KVG_DC

The 'no one is doing it' might also have something to do with the curse of LoS on wireless mics in the first place. With the number of times mics in DCI and BOA shows going haywire due to what channel to be on and the next group working their system the potential disaster of a corps trained to use this sort of tech perfectly to the point they're relying on it to do more complicated cross field listening and coordination of the ensemble suddenly having an transmission/reception "dead spot" in a section of the field would be...tragically exposing.

Delaware was pretty well attended the first year. Last year was fairly sparse.

[Genesis 2023 enters the chat]

I'm like "Is this Eurovision?"

In addition to the 'creating is work' argument, my understanding of how copyright laws work is "if you don't defend it, you effectively don't have it." So, say they don't defend their rights to the license for the olympics because 'hey millions of people world wide will be hearing my name associated with my creative composition!' Then some corporation hocks it for a project and makes a ton of money using it. You sue the corporation and the court determination is ... "tough luck kid, you didn't defend your copyright before that." So SOME form of licensing needs to be there so artists can control the decision, and ideally the fee, for their work in different situations, but where lawyers are involved, fees go up.

Ah. Boo. I like USNA fine but UDel was a great location for watching corps. UDel was the back up location when USNA had some conflicting event one year, I was surprised to see them both on the schedule in the first place. That'll make the show in Annapolis all the more of a draw though.

Except that year BK miced a snare soloist to do some pretty cool crunchy effects with the sound.

Aye. I remember this from music theory class. Bach's use of counterpoint to create polyphony came into jazz strongly. Them cats knew their stuff.

Hasn't the Avon/Crown pipeline always sort of been there? Harloff and all. When Crown is at Muncie, the line around the corner at the Crown souvie tent is a lot of Avon kids.

Oh... That makes me wonder if BK is planning an "America at 250" show of some sort?

Yea. This one was to hit the NC/VA coast hard. DC is to miss out on the snow (we don't need any on top of the snocrete we have.) but get massive windchills starting overnight.

Open Class's Golden Empire has the opportunity right...there.

Oh Bloo is another great example of pit/battery integration. Bloopit has been astounding of late. I think they sometimes get overlooked, as does Bloo guard, because they make it look so effortless and everything gets SO integrated sometimes, there's no single 'standout' moment where its any one single section prevalent in the music or the visual of the show. That's one of the amazing things about Bloo's design and instructional teams is they really get the WHOLE corps functioning as a single unit.

Not surprising. The word the last few years was Mandarins were specifically seeking people who wanted to do shows "like Bloo" so those who'd done Mandarins would go for Bloo in the absence of their team.

Right. I marched in N. Indiana band with a tenor sax. It was a regular thing to have to do major repairs after marching season. Many of us had 'marching horns' and 'concert/jazz' horns if we were top line players. We'd be tempted to pull out the good instruments for state finals but then the notion of a Selmer Mark VII on the truck, carried gingerly over the large rock lot of fallen twisted ankles outside of the Hoosier Dome and the weather exposure of winter before getting into the dome were 'uh no...I'll use the horn that's been outside all season.' And the number of extra reeds we had to share around the section at EVERY show. And a box of 10 was still fairly reasonable at $9.95 for the cheaper kinds. Reeds now are way more expensive.

I believe they both had brass instruments they marched otherwise. I think the BK kid was marching a Euph. The BD kid a Mello? I remember watching them on streams with us trying to see when they switched out. Cause were talking about what different embouchures would be needed for the switching

That Miss Saigon show was all my band alumni friends were talking about. It was so remarkable what they pulled off.

Totally. If we're not beyond the "music education" aspect of the activity yet, then it also reinforces the cross instrumentation skills and understanding of musicality in the activity. Something I think would appeal to the current "I'm a music major looking to be a band director" crowd that seems to be the prime recruiting field. Even in my day (the mid to late 80s) in high end competitive band, it was considered super cool to be multi-instrumental. As part of the Jazz Band I front line, we were expected to be able to put down our saxes and pick up a flute or clarinet for some numbers and relished the challenge of it.

This. We could see it grow to 'featured ensembles' but it'd be stunned to see full sections unless the touring model completely collapses and we end up with 'weekend gigs only' sort of things. In which case, the entire activity would have changed pretty dramatically.

The oboe for BK last year was really well done. I don't mind the soloists working in like this as BD did a good job with the sop sax as well. The cellos, violins , ketyars, etc. incorporated the past as featured instruments have been done pretty well too. I've get the concerns of the slippery slope but I'm fine with 'featured soloist' usage of various other instrumentations and their colors in the sound scape. I would like to see some provision or modification where a featured woodwind/string/non-brass musician be ALSO performing in a 'regular' role of the ensemble, e.g. a brass musician who come to pick up a flute or a oboist who is otherwise marching brass, percussion, or guard. I think it's most impressive when we see features where cross musical/performing skills are in play. e.g. the vocalist for Troopers' Wild Horses doing that vocal work after having spun her heart out on the field in the guard, etc.

Ramming for rammings sake has rarely appealed to me. Even in the WGI. I'd much rather watch something nuanced like what Ayala was doing just prior to the pandemic break with things like The Point of It All than what Chino Hills was doing. Mike Jackson's writing with BK was the field equivalence of that nuance but it didn't always translate. I was excited for him with Crown and the Camelot show worked for me in that integrated sort of writing but the 'mesh' with Crown Brass wasn't quite working. On the flip side is say, what Cadets were doing toward the end with percussion. Lots of ramming features that were impressive as heck but ... they seemed to disrupt the flow of the brass book. The balance perhaps being BAC's percussion prior to Glitch and Boom where you'd have some nice transitions to ramming percussion. it's integrated even more for Glitch and Boom in some ways. I'm a big fan of the battery working with the pit in features, (particularly if they're challenged to listen across space and on the move!) rather than treating them as separate entities and typically writing the pit into the brass musicality and the battery separate. I think SCV does one of the best jobs writing the pit and battery together in interesting ways on the field and their record of taking the Sanford as much as they have shows that. Rennick's know what they're doing.

I just remember going from "eh, this could be more" to "oh wow they really sold the La La Land to me!" They really got those kids to buy into the show and perform the snot out of it with verve. We were all "they probably could have layered more if they knew the kids were gonna light it up that much."

Here in DC we've dropped 14 degrees in the last 2 1/2 hours. We're expecting a good chunk of snow that will be then covered by a few inches of sleet. So it'll be like a layer of concrete. Probably tons of power outages

Everglow was sort of the opposite trajectory in my memory. It was loose and choppy all season then the last sprint it just had a total glow up with pacing and energy.