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Marching While Playing


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Well, that's it ladies and gentlemen, we're all done here. Pack it up and hand out the medals, someone's finally done the "analysis" and we have our champion. Move along, nothing to see here.

Firstly, I find your criteria rather subjective. Secondly, like a another poster, I cannot seem to recreate your results without making substantial subtractions from certain corps, leading me to believe that this analysis is not as objective as it claims to be.

Lastly, for those of you interpreting this as some kind of hard evidence, may I remind you that demand is not something that can be judged with a stopwatch and a metronome. Some of the most demanding parts in shows that I marched were slow tempos and long notes. It also fails to consider the demand created by shifting responsibilities. For example, say you have the hornline jazz running some crazy drill at an ungodly tempo for 1-2 minutes, followed by a halt, a snap up, and a beautiful, triple-forte, long, melodic phrase. Something like that would be extremely physically demanding when focus is stressed on the performer's visual responsibilities, and then right as the performer halts they have to do an instantaneous context switch to their musical responsibilities and mentally focus on creating beautiful sound when they're completely out of breath.

This kind of scenario receives zero seconds on the "marching while playing" barometer, but yet is exceedingly demanding. Demand is so much deeper than "are they marching while they're playing".

In fact, to go off the deep end and completely play devil's advocate, one could argue that marching and playing is so easy that millions of 9th graders do it every year in their high school marching bands. :tongue:

Edited by MagicBobert
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Well, that's it ladies and gentlemen, we're all done here. Pack it up and hand out the medals, someone's finally done the "analysis" and we have our champion. Move along, nothing to see here.

Firstly, I find your criteria rather subjective. Secondly, like a another poster, I cannot seem to recreate your results without making substantial subtractions from certain corps, leading me to believe that this analysis is not as objective as it claims to be.

Lastly, for those of you interpreting this as some kind of hard evidence, may I remind you that demand is not something that can be judged with a stopwatch and a metronome. Some of the most demanding parts in shows that I marched were slow tempos and long notes. It also fails to consider the demand created by shifting responsibilities. For example, say you have the hornline jazz running some crazy drill at an ungodly tempo for 1-2 minutes, followed by a halt, a snap up, and a beautiful, triple-forte, long, melodic phrase. Something like that would be extremely physically demanding when focus is stressed on the performer's visual responsibilities, and then right as the performer halts they have to do an instantaneous context switch to their musical responsibilities and mentally focus on creating beautiful sound when they're completely out of breath.

This kind of scenario receives zero seconds on the "marching while playing" barometer, but yet is exceedingly demanding. Demand is so much deeper than "are they marching while they're playing".

In fact, to go off the deep end and completely play devil's advocate, one could argue that marching and playing is so easy that millions of 9th graders do it every year in their high school marching bands. :tongue:

MagicBob, again you bring the wind of sanity to a foggy world. :tongue:

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Well, that's it ladies and gentlemen, we're all done here. Pack it up and hand out the medals, someone's finally done the "analysis" and we have our champion. Move along, nothing to see here.

Firstly, I find your criteria rather subjective. Secondly, like a another poster, I cannot seem to recreate your results without making substantial subtractions from certain corps, leading me to believe that this analysis is not as objective as it claims to be.

Lastly, for those of you interpreting this as some kind of hard evidence, may I remind you that demand is not something that can be judged with a stopwatch and a metronome. Some of the most demanding parts in shows that I marched were slow tempos and long notes. It also fails to consider the demand created by shifting responsibilities. For example, say you have the hornline jazz running some crazy drill at an ungodly tempo for 1-2 minutes, followed by a halt, a snap up, and a beautiful, triple-forte, long, melodic phrase. Something like that would be extremely physically demanding when focus is stressed on the performer's visual responsibilities, and then right as the performer halts they have to do an instantaneous context switch to their musical responsibilities and mentally focus on creating beautiful sound when they're completely out of breath.

This kind of scenario receives zero seconds on the "marching while playing" barometer, but yet is exceedingly demanding. Demand is so much deeper than "are they marching while they're playing".

In fact, to go off the deep end and completely play devil's advocate, one could argue that marching and playing is so easy that millions of 9th graders do it every year in their high school marching bands. :tongue:

Interesting points you make.....and we aren't even talking about stylistic issues in the music, such as interpretation, articulation, etc......WHY DO SO MANY CORPS NOT DO REAL JAZZ ANYMORE? Because for years, some judges rooted in classical training, couldn't or wouldn't eward the intrinsic demand of interpreting jazz on the move. I MEAN...HELL...its hard enough to teach kids how to swing sitting down in a band room....let alone moving around at 160 on a footall field.

This goes back to my original point on how the activity sometime dictates its own sterility (oooohhhh...i like that)

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sigh...

everyone calm down. i don't think anyone is trying to insinuate one show is harder than another, and if they are, they're wrong. body movement can be more difficult than drill.

it's just some numbers that someone put together that may or may not be accurate to the second.

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Marching on one leg and playing would be more impressive.

Lance, you continue to make me laugh. Keep it up, man! :tongue:

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Interesting points you make.....and we aren't even talking about stylistic issues in the music, such as interpretation, articulation, etc......WHY DO SO MANY CORPS NOT DO REAL JAZZ ANYMORE? Because for years, some judges rooted in classical training, couldn't or wouldn't eward the intrinsic demand of interpreting jazz on the move. I MEAN...HELL...its hard enough to teach kids how to swing sitting down in a band room....let alone moving around at 160 on a footall field.

This goes back to my original point on how the activity sometime dictates its own sterility (oooohhhh...i like that)

Actually, I do too! Nicely said, even if it is from someone who has the bends! :tongue:

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What does marching while playing have to do with anything? This seems like an attempt to rationalize why corps x is better than corps y.

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This is totally useless knowledge as it just does not matter.

Just like this stuff:

A rat can last longer without water than a camel.

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.

The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.

A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.

A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.

A 2 X 4 is really 1-1/2" by 3-1/2".

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"Also, I think it would be great if you would time the actual amount of brass playing for each show. I'd love to have some evidence that shows how little Blue Devils actually play this year." (DCIMonkey)

Looks like they let DCImonkey out for his daily feeding. :cool: Evidence??? Is they some kind of kangaroo court we're not aware of? :cool:All this must just grind your gears! (but that's to be expected from a lower primate.)

LOL!!!!

That's right, we all know Blue Devils don't really, actually play their horns, so I'm with Mr. Plan-number-Nine:

WE WANT PROOF!

Where's the proof??? :tongue:

Edited by wvu80
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