mynameisohyeah

The message behind my posts is that to put all of the aspects of difficulty down on paper would be ridiculously hard to accomplish if it were possible at all. And putting any single aspect in the spotlight to indicate difficulty is not the way to go either. And what are judges (that includes the audience) going to pay attention to - a stack of papers with statistics and data or watching the shows themselves? I personally prefer the latter and believe that it is the most accurate representation of the show our brains can conjure up. The best way to get people to notice the intricacies of the show is to tell them what they need to look out for. I think that the good thing about this topic is that hopefully people and judges will take into consideration this aspect as well as all aspects of a show - beauty, technicality, difficulty, etc. So when they watch a show they'll think "you know they really could be playing and marching at the same time more. But wow look at that. And wow that's some pretty music." That's why I love this activity is because it brings all these aspects to the table.

And that's cool, I would actually be interested in seeing these stats (as a function of time and such). But starting an entire topic with the presentation of just one of these aspects doesn't really prove anything at all.

I don't disagree with this at all. I think if you actually do want to quantify difficulty, this is where you'd start - isolating individual aspects then putting it together to form a complete picture. And I don't deny that marching and playing at the same time is more difficult than choosing one or the other. But if you want to control some variables, let's do it. Imagine a corps whose show is 100% marching while playing. But get this - the entire show is at 50 BPM marching and playing. Then you would agree with me that this show isn't very hard (well it might be since marching that slow would be hard to control haha). Now imagine two corps who are playing the exact same show (still 100% marching and playing and at the exact same speed for each - let's say 180BPM). The sole difference (or variable) between the two is that one corps has direction changes every four beats while the other corps marches in a straight line the entire time (on a field with infinite length). Obviously the latter has the easier show. You can play this game with just about any aspect of a marching show. And if you want to measure each of these aspects in a show be my guest. But it is nonsensical to say "time spent marching" alone is even close to an indication of difficulty. And to present this info alone I believe is totally misleading. But again I invite you to measure each aspect of the shows, put it all together in a complete picture, and then report your findings. Call me in a billion years.

I am in total agreement here. It truly would be sad to see this type of strategy become more popular. If the Cavaliers are intentionally using this strategy I can't say I would be pleased at all. When I personally observe this strategy in other corps I tend to be suspicious as well. But I'm just gonna choose to believe that this aspect simply isn't considered as highly as the rest of the show design, and if there is less march-playing than usual I'll consider it a coincidence. Let's hope as well that the judges do pay attention to this aspect at least to some degree.

It's sad to say, but presenting bad data actually is a bad thing. Why do I say this data is inaccurate? Because even if OP's measurement was accurate to the dot, it doesn't show the complete picture. It's like saying Big Macs are healthy because they're high in iron. So until we do have a completely quantified difficulty measurement (which we never would according to my previous comments), this could only be construed as magnifying a percieved weakness of the Cavaliers in order to sway people on their appreciation of the show. These measurements may look like facts but they are definitely misleading at the least.

To further my point, it seems that people even disagree on how many times corps have faced each other head to head! And that's totally objective! haha

Like I said previously, there's much more than the "marching while playing" aspect that people are looking into here. They are reaching in the dark for a way to evaluate total difficulty in a show. Unfortunately, you can't just give a judge OP's data and say "you might want to take this into consideration" without providing ALL the data sheets on musical difficulty, marching difficulty, and the two synchronized (marching while playing fast). I dare you to make data sheets for each one of those categories with all the aspects considered in each category. And boy that's a lot to consider. In marching alone there's tempo, step size, how many direction changes (weighted by the angles of the direction changes of course), who's marching when, "non-marching" such as the crab walk circle in Cavs '06 or any spinning around that they like to do, etc. And I don't even have to tell you how hard it would be to measure musical difficulty. And you can even see that results would definitely vary from person to person on even one of the most objective aspects. Here's what might happen if people think OP's test is actually valid. Everybody that reads this topic will flip back to the webcast (assuming they have it) and will then break everybody's show down with very shady and subjective guidelines on how things should be evaluated. All the Phantom fans tilt thing to their side, Cadets fans to theirs, etc. The only trends we'll see is the results of a vote on who thinks who has the most difficult show (unless you actually trust Cavalier fans to post non-biased reports - you should know better we love our corps). So let's just put it in a poll now - it's a much quicker and accurate way of measuring public opinion.

Ok I haven't read this whole topic but I gave it a skim through and it makes some interesting points. It seems that a system could be made to assess the difficulty level of a show at least to a ballpark range. It would be something to analyze the drill of the shows, taking into account the speed of the individual marchers, path changes at certain degrees, etc. Unfortunately, there is more to it than meets the eye. The difficulty in music itself would be challenging enough to determine based on what notes are being played, note intensity, tempo, etc. and then taking into account how it all matches up to the drill. All of this would be schway too complex and I think these mini analyses are fun but shouldn't be taken too seriously. And somebody needs to analyze some past BD shows. I swear they play only while standing still.

good lord

that sounds awesome! can't wait to see and hear them.

You're right. My bad.

This topic is silly. The Cavaliers don't tell their incoming member to just spread their wings and feel the natural universal marching technique hidden within the depths of their soul. Of course the Cavaliers staff spends a huge amount of time teaching the members how to march, and the members themselves could teach it if they really felt like it. It's just the best way to learn a marching technique is to be taught by example live and in person. I read in this topic the FMM's explanation of the technique (which is very similar to what I used to march in band) and I was scratching my head as to what he meant at some points. If people could learn how to march by reading DCP, high school bands wouldn't suck so much.

I remember one time I happened to wonder what colorguard judges sound like (I'm no guard person). I switched on 2003's CG cam/audio. It's the funniest thing you will ever hear in your life. What she says makes not one lick of sense (like George W times one billion) and it seems crazy to think that she actually was allowed to judge that night. I can imagine the frustration that corps feel when they get scores from a judge that can't use words to express a coherent thought. Although she probably scored the corps correctly, I certainly would want some honest, specific feedback.

Somebody commented on this thread that there are many of Cavalier fans who don't like any other corps. I will admit to me used to being one of these people and for a long time. The first show I saw was the PBS broadcast of Cavaliers 2002 and it had me at "Fight Club." I didn't much like any other corps I saw because I was new to the activity and just entering high school, so I didn't really know what was good in terms of sound quality and marching ability. So in my own experience, it seems that the shows the Cavaliers create are more noob friendly. For instance, on several occasions people have asked what drum corps is about, and when I explain what it is a few people have said "oh is that that thing with the Cavaliers (they must have seen a TV broadcast)? That stuff is clean," and the like. Also, for a history fair project my team made a documentary about drum corps. At first glance, most of the students said it was lame (typical band haters). However, when they saw Fight Club they immediately said "okay now that was cool" with no provocation. That was impressive to me. Of course over the years I can totally see where people are coming from when they favor other corps for various respectable reasons. But of course, I would say that GE is more important to noobs than anything else, which is the Cavaliers' specialty. I will agree that Cavalier shows are getting to be predictable and I hope that in the future they will find an alternative that is just as cool. So there you go. I think Cavaliers are more noob friendly plus they have a large following within the drum corps community, therefore putting them into their current position.

And how much time did it take for you to make your avatar? hahaha Anybody who spends time making avatars and sigs and stuff apparently cares for the activity. So I would say that it's not fair to single him out. He obviously cares about drum corps (over 1000 posts and he's been on here for two years?!?!). I would also say that designing a drum corps show wouldn't be thaaaat hard. I mean I've seen some pretty dumb band directors come up with a half decent marching show (and by half decent I mean compared to other band shows). However, in order to direct your own corps, you do need to have some common manners and be optimistic about the activity. But this is an internet forum, not "American Drum Corps Director."