rut-roh Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 They used to market it as the "Summer Music Games." How I'd love to see a return to that... They also used to market it as "The Sight of Music." People hear with their eyes in this activity, and that's one of the things that makes it so amazing. I'm with the 50/50 thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCImonkey Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 and I think each corps should just arc up and play.no visual program at all. and they should get chairs...and music stands with little lights on the top of each one. and wind could hurt the sound...so can we have the show moved indoors? and to help me see...could we have each corps perform on some kind of raised platform? and...wait, wait...I got it. So we know when each corps is going to start...could we have a curtain that raises? And then it could drop because I don't want to see them all move their equipment off and the next corps bring their equipment on...could we do that too? Yeah....that's what I want. And no flags or rifles either. Flags indoors scare me. Thanks. BD has that covered! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob984 Posted August 4, 2009 Author Share Posted August 4, 2009 They also used to market it as "The Sight of Music."People hear with their eyes in this activity, and that's one of the things that makes it so amazing. I'm with the 50/50 thing. no argument that some music judges are indeed judging with their eyes and not their ears (LMAO).....and now we are worse than 50/50!!!! GB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pags Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 (edited) Here's something else to consider to throw another fly in the ointment... I get the impression that the OP is trying to create a system whereby the shows are more enjoyable from a musical standpoint. However, I also sense two assumptions on his part that ultimately defeat his proposal: 1. Unbiased fans 2. The impact of performance Re: #1, the only way of incorporating audience "enjoyment" into any aspect of the legitimate final score is to assume they come into the selected venue free of bias. You can't have a single conversation on these forums without some blantant biases rearing their heads all over the place. A large audience isn't going to be much, if any different. Generally speaking, CA fans tend to root harder for SCV and BD. Allentown fans tend to root harder for The Cadets. And so on and so forth. There are certainly SOME fans in all of these venues that will try to look at everything objectively, but not enough to overpower the emotional pull that a crwod can feel toward hometown groups or based on some other criteria. Re: #2, while a stronger slant toward music might diminish emphasis on visual production, you have to address the impact of performance. In the current system, we have a 50/50 split between music and visual. However, of the 50 points allotted for Music, 60% of those are based on performance, not on enjoyability. In other words, they are based on content and technicality/precision of performance, not on whether or not an audience member can hum the tune as they walk away. Thus, all I see the proposal suggested doing is creating prgrams that would be only slightly less visually active in favor of becoming more proficient from a performace standpoint. But that won't necessarily create more enjoyable shows for the OP (or anyone else). Edited August 4, 2009 by pags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob984 Posted August 4, 2009 Author Share Posted August 4, 2009 Here's something else to consider to throw another fly in the ointment...I get the impression that the OP is trying to create a system whereby the shows are more enjoyable from a musical standpoint. However, I also sense two assumptions on his part that ultimately defeat his proposal: 1. Unbiased fans 2. The impact of performance Re: #1, the only way of incorporating audience "enjoyment" into any aspect of the legitimate final score is to assume they come into the selected venue free of bias. You can't have a single conversation on these forums without some blantant biases rearing their heads all over the place. A large audience isn't going to be much, if any different. Re: #2, while a stronger slant toward music might diminish emphasis on visual production, you have to address the impact of performance. In the current system, we have a 50/50 split between music and visual. However, of the 50 points allotted for Music, 60% of those are based on performance, not on enjoyability. In other words, they are based on content and technicality/precision of performance, not on whether or not an audience member can hum the tune as they walk away. Thus, all I see the proposal suggested doing is creating prgrams that would be only slightly less visually active in favor of becoming more proficient from a performace standpoint. But that won't necessarily create more enjoyable shows for the OP (or anyone else). I do agree, as I stated in my original post, that the 4 points of the 24 alloted to the music effect judge relating to audience communication, would be controversial. An experienced judge would have to try to perceive if the musical performance truly captivated the audience, and how much. You could have ties here.........let's say you had 3 corps absolutely bring the house down due to great musical programs........you might even give three 4's........But, if one group had 5 standing ovations, and the other got 1/2 of one "forced" at the end with some golf applause and didn't really connect, it's not going to be 4.0 to 3.9 there..........I have never seen a corps that was truly effective musically throughout a program not get audience response, regardless of where the show was or what corps it was. I am not suggesting changing anything about the visual adjudication, or any of the performance captions......what I am saying is that the effectiveness of the musical program should be paramount, and if you are lacking there, then you might not win with a show that relies TOO MUCH on the visual aspects...........a great corps should be firing on all cylinders in BOTH aspects, and I do believe that the scoring should have an emphasis towards music, as it did in DCI for 27 of it's 38 seasons....only since 2000 has it been an equal split........ GB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jplattSCV Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 (edited) The Pit can almost be percussion playing guard members. Watch them closely in a show, a GOOD pit will convey the emotions of the show through their faces and body language while playing. Another thing to point out, For those early years when it was 65/35, Corps were using simple symetrical drill. For most of that time the color guard was something was hardly at all resembles corps today at all. If you want to change the scoring system to be musically based, you might as well turn the color guard into an old style honor guard and start with symetrical drill again. Regardless of the opinions on which is better, todays or yesterdays drum corps, We have evolved from it, into a Visual Drum Corps International Whoa there.... One of the things that drives me crazy is when it is obvious that someone has instructed the pit to move in some way as too convey that they are playing something with some specific emotional intention. The biggest transgression I see is when all of the keyboard players lead their follow through with the back of the mallet and their elbow as if they are "pulling" sound from he instrument. Its nonsense and it simply doesn't happen that way. You can't push a rope either. As Ron Burgandy said..."Its just science". If I never notice anything the pit does with my eye then that is a good thing. If my ear directs me to them...great. I realize the horns and battery do this alot (i.e. park and blow horns. monkey drumming, etc.) But, if we are going to call it "The Pit", then I just assume they heard and not seen. So I would say a GOOD pit conveys the emotion without having to choreograph fake emotion. Somewhere there exists a video of us (1991 SCV) that the older sister of one of the pit members filmed from the front row at finals in Dallas. In my opinion we looked fantastic. There was ZERO choreographed visual stuff. We just looked like we were taking care of our musical business like pros. Anyone that was not specifically interested in watching someone play a marching machine or cannon drum or almglocken or somesuch was never going to look at us. And that is as it should be. See my earlier rant of the camera pointing ay a pit member playing cymbals instead of The Toast. Edited August 4, 2009 by jplattSCV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrothgar15 Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 Whoa there.... One of the things that drives me crazy is when it is obvious that someone has instructed the pit to move in some way as too convey that they are playing something with some specific emotional intention. The biggest transgression I see is when all of the keyboard players lead their follow through with the back of the mallet and their elbow as if they are "pulling" sound from he instrument. Its nonsense and it simply doesn't happen that way. You can't push a rope either. As Ron Burgandy said..."Its just science". If I never notice anything the pit does with my eye then that is a good thing. If my ear directs me to them...great. I realize the horns and battery do this alot (i.e. park and blow horns. monkey drumming, etc.) But, if we are going to call it "The Pit", then I just assume they heard and not seen. So I would say a GOOD pit conveys the emotion without having to choreograph fake emotion. Somewhere there exists a video of us (1991 SCV) that the older sister of one of the pit members filmed from the front row at finals in Dallas. In my opinion we looked fantastic. There was ZERO choreographed visual stuff. We just looked like we were taking care of our musical business like pros. Anyone that was not specifically interested in watching someone play a marching machine or cannon drum or almglocken or somesuch was never going to look at us. And that is as it should be. See my earlier rant of the camera pointing ay a pit member playing cymbals instead of The Toast. Good to read this. I hate when the pit becomes a musical extension of the color guard. Different uniforms than the corps proper, choreography, SMILING. I mean really? Smiling? You wouldn't see a tenor player smiling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpaul Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 I believe that DCI should return the scoring emphasis to music. When DCI was founded, the scoring system allocated 60 points to music captions and 40 points to visual, thus 60% of the scoring (and thus the emphasis) was on music. In a short amount of time (the very next year), that emphasis was actually increased another 5 %, with music receiving 65% of the score, and visual receiving 35%. This percentage allocation lasted for 21 seasons. In 1994, the scoring allocations were changed, with music receiving 55% of the score and visual receiving 45% of the score. In 2000, the color guard caption was added into the 100 point mix, and allocation became 50% music/50%visual, and thus the emphasis on music was eliminated. Thus, in a 7 season time frame, the visual influence in the activity caused 15 percent of the score to be shifted from music to visual and removed the allocation edge that the music captions had. Before I go on, if you do believe that the visual element should have an even scoring allocation (50%/50%) with music, simply state that and we will agree to disagree; however, be aware that for DCI's first 28 seasons, the scoring emphasis was on music. Also, I am fully aware that the corps themselves had to agree to these changes, although I do believe that these changes were highly influenced by the visual community. The area where I feel we should start to initiate change is in the music effect allocation. In my opinion, If you do not have a totally effective musical program, there is nothing that the visual can do to salvage that. Yet, in my opinion, we have had corps win championships with programs that were lacking in musical effect. Keep the overall allocation of effect at 40 points. However, allocate 24 points to music effect and 16 to visual effect. That seems like a huge change, but we would still only be at 54% music to 46% visual, and the judge splits (mus./vis.) would remain intact. The musical "emphasis" would still be 6% less than it was in 1972 and 11% less than it was in 1993. I fully understand that the audience really isn't considered in the effect score by the adjudicator. I believe this is wrong. When you have a corps that really is not connecting with the audience with their musical program and is leaving 90% of the audience flat, does that performance deserve to have a +95 percentile in music effect??? I think not, yet this has been commonplace. I actually fell asleep during the preliminary performance of a corps that made finals a few years ago, as the musical content was that boring. Yes, they were clean, but conveying musical emotion/expression to your audience is just as important, yet seems to fall by the wayside in the evaluation at times. You never see anyone get a 17.5 in musical performance and a 15.6 in effect......yet, that should be a distinct possibility. Also, there is far more to effect than coordination. Is it possible to have a very effective musical presentation and be lacking in visual effect?? Absolutely. It should also be highly possible for a corps to have a very effective visual presentation and be lacking in musical effect. Yet, you do not see wide variances. There is a corps this year who I believe should be a 19.5 in musical effect and a 17.8 in visual effect. I guarantee that will not happen. There is also a corps that I believe should be a 19.7 in visual effect and a 17.5 in music effect. Again, it will not happen. So, I would divide the music effect sheet in the splits below...... repertoire effect: 100 performer effect: 100 communication to audience: 40 add all 3, and place one decimal for the score out of 24 I am certain the last 40 points will raise some eyebrows, and the question will be how is it judged?? The judge must assess if the program "moved" the audience emotionally, and how much. Not just an ending, either, but the entire program. Were they engaged throughout, or were they bored with "lulls".....Yes, this will be subjective. They must also be careful to remain in caption. Maybe that 40 yard rifle exchange was "off the hook" effect-wise, but if you are on music..........or, maybe that park and blow was fabulous, but you are on visual, and the guard work was very average there...........if you get through an entire program, and 90% of the effect was visual, you have a problem with music effect.....Ditto, if you have a show that was great musically but the visual was lacking and you are on visual effect, there is a problem. Also, that communication to audience number can and should fluctuate up and down, night to night. If you come out tired, play a relatively clean show, but do not communicate the program to the audience, that should show up. If the next night you do a very emotional job and bring the house down, that should show up. I think making the above changes will return to placing the emphasis on music, change the approach a bit to music effect (frankly, the judging of music effect currently is so warped that the word effect should be changed, as it is not accurate) GB What's the rationale for this, other than "that's the way it used to be"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrothgar15 Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 What's the rationale for this, other than "that's the way it used to be"? See the Blue Devils 2009 musical program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob984 Posted August 4, 2009 Author Share Posted August 4, 2009 What's the rationale for this, other than "that's the way it used to be"? "The way it used to be???"........1st of all, my 24.0 point musical effect to 16.0 point proposal visual effect, with a 4 point subcaption in the music effect caption for audience communication, NEVER existed, but is NEW........ and the rationale is simple......in my opinion, (and I don't think I am alone on this), the scoring emphasis needs to return to the music, along with a fresh re-tooling of the music effect caption......... GB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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