Ocean Springs Oasis

[BRASSO]

But one has to become engaged in some mental gymnastics of enormous dexterity to think that a Corps with 12 holes can perform BETTER in ALL judged captions ( including GE Visual ) than when they are completely healthy and with no holes in their show performance...... and can increase the point spread from the previous show over Corps with little to no sickness and whose practice time was not compromised through severe sickness.

Is comparing the scoring of a performance at one show to the next "apples to apples" or is it at least a little "apples to oranges"? Different judges, plenty of time to add new material and clean (despite illness)? BTW, I'm not sure there ended up being as many as 12 holes....

Sounds like it could be the answer..... but with further scrutiny we learn that Crown had no such opportunity to " add new material " between their last show on July 9th and last night, and had " no opportunity to clean ". According to their Director, at practice they had 25 holes at each practice and that when one weakened member returned to practice, another member was lost to the sickness. Thus it is impossible to conduct routine practice or change routines or clean in such a stage of systemic Corps sickness. Also, Crown unfortunately had to pull out of a show, while the healthy Corps practiced, cleaned and competed as usual...... but lost some ground to Crown nonetheless in these 5 days.

Edited July 15, 2009 by BRASSO

[Medeabrass]

If this was true ( and I don't believe for a moment that it is ) then it would be a disservice to the kids in preparation for competition for the staff to have their marchers a) not practice falling down and getting up in style.......

We never had to "pretend" to fall down cuz people fell down all the time in rehearsal so there was plenty of opportunity to practice how one reacts to falling down or having a member near them fall down.

[anniem]

Sounds like it could be the answer..... but with further scrutiny we learn that Crown had no such opportunity to " add new material " between their last show on July 9th and last night, and had " no opportunity to clean ". According to their Director, at practice they had 25 holes at each practice and that when one weakened member returned to practice, another member was lost to the sickness. Thus it is impossible to conduct routine practice or change routines or clean in such a stage of systemic Corps sickness. Also, Crown unfortunately had to pull out of a show, while the healthy Corps practiced, cleaned and competed as usual...... but lost some ground to Crown nonetheless in these 5 days.

OK I'm done.

[BRASSO]

We never had to "pretend" to fall down cuz people fell down all the time in rehearsal so there was plenty of opportunity to practice how one reacts to falling down or having a member near them fall down.

I didn't say to practice to pretend to fall..... but actually practice falling down and getting up IN STYLE. It seems some posters have been saying that falling down but recovering in style gives you style points with the judges that can help you score points ( vs. no style points by having the entire Corps remain vertical throughout the perrformance )

[Piper]

Sometimes a corps just comes out smokin' and on fire. There's no way to explain it. Usually when a corps comes off the field everyone is asking each other questions. "How was the battery?" "How was the pit?" "How was the brass?" "How was the guard?" But when you see a corps finish their show and everyone is grinning like a cat that just ate the canary you know they really threw it down. I've been on both the giving and recieving end of it and I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that's what happened. Crown was just hot that night.

[Medeabrass]

I didn't say to practice to pretend to fall..... but actually practice falling down and getting up IN STYLE. It seems some posters have been saying that falling down but recovering in style gives you style points with the judges that can help you score points ( vs. no style points by having the entire Corps remain vertical throughout the perrformance )

No not style points. It's not that they add points for a good recovery, it's that they may not subtract as many (if any) points if you recover well after a mistake or fall. Recovering quickly and seamlessly after a mistake was preached to us all the time...and there were plenty of mistakes made to be recovered from. If you do it correctly, most won't even notice your error. If you do it incorrectly with an abrupt, "oh s@#* sir," panic mode mentality, then you will definitely get dinged.

Edited July 15, 2009 by Medeabrass

[BOSMarcher]

How is a design pattern better with missing holes than with the completed pattern ?

It's impossible to have a better design with the pattern incomplete.

It defies all logic and intelligent reasoning.

NO design pattern..... in ANY endeavor, including Drum Corps...... can have a more effective design when the designed pattern is incomplete.

Despite this, EVERY caption, including the visual captions, went up when Crown had 12 holes, than the previous show when they were healthy and had everyone on the field to both play and complete the designed visual patterns.

I don't know. I guess this is just me. But I say that this is simply.......... not just implausable, but impossible. It is frankly impossible for a Visual to be IMPROVED UPON with 12 missing pieces ( marchers ) over a previous show with all the moving pieces ( marchers ) firmly in place. We don't leave all our rational thinking skills on the sidelines when we decide to march or follow this Drum Corps activity. Or at least we should not, in my opinion.

In other news, the Cadets got beat by Boston in percussion.

[chris ncsu]

Let it go y'all. I'm saddened about the point gap, too, but it is what it is. Hope Cadets can clean this sucker up, bring those performance numbers up and the effect will follow in part.

And kick that battery section into gear. Wonder how much of that was the new tenor.

[fourouttheforty]

if its true that cadets are sick as well, and we already knew about some injuries, its possible theyre both a bit down, so the two things balance each other out.

Can't be true, Carolina Crown is the only drum corps on the road with sick and injured players. In the history of drum corps.

You are all absurd for making a fuss about Crown's holes. Judges aren't ########, they can see what's a hole and what's poor spacing, and I'd like to think an ensemble judge wouldn't spend the entire night staring at a hole rather than evaluating the ensemble that is there.

Maybe DCI should start reporting how many members take the field at each show along with the recap, since it's apparently so relevant to the score.

[BRASSO]

Sometimes a corps just comes out smokin' and on fire. There's no way to explain it. Usually when a corps comes off the field everyone is asking each other questions. "How was the battery?" "How was the pit?" "How was the brass?" "How was the guard?" But when you see a corps finish their show and everyone is grinning like a cat that just ate the canary you know they really threw it down. I've been on both the giving and recieving end of it and I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that's what happened. Crown was just hot that night.

Without being redundant here, I'll grant that it's entirely possible for Crown with 12 members on the sidelines to come out smokin and " were hot " last night .But it's still impossible( my opinion) for a Corps with 12 members missing and thus creating visual holes in all the visual patterns to have all their Visual Scores, particularly GE Visual, go up over their previous show where there were no members out, and thus no holes in those visual patterns created. Even if we factor in a different judge panel, it's impossible to get these Visual score improvements with such holes, and with many of the ones who marched less than 48 hours removed from sick bay. Those Visual scores needed to come down, and certainly not up as a result of a dozen or so marchers out from their previous show. A well crafted Visual design is meaningless if the design move was not fulfilled... for any reason, ie failure of members to execute the move properly, or as a result of holes out on the competitive performance field. One need not be a judge either to understand this most basic of fundametals in show design. The Visual Design REQUIRES the planned design formation to have been successfully completed in the show performance to get the full credit in the visual captions.. And with Carolina Crown with 12 holes, as sympathetic as we all are to their plight, it became impossible for them to have completed the Visual Designs as drawn up. This is not rocket science here, follks.

Edited July 15, 2009 by BRASSO