were added to the TOC shows as part of the truce negotiation between Coates/Gibbs/Hopkins and DCI's Board, for the same reason as Boston was last year. The current TOC shows are actually just a re-use of the old name for what were going to be a new series of shows by the original G7 group.