Is it the battle of the corps or battle of the design staff?

[kmen82]

It seems that all of the kids that perform are very capable at high level performance and I wonder if for example you pull a top 3 corps staff for a year to instruct oh say Pioneer, pacific Crest or Mandarins to see if the corps would indeed jump dramatically ( I think it would).... I feel all the kids are very strong in abilities and stamina thus leaving the real competition to the Designers, Drum, Colorguard and Brass staff. DCI = Designers Creativity International IMHO

[corps fan]

well there would be some differences of course, but also similiaritites...the corps would draw from the same talent pool as normal, so the bottom line is the design. the battle truly is the fundamentals and the design. not the kids. if you have the fundamentals down good and the design works, the show will score better, bottom line.

[kmen82]

well there would be some differences of course, but also similiaritites...the corps would draw from the same talent pool as normal, so the bottom line is the design. the battle truly is the fundamentals and the design. not the kids. if you have the fundamentals down good and the design works, the show will score better, bottom line.

Agreed but the fundimentals again rely on the staffs ability to train and I dentify the problems and correct them..

[corps fan]

well that's definitely true and some corps who choose to work on fundamentals later because of worrying about playing loud now (because "we have to compete with Blue Devils") at memorial camp defintely don't consider this, but there are some corps in open class that even address this better than the corps i am talking about.

[drumaw]

It seems that all of the kids that perform are very capable at high level performance and I wonder if for example you pull a top 3 corps staff for a year to instruct oh say Pioneer, pacific Crest or Mandarins to see if the corps would indeed jump dramatically ( I think it would).... I feel all the kids are very strong in abilities and stamina thus leaving the real competition to the Designers, Drum, Colorguard and Brass staff. DCI = Designers Creativity International IMHO

I feel, and have always felt even through my kids high school days, that design staff is a huge factor. Obviously there will be different pools of talent at different levels. However, my husband and I have often talked about having every corp in a specific division (before we went to the two catagories), play the exact same music, the exact same drill, and perhaps even the exact same all around staff, all in matching uniforms, no corp names, would the top 5 always be the top 5? Just how would that play out? There are absolutely some shows that the judges and fans just don't find as appealing. How often has it been said, after listenng to a critique tape, "well they just didn't like the show"? I know of a show this very year that rehearsed a horrible design for weeks, obvious enough for a blind man to see, but the design staff just couldn't figure it out until it was on the field in front of thousands of people. Were all those weeks a waste of time? Not completely, but it certainly set the corp back from where they want to be right now. The kids obviously aren't perfect, even with fundamentals, the design staff are human as well, but they are supossed to be professionals, and I have no doubt get paid a lot of money, you would think they would pick up on a flop a little bit earlier. I can't think of anything more discouraging than these kids in corps or still in hs, working their butts off, and figure out the judges don't like the show the kids had put in front of them.

But if everybody did the same thing it would be boring. We love all the corps and love the competition.

[ShortAndFast]

I can't think of anything more discouraging than these kids in corps or still in hs, working their butts off, and figure out the judges don't like the show the kids had put in front of them.

I expect mostly the kids deal just fine with that. I'd hope that all the corps teach you not to judge your work or your summer by what the guys in green shirts have to say. I think we as fans are far more caught up in the scoring than the marching members are.

[FTNK]

Anyone who says that the bottom-tier corps perform as strongly and at the same level as the top corps is wrong. Yes, better show design makes a difference, but the talent, stamina and performance level of the top corps is better all around right from the start. With top design staff and instructors the lower corps would make significant progress, but still would have a large talent gap. Capital Regiment had the same brass arranger and drill writer as The Cadets for a few years, and they made progress, but it still didn't make them equal. A lot of kids in Capital were in high school or were playing a secondary instrument; The Cadets have 80 music majors this year.

[brassboy]

I agree that there's a difference in the membership pools that the top tier corps draw versus the bottom-tier. Pioneer and Mandarins both compete for membership with multiple nearby world class corps that have traditionally placed very high--I think both corps' small size and relatively young membership reflect that. Also, there's a particular mindset among many potential marchers that makes this true--for example, someone who auditions for BD or SCV may not even consider Mandarins because they view Mandarins only as a bottom-tier corps. It's a really vicious cycle. Of course, this is all just IMO. :)

Edited July 27, 2008 by brassboy

[drumno5]

It seems that all of the kids that perform are very capable at high level performance and I wonder if for example you pull a top 3 corps staff for a year to instruct oh say Pioneer, pacific Crest or Mandarins to see if the corps would indeed jump dramatically ( I think it would).... I feel all the kids are very strong in abilities and stamina thus leaving the real competition to the Designers, Drum, Colorguard and Brass staff. DCI = Designers Creativity International IMHO

No disrespect to your opinion, of course - and I do believe that design plays an important role in the success of a group on the field. But the concentration of talent and experience is better in the higher echelon corps. There's a big difference in the overall ability of the performers between the top 3 or 4 corps and even the lower tier finalists, and even more so as you move further down competitive ladder. A "better" (however you want to define that) staff would make a difference, no doubt. But I don't think that just the staff could make, for instance, a 14th or 15th place corps into a top 6 unit. As Casey Stengel used to say, "Ya gotta have the horses."

Fred O.

[DanjrusMcRynky]

I expect mostly the kids deal just fine with that. I'd hope that all the corps teach you not to judge your work or your summer by what the guys in green shirts have to say. I think we as fans are far more caught up in the scoring than the marching members are.

Plus most of the time if the judges don't like it, the members of the corps didn't like it either. You can ask many members today about a part of a show you don't particularly like, and much of the time they will completely agree with you on it. They just play what is written for them.