DCI Judging 101

[08Hawkeye]

You are only reading the short description at the top and ignoring what is actually listed inside the subcaptions.

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE REPERTOIRE

• COORDINATION

• PACING

• CONCEPT

• INTERPRETATION OF THE MUSIC

• TENSION/RELEASE

• IMPACT AND CLIMAXES

• AESTHETIC/INTELLECTUAL/EMOTIONAL QUALITIES

• CREATIVITY AND ORIGINALITY

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE PERFORMERS

• COMMUNICATION

• EMOTIONAL INTENSITY

• NUANCES

• EXPRESSIVE EFFECT

• TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE AS EFFECT

• MUSICIANSHIP AS EFFECT

• PROFESSIONALISM

It's not just about who can get the most applause.

Where did you get this information? I'd like to see the rest of the captions' sub sub sub sub captions like this... Although I have a hard time believing these are all factored into a score - still nice info though.

[Michael Boo]

Michael,

This is an interesting topic, but I think it would be helpful to see a example. Would it be possible to pull a couple scoring sheets together for two or three corps competing at the same competition and then highlight the scoring captions with explanations as to why corps A scored higher than corps B in a particular area?

One wouldn't be able to do that without the judges themselves offering the commentary, and so long after a show, specifics would be vague.

[MikeD]

you've obviously never listened to the 92 finals audio recordings. that was maybe the 7th or 8th best hornline out there, they were so bad that they were a running joke amongst brass players in drum corps for years after. when i said top 3 i should have been more clear, as in legitimately one of the three best hornlines out there. now, 92 was a really great year for hornlines, admittedly, but the cavaliers weren't one of the good ones, they played a high school level book and didn't play it well in the same year that the blue devils, star, phantom, scv, madison and cadets all rolled out really great musical performances.

Take a look through fromthepressbox.com at the 92 season. Where there are recaps available, the Cavies brass scores all season long just don't place them where you think they should have placed.

DCI North they were 1st in brass tied with PR and the Cadets. Nashville 4th, over the Cadets and PR, under Star, BD and the Scouts, DCI South 2nd to BD and over PR, 1/4 finals 4th over the Scouts and PR, under Star, BD and Cadets, semis 3rd under Star and BD, over Cadets, Scouts and PR.

So while there was movement up or down show-to-show a spot or two, the entire season does not seem to bear out yuor assertion.

[Plan9]

A huge part of Phantom "selling itself" was the fact that the Blue Devils have 12 titles and Phantom had one. BD has a track record in DCI untouched by any other, despite that noticeable 7-year drought from 1987-1993. Some of that gargantuan crowd response was about Concord's "success syndrome." Phantom offered more unique emotions, and face it: Phantom won because BD had weaknesses this year.. they rarely do when ahead most of the year (1988 a huge exception). And BD's weaknesses (drums/ensemble) were Phantom's strengths, so I rarely say this, but it's true: 2008 is as much about Phantom winning as BD losing.

This might be the saddest truth of all. Simply stated, the crowd around me on finals night were strategically PR fans and used the power of "reaction" to move the result in the direction they wanted. So when other specific corps did amazing things on the field they gave a, I'll use the term, "reserved response" and in some cases like with BD many PR fans figuatively and literally "sat on their hands". So, in the end this was a "well deserved popularity contest", a great corps won, but for some of the wrong reasons. Winning corps should dominate (at least somewhere) throughout the whole summer, all across the country, when local interest/desire is not overweighted. Is this a predictable and boring result (with perhaps reduced ticket sales for Finals)? Perhaps, but it's honest and not regional!

This is not a conspriracy claim, just a restatement of the above quote. You could almost feel the scowl of the crowd (at least around me) when BD (and even Cavies) entered the field, looking at them like they were some collective interlopers coming to steal the crown again. When in fact, they were simply young musicians (from throughout the country) just like PR, Cavies, Crown, etc. performing their show to the best of their ability (many of whom did not have a ring nor were part of the previous 12 wins). But they walked on the field with the glare of "here we go again" in the air. My guess is that if BD & PR (or Cavies & PR) switched uniforms, that PR would still have won.

For those DCP'ers who may respond to this, I ask two things: 1) PLEASE save your name calling and pigeon holing (Troll, etc) to yourself (it doesn't add a thing to the conversation); and 2) Why was it that PR never won a single previous meeting with the Cavies or BD until Bloomington? A PR show of the magnatude that I'm now reading about on DCP (i.e. legendary, best DCI show ever, etc) should have won at some point, it's so obvious, such a crowd pleaser!

PR had a great performance and it represents the activity wonderfully, it moves it in the direction of making it palatable to a broader audience (which DCI needs to prosper). But someone needs to explain to the 150 members of BD why local reaction should bare such an important weight unlike the other previous performances.

Not to be trite, but perhaps DCI should consider going in the direction of the American Idolesque shows and have a call-in / internet vote. Let's make the judges irrelivant and just go with crowd appeal.

[mad_scotty]

I just reread all your posts in this thread three times and saw nothing of the sort.

Going back to a response that I forgot to reply to

"Emotional qualities" are one part of one subcaption, and even included in a single category along with aesthetic and intellectual qualities. There are 14 other things that the judges are looking for in the caption.

If lets say for example Phantom 93 placed 1st in the "emotional qualities" category, they could still EASILY end up in 3rd overall without placing any lower than 3rd in any of the other subcaptions. So your argument that they had to be 8-12 in the rest of the caption to bring them down is just flat out wrong. One great score out of 15 isn't going to effect much of anything. You have to have the total package. So corps that get less emotional response overall but do everything else really well also are still going to be ahead of corps that just get more emotional response.

Basically what it seems your argument boils down to is that Music GE should be only about emotional response, which is a valid argument, but it's not on the sheets, so don't be surprised when it isn't judged that way.

if you reread the criteria you posted emotion is listed twice, and so would have more weight. it also lists things like tension and release and expressiveness, which are essentially subcaptions of emotion. basically, emotional impact and things that are direct quotients of it are roughly half of the individual descriptors. going back to the original argument, the article on dci today basically describes ge as the corps ability to sell itself, which rationally, taken with the individual descriptors should mean its ability to sell itself emotionally to an audience combined with its abilities in specific techniques related to this emotional capture.

as for phantom 93 you have a valid point that they wouldn't be an 8-12, but you cherry picked the top placed corps i mentioned there. most of them were 4th-6th place corps, a 3rd place corps who has the best audience sale, with that being half the equation from my reading, would have been in 6th place in the other, more technical half to average to 3rd.

[byline]

Why was it that PR never won a single previous meeting with the Cavies or BD until Bloomington?

Twenty years ago, Madison never won a single previous meeting with Santa Clara, Blue Devils, Phantom or Cadets, either. Not until Kansas City. During the 1988 season, they placed second to BD on July 25 and 27, third behind BD and Santa Clara on July 28 and 30, second behind Phantom on Aug. 1, third behind Santa Clara and Phantom on Aug. 2, second behind Cadets on Aug. 3, second behind Santa Clara on Aug. 4, 6 and 13, then Madison won DCI semi-finals and finals, placing ahead of all those corps (as well as Cavaliers, whom they had beaten earlier in the season).

I suppose you think that was a conspiracy, too?

[Plan9]

Twenty years ago, Madison never won a single previous meeting with Santa Clara, Blue Devils, Phantom or Cadets, either. Not until Kansas City. During the 1988 season, they placed second to BD on July 25 and 27, third behind BD and Santa Clara on July 28 and 30, second behind Phantom on Aug. 1, third behind Santa Clara and Phantom on Aug. 2, second behind Cadets on Aug. 3, second behind Santa Clara on Aug. 4, 6 and 13, then Madison won DCI semi-finals and finals, placing ahead of all those corps (as well as Cavaliers, whom they had beaten earlier in the season).

I suppose you think that was a conspiracy, too?

Actually, IF YOU READ my comment, I said I was not suggesting conspiracy but that crowd appeal was too overweighted in Bloomington, and that such an "amazing" PR show (as is being talked about now on DCP) should have "at some point" been powerful enough to beat BD or Cavies before the finals. Afterall, BD and PR were basically attached at the hip starting in California. Lots of opportunities.

[byline]

Actually, IF YOU READ my comment, I said I was not suggesting conspiracy but that crowd appeal was too overweighted in Bloomington, and that such an "amazing" PR show (as is being talked about now on DCP) should have "at some point" been powerful enough to beat BD or Cavies before the finals. Afterall, BD and PR were basically attached at the hip starting in California. Lots of opportunities.

OK, so to rephrase: Was the crowd appeal also too overweighted in Kansas City, causing Madison to win? You're making the mistake of "correlation equals causation." Certainly, in years past, crowd response has had little influence on the competitive outcome. So why would you assume that suddenly, with Phantom, just because they won over the crowd, that positive crowd reaction got to the judges, too? If that were the case, then Madison would have a whole lot more DCI titles than two.

Also, there's a fatal flaw in your argument. (And it's understandable, given the fact that it doesn't happen very often in DCI.) But a show that people call "the greatest DCI finals show they've ever seen" (and a good friend of mine who went, and would never in a million years call herself a Phantom fan, described it exactly that way . . . and she's been going to finals since the late '70s) may take an entire season to pull together and gel. That's how competition can work . . . and, IMO, should. Finals should not be predictable. And just because they have been doesn't mean that's the way it should work. Competition means that anyone can come out ahead on any given night. It certainly worked for Madison 20 years ago, and worked for Phantom this year.

Edited August 15, 2008 by byline

[08Hawkeye]

Slightly off topic... - any possibilty there was an overload of PR fans in bloomington..? only 5 hours from rockford and all. - how were the crowd responses to bd/pr in pasadena last year..? also about 5 hours from concord last year. Could that have tipped the scales just enough or were the fans just looking for the upset?

[dbc03]

if you reread the criteria you posted emotion is listed twice, and so would have more weight. it also lists things like tension and release and expressiveness, which are essentially subcaptions of emotion. basically, emotional impact and things that are direct quotients of it are roughly half of the individual descriptors. going back to the original argument, the article on dci today basically describes ge as the corps ability to sell itself, which rationally, taken with the individual descriptors should mean its ability to sell itself emotionally to an audience combined with its abilities in specific techniques related to this emotional capture.

as for phantom 93 you have a valid point that they wouldn't be an 8-12, but you cherry picked the top placed corps i mentioned there. most of them were 4th-6th place corps, a 3rd place corps who has the best audience sale, with that being half the equation from my reading, would have been in 6th place in the other, more technical half to average to 3rd.

I don't consider emotional intensity to be the same thing as audience reaction. I read it as the emotional intensity of the corps itself.

I don't feel that Star '93 caused a huge emotional response from the audience, but the emotional intensity of the corps itself was very obvious.

I also don't think that the corps that best sells a show to the audience has to mean "gets the most applause" so again I don't see how you are saying that audience reaction is half of the equation. You're just making up numbers to support what you think should be the case.