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quietcity

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Everything posted by quietcity

  1. I am digging Spirit. Some great brass arranging and performing. The ending was a lot of fun. Its great to see them this strong.
  2. I love that horn duet. Concert euphonium and flugelhorn give a dark timbre not usually heard in drum corps.
  3. Back in my day, horn players had only two expressions: intense snarling and snarling intensity.
  4. Marine corps has immediate french horn vacancy! I wonder what happened to the last one?
  5. I can't get used to brass players smiling lovingly at the audience.
  6. I am a die-hard SCV fan, but I get your point. SCV's ballad is spectacular and riveting, like watching fireworks. Bloo's ballad is sweet pure music, and movingly performed. I feel happy every time I hear it. I am really rooting for Bloo to get the silver, as their show is so much more musically satisfying and coherent than BD's.
  7. The question is: how much sound is acoustic and how much is from amplification?
  8. I am simply citing SCV's source and interpretation. I am not responsible for the ensuing heterodoxy.
  9. But that would be against the spirit of the piece. The unified dance is meant to represent the coming together of peoples who had heretofore been unable to communicate with each other (see Babel, Tower of). This leads to the jubilant celebration of the final movement. And, good heavens, they are not twerking! SCV is much too classy for that low-down Miley stuff.
  10. On the other hand, I find the brass arrangements of baseball disappointing, the choreography of football chaotic, the melding of artistic genres in soccer execrable and the thematic evocation in hockey laughable. Plus, SCV's mellophones. How much more do you want?
  11. You have an interesting way of mixing your metaphors. You ARE mixing your metaphors, yes?
  12. At its best, performers moving props and altering the staging can become integral to the show. Cirque du Soleil is masterful at this. The Broadway production of the Lion King is another example, in which actor and prop were merged. But of course, corps don't have the same control over their environment as theater groups do. SCV did a great job moving props in Ouroboros, in part because the performers stayed hidden behind the props as they moved them. The props seemed to have a life of their own. In this year's Babylon, it is much more obvious that the performers have put down their instruments to schlep the cages around, and so it is harder to suspend disbelief. Bluecoats and Cavies this year do a decent job of melding the performer/stagehand role. They don't try to hide themselves, but rather stay in character as they do the grunt work. My hope is that drum corps is simply going through another spasm of artistic growing pains, just as with uniforms/costumes, G bugles to Bb horns and so on. If so, use of props may become more integrated and less jarring.
  13. On the performer side, a soft ending done well can provide a different kind of thrill than the usual triple-forte ending. You can feel the breath-holding anticipation in the audience as the music fades, then a moment of silence and finally a crescendoing ovation. This was my experience with SCV in 1984, when we ended with Tenderland.
  14. Cadets, I am loving the start of your show, really grabs my attention. Then the transition to Sensemaya, just tasty!
  15. Nice performance, Phantom, but I am wanting from you something, I don't know, less pleasant?
  16. I get that. Academy's visual is more coherent and flowing, and they use the field more effectively as a stage. Mandarin's visual is kinda grainy and grubby. But on the other hand, Mandarins convey a lot more emotion. And they got stilt-walkers with glowing cubes!
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