Should the Blue Devils go back to playing full musical charts?

[Hrothgar15]

It seems that with current Blue Devils shows, the music is comprised of a lot of cut-and-pasted material, much of it original, so that it is just a collection of notes. Whereas up until the mid '90s, they played full, pre-existing jazz charts. I had hope when I heard that they were going be playing Pegasus this year, but it turned out to be just a short snippet, and what was there was corrupted to the point of barely resembling the original. I feel it is time for this corps to return to a more straightforward musical style (which, by the way, corps like Crown and Colts this year have been able to do spectacularly). Who feels the same...what are everyone else's thoughts?

[LAMystreaux]

Yeah, my thoughts after seeing the show this summer a couple of times was that it was extremely random, especially in musical thought.

[dccorpsfan]

One of the few things I didn't like about Phenom of Cool was the way they just cut up Brubeck's music. During some parts of the show, I couldn't even tell which piece they were playing.

Now, It's one of my favorite shows and they played it VERY well; but can you imagine how cool it would have been if they played full Brubeck pieces?

[pags]

I feel there is more than enough musical development in the music they play. I love this year's show, and feel their closer has been the most musically developed that I have seen/heard based on what I witnessed at San Antonio.

Besides, you're fooling yourself if you think they didn't heavily take creative arrangement license with some of the "full, pre-existing jazz charts" in the mid-90's that made people that knew the source material question how "true" BD was being to the original.

[k1001001]

I feel the same about the Cavvies show as well. It seems like a lot of cut-and-pasted Billy Joel with filler in between. It's hard to tell when one song ends and another begins.

But, that being said, my vote is no. As long as the show flows well, cutting and pasting isn't all that bad. Crown has many different pieces of music in their show this year. Music from the movie "Dreamer" is scattered throughout the beginning, middle and end of the show. It flows quite well in my opinion.

[Lance]

No corps plays full musical pieces. I wish every coprs played exactly how much of each piece and the exact parts I like, too. Weird topic.

[bawker]

Yep, asking for fully developed musical phrases instead of "Gak...random percussion sound effects while we jazz run...Gak! Jak!...whole note chord......Jak!"...

...that's a weird topic indeed in todays DCI. :P

[Lance]

Weirder still that there's a difference between a poll asking "should BD go back to playing fully developed musical phrases" and "should BD go back to playing whole musical pieces." Most of the time, polls make sense, and it's pretty weird when they don't.

[Hrothgar15]

Weirder still that there's a difference between a poll asking "should BD go back to playing fully developed musical phrases" and "should BD go back to playing whole musical pieces." Most of the time, polls make sense, and it's pretty weird when they don't.

Don't answer it if it doesn't "make sense" to you...and I meant that exact wording in the poll. Their 1982 show featured full musical pieces; this year's show does not. Do I still love the show? Yeah, but it could be so much more.

[ItsOnTheField]

My vote: let the designers decide what is best for thier organization.