Duts

[drumcat]

The direction of drum corps has been relentlessly towards "marching wind ensemble" over the past decade. If you don't play serious works of music, you get nailed. If you show doesn't have a "theme" you get nailed. If you don't play with perfect intonation, you get nailed. The drum major is a conductor.

The next time I hear a dut at a wind ensemble concert will be the first.

It's in the same category as the drum major beating time before anyone plays. The next time I see that at a wind ensemble concert will be the first. Well, excepting grade school ensembles.

It's a crutch ladies and gentlemen. Dut has nothing to do with music. We talk about all these magnificently difficult things drum corps can do, but apparently they can't hold on to their "internal pulse" for four beats.

The next time I see a wind ensemble concert with drill, it'll be a first.

A crutch implies support for something that's broken. That's hardly the case. I think it's been made pretty clear that most people don't like obnoxious vocal time. However, given that you're comparing a stationary group within a few feet of their conductory to a moving group far from a member-conductor, your comparison is hardly valid.

[Piper]

I can handle duts if they're silent flams - the perc worlds version of a toungue twister - they play with your mind. Not many snare lines can execute them in unison though.

[cwallace600]

Duts and counting are cheating.

A lazy way to march

I get it, shows in the 70’s and 80’s sucked, we were all talent-less hacks but at least we could march and play w/out dutting

More of the simplification/wimpification of drum corps

First they came for the G bugles and I said nothing because I’m not a G bugle

No, really, you kids today are so much better…you don’t need the watered down drivel your staffs keeps throwing at you, I mean it’s not like its any cleaner... so why?

you're all winners !!!

You're right. PM me and I'll give you the time and date of our next rehearsal and you can come show our kids how to do it right.

Edited November 2, 2007 by cwallace600

[JayM]

No need to fix it. I would never say that those years we marched were even remotely as difficult to march, but we had to play cleanly..remember we were judged for cleanliness, not for how fast we could run and sloppy we could play 2000 notes per measure. Duts are still annoying and corps that have to scream them as said earlier, to be heard in the 42nd row, need to clean and not dut.

You're really not doing much to further your argument here.

Hornlines dut. I dutted in 2005.

[84skyrydr]

My last word on duts is, if you need them use them, but keep them to the performers on the field. I heard them from drumlines who had their backs to me and were at least 20 yards away. Why YELL them? Its not a penalty to gab while on the field, but I do think a lot of people view it as a crutch for a line that can't pull their attacks in unison. People say, the drums can be spread over a whole football field, what to do? PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

[cwallace600]

My last word on duts is, if you need them use them, but keep them to the performers on the field. I heard them from drumlines who had their backs to me and were at least 20 yards away. Why YELL them? Its not a penalty to gab while on the field, but I do think a lot of people view it as a crutch for a line that can't pull their attacks in unison. People say, the drums can be spread over a whole football field, what to do? PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

Which is exactly the problem. The season is shorter than it used to be. Even in Open Class corps, a large majority of kids come from out of town at least, and often as not out of state. Winter practices are fewer even than when I marched (which was the '90s). There is so much that has to be addressed in such a small amount of time that any "crutch" or more approapriately "tool" which will allow an instructor to focus more time on important things like musicality (instead of spending 2 hours lining up attacks in a spread-out set) have to be utilized, or you just never get even close to where you want to be. I was the biggest fan of pushups you're likely to find, but I don't use 'em any more because they take up too much rehearsal time.

All it would take is for some of you folks to field a corps in today's environment, and you'd understand real quickly why things are done the way they are.

Edit: Let me reiterate that I agree that there's no reason for them to be so loud that the audience can hear them.

Edited November 2, 2007 by cwallace600

[Jared_mello]

My last word on duts is, if you need them use them, but keep them to the performers on the field. I heard them from drumlines who had their backs to me and were at least 20 yards away. Why YELL them? Its not a penalty to gab while on the field, but I do think a lot of people view it as a crutch for a line that can't pull their attacks in unison. People say, the drums can be spread over a whole football field, what to do? PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

there are times in shows where the hornline isnt facing a drum major but has an attack coming up with unusual staging being the case. during rehearsal its almost silent so you can hear quiet duts, but at shows, the crowd is much louder so the volume needs to be increased. it may occasionally get to the stands. that, and theres some times when the hornline simply cant see the drum major, so dutting needs to be assigned to one person to unite everyone's time reference. as others have said, id MUCH rather quietly hear duts than hear a bad ensemble attack.

this thread got really funny, really quickly. the old school preservationalists are so incredibly bitter about having heard duts over the years that theyre completely closed off to any reasoning for them having to be used.

lots of time is still spent lining things up horizontally and vertically on the field. some things are just so close to impossible that a legal (and still talent-requiring) audible tool, that can only rarely be heard from off the field, is worth utilizing.

im "old school" in my viewpoints towards drum corps as far as amps, g horns, design, etc. goes, but this is irrelevant to "evolution" in dci. only way it could be relevant would be for the people who are unhappy that drill is fast and entertaining and that experimental staging is occasionally used for variety's sake.

cowtown, i literally laughed while looking at my computer screen because of you.

Edited November 2, 2007 by Jared_mello

[The Oz]

You *almost* answered your own question. <major snippage for brevity>

I wish I understood the point you are trying to make with the science you put forth.

“Flams are audible at around 34 milliseconds”. Assuming you are talking something about the minimum time for a sound to be heard by the human ear, where did you get that fact? “Dirt is even less than 34ms.” It that a typo? “DUT is even less than 34ms” perhaps? If so, are you trying to day that the duration of a dut is less than 34 ms? I’d dispute that. Try saying “dut” 30 times in a second (34 ms * 30 = 1020 ms = 1.02 seconds). 150 ms might be closer to the fact. Even then, what is the point you are trying to make?

“look at your conductor... do you really think that their arms are distinguishable to that degree?” I will concede that the perfect moment of the beat, to the millisecond, is not distinguishable. But, as you say, “Conductors offer a pulse that your mind averages”. I’d prefer to say that your mind resolves the imprecision to a precise moment. And it’s amazing how a good ensemble all resolve to the same moment. The spread of a 100-piece orchestra across a concert stage is abouut the spread of a drum line at double interval. But the orchestra quite often gets it right.

And the signal presented by the conductor travels at the speed of light – 186,000 miles per second or roughly 1 foot per nanosecond. The total travel time from the parking lot to the back sideline is less than 1 millisecond. The signal skew from the conductor is much less than that of an audible cue.

“It [dut] also offers a consistent difference of time vis a vis distance in most cases”. If I understand you, I’d have to say it does (offers a consistent difference …), in all cases. It’s called the speed of sound. It’s a constant (assuming constant air temperature and density, which should be pretty steady throughout a 12-minute show). “(depends on drill)”. Are you are attempting to take into effect the Doppler effect? If you are, be aware it is the pitch of the sound that changes with motion, not the speed of propagation.

There will be a small change in propagation time as the sound source moves closer to or away from the receiver, but, using your math, the propagation time would change 0.175 seconds in the time it takes for someone to move from the pit to the back sideline. That’s 0.175 seconds change in, let’s say, 10 seconds of movement. Or 0.0175 seconds per second. Over the course of 4 duts at 160 bpm, that’s a change of 0.026 seconds. 26 milliseconds (4 * (60/160) *0.0175). Right at the edge of human reaction time (Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_time).

“will be 1/100th of a second *ahead* based on his experience in that position”. He will be ahead (or behind) only if the sound source is closer to (or further away from) him. If he is 10 feet away from you but the sound source is equidistance from both of you (think isosceles triangle), the sound will arrive at the same time.

“This will equal out the sound coming forward as a sum.” If you have two sources of sound, they will always come forward as a sum. I think what you are trying to say is that, without duts the attack will be smeared in time. Well, it has to be. The human body is simply not capable of controlling the timing to single digit milliseconds. But then our hearing has similar limitations.

And then we get to the larger question of the propagation time from the players, spread out over the field, to the judges’ ears. Consider that, if two players are at a different distance from a judge, even if they coordinate their attack precisely, the judge will hear a smear in the attack. Different time to propagate to the judge. And another judge, at a different distance, will hear a different result.

The whole deal of playing precisely together is a canard to start with. The human machine simply can’t manage small millisecond events. Physics does not support dutting.

Duts are an unmusical crutch.

Edited November 2, 2007 by The Oz

[The Oz]

<snip>

this thread got really funny, really quickly. the old school preservationalists are so incredibly bitter about having heard duts over the years that theyre completely closed off to any reasoning for them having to be used.

<snip>

First, the word you want is “preservationists”.

Second, you are employing a really worn-out debating device: mark the opposition with an unflattering label and attack from that standpoint. Don’t address the debate. Attack the debater.

Duts are unmusical.

[cwallace600]

I wish I understood the point you are trying to make with the science you put forth.

“Flams are audible at around 34 milliseconds”. Assuming you are talking something about the minimum time for a sound to be heard by the human ear, where did you get that fact? “Dirt is even less than 34ms.” It that a typo? “DUT is even less than 34ms” perhaps? If so, are you trying to day that the duration of a dut is less than 34 ms? I’d dispute that. Try saying “dut” 30 times in a second (34 ms * 30 = 1020 ms = 1.02 seconds). 150 ms might be closer to the fact. Even then, what is the point you are trying to make?

No, he was right..."dirt" being the minute differenc in time between two strokes by two different drummers, which our ears perceive as "dirt."

“look at your conductor... do you really think that their arms are distinguishable to that degree?” I will concede that the perfect moment of the beat, to the millisecond, is not distinguishable. But, as you say, “Conductors offer a pulse that your mind averages”. I’d prefer to say that your mind resolves the imprecision to a precise moment. And it’s amazing how a good ensemble all resolve to the same moment. The spread of a 100-piece orchestra across a concert stage is abouut the spread of a drum line at double interval. But the orchestra quite often gets it right.

Are you talking about an orchestra of kids or professionals? If kids, I'd dispute how often they "get it right" to the degree of precision that a drum line needs to.

And the signal presented by the conductor travels at the speed of light – 186,000 miles per second or roughly 1 foot per nanosecond. The total travel time from the parking lot to the back sideline is less than 1 millisecond. The signal skew from the conductor is much less than that of an audible cue.

true, but as pointed out already, 9 different interpretations of an inexact signal=a bad attack, whether it travels at 186,000 miles per second or as Ron White would say, "The speed of smell."

“It [dut] also offers a consistent difference of time vis a vis distance in most cases”. If I understand you, I’d have to say it does (offers a consistent difference …), in all cases. It’s called the speed of sound. It’s a constant (assuming constant air temperature and density, which should be pretty steady throughout a 12-minute show). “(depends on drill)”. Are you are attempting to take into effect the Doppler effect? If you are, be aware it is the pitch of the sound that changes with motion, not the speed of propagation.

You either missed the point here, or glossed over it. The point is, rather than have 9 people guess how much to play ahead in time, one person establishes that variance by dutting and all else follow suit.

Physics does not support dutting.

Physics does support dutting, you just used some faulty premises to make it seem as though it doesen't.

Duts are an unmusical crutch.

You're right, duts are a crutch. I'd rather have my kids dut and fix a timing problem in 2 reps, than spend 20 reps trying to do it silently. Then I can spend my limited rehearsal time more usefully.