The tick system from BITD

[Tez]

Again -

A mistake should be recognized as such.

Right is right, and wrong is wrong.

Please go back and read my last post.

It is a gross oversimplification of modern drum corps to say something is either right or wrong. How can tone quality be right or wrong?

[Tez]

The last 2 are obvious, but how do you know a crooked line isnt the way it was written without having the drill charts in front of you? Do judges need to have drill and scores in front of them, too?

Kind of being devils advocate here, but the tick system only seems to address "big picture" concepts and not details and specifics that go into the production.

There seem to be so many variables that the tick system does not take into consideration. It's very black and white in an activity that isn't.

This is the exact point I am also trying to make, and should be the main argument against the tick system. Drum corps is not a sport like football where their are always mathematically definable parameters. Maybe a few aspects are like this, like "did you catch the toss or not"... but most of what happens in drum corps shows is far, far more complex.

[TomPeashey]

I don't have time tonight to go back into this at length...

Let me just say that if you never tried to teach the tick system to a new judge - don't bother telling me it was a good system... It was my job for many years to teach it... it sucked... that simple...

it was subjective, relied on educating the same tolerance level to different judges with different backgrounds and basically left the door open to frequent mistakes

[Jeff Ream]

OK, so remember, I'm a drummer (I can hear "Oh, THAT explains it!"). A diddle is a diddle. There's no fudginess about it. If the execution across the line is out of time it will be mushy. If the judge is in front of a player who's faking it and never touches the head the GE judges may never know, but the tick judge would. The BU judge may say "No harm, still sounds clean." But a tick judge would knock off a tick for the faker.

If the horn tick judge hears a blown attack between two players he'd tick the attack (regardless if other missed the attack as well).

In your DCA example, did anyone from staff speak up during the season and inform this judge that the heads were intentionally tuned loose? Would the problem have gone away if a BU judge who didn't like the loose sound had judged the line?

actually, tuning can make all the difference in the world to some people, and it will adjust their level of tolerance. if you don't believe me, ask some old drum judges.

as for staff speaking up...it was a summer long war, a battle of protests, phone calls, letters ( no email back then).

in the end.....Judge A picked Team A at finals. had judge B been on, it would have gone the other way it happened all year long.

[Jeff Ream]

People seem to make up all kinds of reasons the tick system won't work. If the snare line should hit on 1 and one dummer doesn't thats a tick. Same for releases. same for guard. How hard is that.

Oh they won't try a hard show.... then they shouldn't be in the Major League of marching music huh.

I would rather have a champion score a clean 89 then a dirty 98.9. And speaking of scores noticed how they jumped when the tick system went away. Did corps really become that good. I don't beleive you can have 128 or now 150 people march a 98 out of 100 show. Well only if they give them credit for trying real real hard.

This is the only activity you credit for trying.....

attacks and releases are easy. the grey area comes in between them.

[Jeff Ream]

A crooked line that is supposed to be straight is wrong.

Horn angles that are not consistent are wrong.

Uneven intervals within a set are wrong.

etc.

ok...on a first read....are you sure it's supposed to be straight without having the drill charts?

I realize that's an extreme example, but still valid

[Jeff Ream]

Taken in full context

So, no. Not really a contradiction. No one explicitly said credit was being given for simply taking a risk. Instead, corps were given a bit more room to try these more ambitious shows without being ticked to death, though that doesn't necessarily mean they were rewarded (e.g., scored higher than their competitors) for doing so either.

exactly. you can take the risk, but to get credit, you need to achieve it.

[MikeD]

Again -

A mistake should be recognized as such.

Right is right, and wrong is wrong.

But an error is not a tick unless the judge thinks it should be...and then how MANY ticks to assign to particular erro comes into play. Ticks are just as subjective as buildup...only in lots of small decisions as opposed to one big one. As Tom P. says..ticks were a terrible system for judging.

[Fran Haring]

As Tom P. says..ticks were a terrible system for judging.

What Mike and Tom said. The tick system had serious flaws.

Fran

[DRB]

I was doing some judging work when the tick system was dropped. I still feel that it was a mistake.

A friend of mine judged a contest about 1986 or so where the old style tick sheets were being used. The comment was that he did not realize how much corps were ticking. As a matter of fact, he was astounded by the number of ticks being made by corps which he thought were much better than they really were.

There is always going to be some subjectivity in any form of judging. Regardless of the system used, there is always a possibility that a judge may not be in position at any moment to see/hear something important that could affect scoring. It is just the way it goes. It is no different than being an official at a sports event. Sometimes penalties are simply missed due to countless reasons.

And I really find the argument about the tightness of drum heads to be questionable. In my experience back in the day, one could not really tell that much different A corps which played more difficult parts was credited for that exposure.