Cavalier Show Design

[audiodb]

..

Edited July 16, 2007 by audiodb

[mobrien]

This isn't about the types of notes or the difficulty of the horn book! Its about playing and moving that horn book for a respectable amount of time! ahhh

And by the same sentiment, the amount of time in motion is not as meaningful as WHAT the movement is. There's simple movement and difficult movement; without taking the "what" into account, the time by itself is not a significant indicator.

Edited July 16, 2007 by mobrien

[kdaddy]

OP needs to get a life. He/she obviously dislikes the Cavaliers (as admitted by him/herself) and has a "problem" with them. Maybe I'll "break-down" the amount of time spent "narrating" in the Cadets show...no, wait..I have better things to be doing and I don't take this activity so seriously...I mean...get over yourself man.

He should get a life and get over himself? Look at your signature, then re-read your post.

I'm amazed at the crap the OP is getting. It sheds light on misconceptions that perhaps we all have.

For what it's worth, I like the Cavies' show, have liked their shows for a number of years, and look forward to seeing it live in Pasadena.

[truman]

Hoepfully this will be the last post that I have to make to defend myself.

First off, I am a drum corps fan, and have been as long as I can remember. I saw my first corps at age 2 months, but obviously don't recall that performance very well. I took my first daughter to her first show at 2 months old. Drum corps has been a key part of my family, including my wifes family, for the last 46 years. I marched, but not in any corps that are still in exsistance. I can say I was a 6th place DCI finalist, not that it should matter. I have spent the last seven years planning my vacations around following corps on tour. I have spent thousands of dollars and lots of time supporting the activity. I do not like every drum corps I see, but I would not use HATE in the same sentence with any of these dislikes.

I spend alot of time following the activity in the summer months. Saturday night, watching the webcast, I made a comment on another forum that the Cavaliers play less when marching than any of the top 7 corps this year.

Sunday morning, I decided to see if my perception was reality. In 20 minutes or so, I watched the video counter, paused and rewound if I needed to, and developed my report. By watching the show this way, you will see what I saw.

I gave up worrying about the politics in DCI a LONG TIME ago. I thought by posting my findings on this forum, that I would be able to start an intelligent discussion about the topic. That was my only agenda. Some of you have been receptive to that, and have shown that there is indeed some shared confirmation of my observation. I should have been smart enough to know about the rest of you. Most of my "wasted time" was not in the research, but in defending my right to start a discussion on something I do not like about a drum corps.

I knew I would be accused of just looking to bash the Cavies, so I freely admitted that I am not a huge fan of their show design right up front.

I want to review what the responses have been from their supporters, but I'm sure you all can read.

heres some of them:

I am jealous of their success and just looking to post sour grapes, I must have marched in BD or PR

I have skewed the results to support my hatred.

I need to get a life, because no one should spend half an hour of their time supporting a statement on something as trivial as drum corps. I would be better off discussing global warming, pro life debates, or something that matters on this forum.

Even though other corps play and march at the same time, they aren't really playing anything, or really marching that fast.

There's more to drum corps than just marching and playing brass instruments at the same time.

No where has anyone been able to refute the facts. They spend less than one minute of their show facing the crowd and playing their brass instruments when marching at a normal rate of speed. Maybe this is indeed intelligent design, certainly seems to work for them. To me it has become a diversion, and a frustration with the current judging system. Maybe that's just me.

Please, stop looking for some hidden agenda in these facts. If you want to discuss the merits of this show design, please share your personal feelings about them. If you feel my facts are not accurate, share your findings.

If not, just ignore this thread and me, and start one of your own that meets the standards that you feel are required for these forums.

If you feel the need to attack, please do so by PM.

I will be respectful enough to respond by PM.

[jwscv87]

I find it more than a tad ironic that folks with hundreds (thousands in some cases) of posts on this board are telling the OP to "get a life".

The idea that his analysis is subjective and therefore has no validity is silly. If 4 others performed the same analysis we'd likely get 4 different results, but I'd be willing to bet you would see trends. If we only discussed/analyzed things that were clearly black and white life would be pretty boring.

There was no malice in the original post. There was no irrational hatred for the Cavaliers as so many have suggested. He simply suggested that he doesn't care for the Cavies so design and why - big deal.

I believe that their is merit to the idea that 1) it is more difficult to perform difficult visual passages while playing, and that 2) that level of difficulty should be considered in awarding scores. At the same time I don't share the OPs opinion that the Cavies design is clearly easier as a result of the lack of playing while moving. I have not seen them in 2007. I saw the Cavies live in 2004 and 2006 at nats. I found them to be clearly the best drum corps on the field both nights. If they weren't playing while moving as much as other corps I certainly did not pick up on it. I was mesmerized by what they DID do visually and musically. I can't imagine this year will be any different, but I'll reserve judgement until I see them.

[decompressed]

Great first post...do not be offended by people who flame on. Your analysis was thoughtful and not malice-driven. As i watched them Saturday, my friend and i also entered a spirited debate on why they should score so high when their hornline isn't playing a book on the same par as the others in their competitive bracket. Your analysis helped the argument. Thanks Again!

[ScribeToo]

for DAvery -- who can't type for crap.

[DAvery]

No, it's not, because the Cavies and Phantom met 85 times in competition the past seven seasons - not 71. I don't trust your data.

Accoding to the BK website, where they can show head to head matches they met 4 times (so far) in 2007, 9 times in 06, 7 in 05, 8 in 04, 9 in 03, 19 in 02, 15 in 01. That adds up to 71. Which year is wrong?

[DAvery]

for DAvery -- who can't type for crap.

no kidding

[mynameisohyeah]

The idea that his analysis is subjective and therefore has no validity is silly. If 4 others performed the same analysis we'd likely get 4 different results, but I'd be willing to bet you would see trends.

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.