"Musical" Percussion Score

[caliquads]

the simple answer, at least this is how i've always understood the score, is:

Musicality= how the book is written; Technicality= how well the pit/drumline performs it

This is a gross over-generalization. Both scores are impacted by the members performance. If your book is written with all the musicality in the world but your snares cant play a clean roll you wont get credit. Every time I have asked a DCI judge why my group was not getting credit for the musicality they would reply. "Get the execution up and you will see it reflected in the musicality scores."

With regard to tuning, I think its very important to have on the sheets. Its not just all opinion. The DCI judges know the basic wet vs dry argument and for the most part have moved past it. What they are looking for is clarity and projection of the drums. If the drum is too wet to hear a buzz roll from a double stroke roll how will you ever know whats clean. Blue Devils and Phantom may have VERY different tenor tuning and head choice, but both project VERY WELL up to the box (where the perc 2 judge is). If you don't know how to tune then maybe you shouldn't be a World class tech?

Oh and the reason we dont use those cheap "good sounding" heads is because the techs dont want to spend every waking minute changing/tuning heads. I'm pretty sure every snare line has moved to the half kevlar/half mylar heads now anyway.

[RickCogley]

As well as BD played last year, if tuning was judged strictly, then they should have been docked for that awful snare sound. Opinion comes into it when the sounds are similar but different, but in the case of the way BD has tuned in the past years, those snares truly sound bad and choked. Those players deserve to be heard better.

In terms of general musicality, you can hear the phrasing come out as the top lines head into August. A particularly hard section gets subtle dynamic changes added, and for a line that is executing well, it's icing on the cake. With the APDs and other lot recordings from sites-that-shall-not-be-named, you can hear the differences from June to August. Check out the dynamic and well-phrased writing in Regiment's drumline, right when the "marching machine" starts with the eerie-sounding low brass. Those trip-to-sixteenth rolls have some nice dynamic contouring on them.

[Cache_Money]

To answer the OP, it is typical to see MUS a few tenths higher than TECH.

That is not an "answer." That merely restates the question. The question is WHY is it typical.

[cjw5168]

So then you could have a great performance and play with superlative timing, rhythmic control and professionalism but musically your drums are not tuned correctly then your musicianship score will be effected / lower?

In Hillsboro OR. Phantom spent almost 30 minutes tuning the snare bottom/top heads. Tenors spent a lot of time as well, then they warmed-up. I did not see other corps spend 5 minutes tuning their drums.

Our approach used to be this - the techs did a rough tuning of all of our drums while we stretched out before the shows. As son as we strapped them on, the techs would match the drums up a little more before and during our initial sub-sectional warmups (usually 8s, etc..) Then when the full line comes together everyone should be tuned up, but even then the techs would continue to tweak drums if they sounded a bit off. There was even a few shows where adjustments were tweaking during the on field warmup. Tuning has a huuggee impact on quality of sound!

[Stick Stack]

As people have stated, mus caption isn't specifically about a drumline's musicality. It is more of a content subcaption. Both Mus and Tech captions are strongly correlated to each other. This is why the scores are always fairly close to each other. As to why Mus is generally higher than Tech...

I would venture to say that staffs want to give their members a challenge. They write a book that might not necessarily be fully achievable in it's entirety until later in the season. As far as I understand it, if the ensemble is scoring higher in tech than mus, this is because the level of playing is so strong for the book that is given that it goes above beyond what the face value content of the part is.

As far as I know, the reason why they are so correlated and the reason that a staff simply can't write an immensely hard book that can't be achieved is because the judges will probably have little way of knowing how tough the book is on field. Painfully obvious example- If parts are written with extreme dynamics, yet a line plays at one level the entire show, how would a judge know this isn't how it's supposed to be? So the more a line achieves the parts technically, the easier it is to read the parts and here the musical content. Also, having too high of a degree of demand compared to the abilities of the player's would really only help to highlight their weaknesses. I think this is another reason why the scores are generally closer together in nature.

P.S. Usual caveat, though, I know nothing about drums. Just spouting off ideas. The internet is fun!

[leeb]

Our approach used to be this - the techs did a rough tuning of all of our drums while we stretched out before the shows. As son as we strapped them on, the techs would match the drums up a little more before and during our initial sub-sectional warmups (usually 8s, etc..) Then when the full line comes together everyone should be tuned up, but even then the techs would continue to tweak drums if they sounded a bit off. There was even a few shows where adjustments were tweaking during the on field warmup. Tuning has a huuggee impact on quality of sound!

Given the conditions of each different show / location/ temperature change that the drum goes though, I think that it is very hard to have a well tuned snare line>. Much less the entire ensemble from pit to battery!!! Heat really has an effect on the drums and temperatures can get to over 120 in the equipment trucks.

The other item that is discussed with musicality is the balance overall between the individual performers. Is one snare louder then the others. Then music score should be less if the line is not balance and solid as a whole.

This is really what is hard to judge unless you are right in front of the the tenors or snare or base line.

[Jeff Ream]

As well as BD played last year, if tuning was judged strictly, then they should have been docked for that awful snare sound. Opinion comes into it when the sounds are similar but different, but in the case of the way BD has tuned in the past years, those snares truly sound bad and choked. Those players deserve to be heard better.

In terms of general musicality, you can hear the phrasing come out as the top lines head into August. A particularly hard section gets subtle dynamic changes added, and for a line that is executing well, it's icing on the cake. With the APDs and other lot recordings from sites-that-shall-not-be-named, you can hear the differences from June to August. Check out the dynamic and well-phrased writing in Regiment's drumline, right when the "marching machine" starts with the eerie-sounding low brass. Those trip-to-sixteenth rolls have some nice dynamic contouring on them.

one funny thing about tuning tho...what sounds like crap upstairs can sound awesome on the field.

it is odd that the judge mentioned pretty much flatlines so to speak, but it can happen. and if someone had huge musicality numbers right now, i'd be worried the book isnt beefy enough

[leeb]

it is odd that the judge mentioned pretty much flatlines so to speak, but it can happen. and if someone had huge musicality numbers right now, i'd be worried the book isnt beefy enough

SCV percussion staff for 1988-89

Percussion: Ralph Hardimon, Glen Crosby, Kent Cater, Lee Rudnicki, Robbie Tompkins, Bob Morrison, Jeff Lee

Watching these drumlines warm in Sacramento these years I was struck by how musical they played. To me much of these percussion books were out there! or not in your face as I was used to in previous years. They were perfect for the music of the entire show just not traditional SCV drums.

[RickCogley]

one funny thing about tuning tho...what sounds like crap upstairs can sound awesome on the field.

it is odd that the judge mentioned pretty much flatlines so to speak, but it can happen. and if someone had huge musicality numbers right now, i'd be worried the book isnt beefy enough

Hi Jeff - yeah, that's true, isn't it. Also true that individual snares can sound pretty horrid but when the line plays it fleshes out (obvious, but).

Cheers,

Rick

[RickCogley]

SCV percussion staff for 1988-89

Percussion: Ralph Hardimon, Glen Crosby, Kent Cater, Lee Rudnicki, Robbie Tompkins, Bob Morrison, Jeff Lee

Watching these drumlines warm in Sacramento these years I was struck by how musical they played. To me much of these percussion books were out there! or not in your face as I was used to in previous years. They were perfect for the music of the entire show just not traditional SCV drums.

Ralph Hardimon writes wonderful long phrases that just beg to be played musically, and they always have a little twist somewhere that makes them memorable. What a gas it must have been to play his books.