perc2100

When you mean "viewed as competition" I presume you mean for the same audience as a DCI competition, vs literal placement/winner & losers competition: like the 'Tour of Champions' as competition vs DCI shows? It would be interesting if some big-money sugar daddy could put on a LIV-esque alternative drum corps tour, where corps get higher pay than DCI shows to 'lure' them away a bit. I know that's goofy and would never happen (again), but as a sometime agent of chaos I find amusement in that type of thinking 🤪 I do think it may be more prudent for corps to try to find alternative entertainment ventures outside of DCI competitions: ala what BD did for a hot minute decades ago. I honestly don't know if those shows made decent money (ie made enough money to justify whatever financial costs + the "cost" of not rehearsing), but they were done around the time BD as at a pique competitively (I saw the stage show in early summer 1999). Perhaps if corps Admin/staff would be willing to sacrifice some rehearsal time here or there they could make some fairly easy money with stage performances at venues where they're already utilizing for housing & rehearsal purposes: could help generate revenue in a way all involved with a drum and bugle corps would easily understand/be capable of doing

Pretty sure it's more of a "put the newbie judges at early relatively insignificant local shows while the big panel judges judge the important shows: in time the newbies become experienced and then the experienced become the big panel judges." Pretty basic philosophy for any circuit, let alone the biggest national circuits, and I personally know judges who have followed this 'pathway.' Sometimes a really respected 'newbie' judge might get sweet regionals or finals week assignments right out of the gate, but often the above pathway is how everyone does it

Yes: every time a corps/show I love gets beat by a corps/show I don't love the judges are CLEARLY wrong 🤣 Just like at Oscar nominations/night, I tell my fellow uber movie nerds "if your favorite movie loses/didn't get nominated it only means you have awful taste in movies" 😄

At first I thought you were going to say "a perfect example of someone who isn't a judge of significance and is wholly unfamiliar how the mechanics of judging work at a high level, let alone lacking experience of judging the best of the best at DCI Finals, no less, has opinions on how to completely blow-up the judging system that has been, and continues to be, tweaked endlessly by the pros who judge at the highest levels consistently."

Adding, _DIFFERENT_ is good: experimentation is good. Not only do designers see what cool new stuff works, but also learn what cool new stuff DOESN'T work. Just think how dopey this activity would be if folks who slagged asymmetrical drill in the early 80's had 'won' and the activity never went that way. Or folks who complained too much about adding a valve or piston to bugles would kill the 'uniqueness' of the activity. At this point in DCI's existence, we are well past the 'OMG non-traditional instrumentation is the devil" stage. Either BK will utilize a flute in a cool interesting way, or they won't and it will have zero bearing on the instrument being used and 100% on _how_ the instrument is implemented in the design. This is an interesting assertion, and I suspect logically you may be correct. I personally think of super old school being 'fife and drum corps' so maybe people unhappy should be unhappy that BK is dragging the activity to the ancient lame times 😄🙃

Yeah one year when I was at WGI Finals with a group, I was chatting with a favorite T&P guy we saw nearly every Regional. He kind of half-joked that percussion groups do things goofy: going just a hair below the max, while the guards go just a hair over the minimum. He was saying we overthink designs and go too long, and I've thought about that now for around 15 years!

Interesting arrangement

Challenging how: just notes on the page, like playing the solo part of Flight of the Bumblebee? Or challenging to play while executing crazy visual designs? Or maybe from an insider's perspective, "challenging book because it was performed by a less-experienced group of members who ended up nailing it by Finals."

Yeah even in the 'as close to perfect weather as it likely gets' land where I teach in Southern CA, we still have plenty of ww students who have 'student model' marching band instruments with better concert/jazz season instruments the rest of the year. It's always fascinating sitting in front of the bands those first couple of concert band classes after marching season: "ah yes: THAT is what wood clarinets, better quality flutes and saxes sound like 😊"

Yeah I 100% agree with this: for quite awhile now it's felt like Bluecoats & SCV were the consistent gold standard. Cavaliers have had some great years, same with BAC recently, but consistently Bluecoats music design has been absolutely outstanding, where they may feature the snare line, or bass line or whatnot and it rarely feels forced, but organic. I discovered drum corps in the early 1990's, and after first seeing a live show (highlighted by SCV '91's brilliant percussion design) I deep-dove into various video tapes and records of the 1980's and 1970's. Through the 1990's it felt like the "percussion feature" seemed to maybe evolve to be more integrated with the brass (think, say, SCV 1998 and 1999 when the battery features were overlayed on top of brass features; or Crossmen 1996 with a similar design ethos). IDK if I'd say that was the norm; you still had great percussion programs doing their own 'isolated' thing (and it's been a long time since I've really jumped in and hard corps analyzed stuff). But yea, Bluecoats & SCV have been the most consistent 'organic' programs featuring percussion.

I think anyone can pick just about any SCV show from any era to see great integration of a percussion feature that doesn't disrupt the flow. I still think their 1991 Miss Saigon production is THE gold standard of how to integrate front ensemble percussion into the marching idiom, and Paul & Sandy Rennick to an outstanding job recently with similar concepts (and before SCV they had outstanding percussion writing that didn't bust the flow of a production w/Phantom Regiment)

This. Any band director has likely WAY too much experience dealing with this stuff on a regular basis during marching band season. I'm lucky I teach in Southern CA where we have about as perfect marching band season weather as it gets, but one rehearsal or performance when it's raining is way bad times (I can't fathom what some of those marching bands paid post-Rose Parade this year when they marched in the rain w/out any protection for their ww's). Obviously corps dealing with weather also have to deal with electronics & mics and whatnot. But if I had to bet I'd bet speakers and mics hold up better in the rain than a flute or oboe. Also, being outdoors for long rehearsal blocks in the sun & heat will likely wreak havoc on a flute or any ww pads.

Do we know if BD's soprano sax or BK's oboe players last year played another instrument with the corps (or performed visually with the guard) other than their featured solo?

I don't think DCI is _slowly_ morphing: I think DCI & BOA have been intertwined for decades now: like, at least since the 90's. Same top designers always looking to expand the medium is 100% going to generate sameness. I suspect this goes back further than I'm aware of and is absolutely nothing new. As fans/consumers we can either accept "art is art" and enjoy what's going on, or "this isn't my thing" and stop attending/spending money/etc. No other options: BOADCI is staying/"evolving" and has been here for a long time and we either like what's going on or stop giving our time/money into the activity

🤷‍♂️ I'm quite certain we aren't the first posters in DCP (and prior, RAMD) history to make a comment beyond the scope of the original post 🤪

Coming soon to DCI: recruitment via NIL payment to members! 🤪

IDK if I even heard that solo on the recording from that year. I originally had a tape dub of the record, and _maybe_ I heard that trumpet solo first on the audio CD that Cadets produced of their 'Championship Years.' It's been too long to remember when/how I first heard it, but I DO remember the first time I heard it thinking, "ahhh; THAT'S what that sop solo sounds like"

100%, and I know I'm not in the minority when it comes to "people who first 'discovered'/experienced DCI via Blair-produced DCI Finals on PBS or VHS tapes back in the day." IDK if he's in the DCI Hall of Fame, but if not someone REALLY needs to nominate him ASAP to get him in!!

Yes Cadets went 1-6 in 90/91 (obviously 1) Jeff & I went back well beyond the original scope and 2) Greg referenced the tick system days which were obviously substantially different judging-wise than now - but, you know, discussion is discussion especially when it's nostalgic to the older farts 🤪)

Both of those years felt like a flip-of-the-coin who would win, both Finals close spreads between 1 & 2. This is exciting for the activity, with neither being the 'dominant' corps running over everyone else, but still being the front runners displaying design style and setting the pace execution-wise. Fun times for fans!

Useless, yes. Did I want to hit this drum, as a percussionist (and OSU music major) everytime I saw it? HELL yes!! 🤪

I remember a show somewhere when I just _really_ had to go to the bathroom beforehand. On the walk from warmups to starting line I grabbed the snare outside of me as we passed a public bathroom, had him watch my SD, came out and 'speed walk' like I'd never sped walked before in my life to catch up with the rest of the drumline, who at that point was waiting with the horns outside the stadium to enter. Some were like "WTF were you doing?!" and I told them "it's better to duck out to pee real quick, so I have have a great show, rather than be distracted and potentially not have a great show," knowing that when I put it that way there was no WAY they could really argue with me 😏

As an alum of The Ohio State University, you bet you butt I 100% got the joke, but my limitations of reactions are only lol or the 'confusion' and I went with 'confusion' more as a 'that was a bad/dad esque joke' so my apologies for the confusion (Seriously; coming from Central OH I spent quite a bit of time lol'ing at Purdue on the football field, and watching OSU get their butts handed to them by Purdue in the basketball arena 🤪😐)

hahaha; I can tell you that's absolutely NOT what I experienced going to/from Canada-US via drum corps 😁

Ha you're right; I guess starting in Canada it just gave km instead of miles and I overlooked that (I thought that felt a little long for that type of commute but I've never driven around that area personally so 🤷‍♂️)