The tick system from BITD

[garfield]

...tolerance... being the key word there. And I'm sure you saw what Jim Peashey had to say about tolerance earlier in the thread, as it applied to the tick system. Tolerance is, in itself, subjective. Whether two judges fall into a given range of tolerance is subjective. You can take something that can be evaluated subjectively and increase the objectivity of its measurement by training judges, practicing together, and so on, but you can never make it completely objective if you cannot measure it with 100% mathematical consistency.

And if the goal of reaching objectivity is important this seems like a reasonable request to attain it. Me thinks: We ask the MM to perform to their absolute individual and ensemble best. Why not ask the judges to do the same?

Here are some things that can be measured objectively: distance, time, the pitch of one note. Two different people working independently can measure the same thing if they follow the same procedure using one or two identically calibrated tools and get consistent results.

And, I would say, that in the judging world "calibrated tools" is the combination of years of experience and the proper sheet methodology training. Seems an attainable goal...

Here are some things that can be evaluated subjectively: the beauty of a painting, the visual design of a drum corps show, or how clean feet, drum rolls, and horn releases are. These things are measured in degrees and there is always room for debate or disagreement after two people have independently completed their evaluation.

Nah, this one's not right. There is very little grey area in rudiments and attacks. Listen to the early shows and you hear blown attacks all over the field. Thank gosh they're not as bad as back then, but there's little argument about the audible effects of a blown attack or release. The degree of impact of the blow is debatable, but the fact that there was a audible blown attack is not.

Splitting hairs, you wonder, perhaps? If you don't make the distinction the problem that results is that there are people who think they have something scientific that is artistic in nature. They think they've solved the problem, but they've only moved it.

In your case, when you disagree with garfield's restatement of the thread, you're disallowing any possibility that there is at least a degree of subjectivity in scoring ticks. I can never agree with that, and I doubt many in drum corps do.

While I enjoyed your reply as being well thought out, I think you're taking the issue too far. There's no debate that ticks ARE subjective but does the tick system HAVE to be objective to be better than what we have now?

'Tis part of the answer, I believe.

Great post, yours.

[Peel Paint]

garfield, it's a somewhat attainable goal, and though others disagree, I know, I think the judges do pretty well with the build-up system they have, trying to make it at least somewhat objective and not just one person's opinion. It's still a subjective system, but the results are fairly consistent; there's not a great deal of upheaval and movement in each caption or in the caption ranks from one show to the next. They work at consistency, evaluating the same performance similarly. People go back and forth in criticizing them. If the judges duplicate the results of recent shows, they get criticized by some for not thinking independently. But if somebody dares to drop a top corps 0.6 in a caption in two consecutive nights, they get ripped by others, especially staff, for that.

Another issue is that it isn't a very transparent system. Judges rarely talk publicly about what goes in to each caption and why one corps got scored at a certain level in each caption. They'll debate it with staff but not much with others. This limits the perception of objectivity of it as well, because it makes it hard for others to see that the system is being applied consistently.

As to no gray area in rudiments and attacks, I do understand what you're saying, but hear me, too. If one guy in a line makes a small but audible, visual mistake in a rudiment, sure, we can agree to tick that a tenth, and probably percussion judges in the right position can do that pretty objectively and consistently. But where it gets messy, or where some errors have more effect on a performance than others, or where there's ticking up and down the line, as most corps scoring below 80 under the current system are executing, that's where the objective, consistent ability to count and quantify mistakes falls through. Not everybody's going to come up with the same count and not everybody's going to perceive different levels of error at the same quantified measure.

Everybody who questions this should go back up above in this thread and read again what Tom Peashey wrote. He trained judges to use that system. He knows as well as anybody that it doesn't make things more objective than build-up judging. There will still be variance, either way. You do the best you can to make it right and then in the end you live with a degree of ambiguity.

[Tez]

Nah, this one's not right. There is very little grey area in rudiments and attacks.

I still am thinking that this is where you are getting hung up. There is in fact a huge grey area solely in the area of attacks. Take a mallet instrument for example. There is so many different ways to strike the bar. How does a judge determine how many ticks the player should receive if it is slightly different from "perfection." In a build-up system, it is much, much easier to award achievement when there are so many variables.

I guess you are trying to point out that it is undeniable when there is a blatant mistake...... but that is the easy part of judging. I guarantee that judges in the past few years score corps considerably lower when they make blatant mistakes, even if they don't mark it down as a tick.

[Jeff Ream]

garfield, it's a somewhat attainable goal, and though others disagree, I know, I think the judges do pretty well with the build-up system they have, trying to make it at least somewhat objective and not just one person's opinion. It's still a subjective system, but the results are fairly consistent; there's not a great deal of upheaval and movement in each caption or in the caption ranks from one show to the next. They work at consistency, evaluating the same performance similarly. People go back and forth in criticizing them. If the judges duplicate the results of recent shows, they get criticized by some for not thinking independently. But if somebody dares to drop a top corps 0.6 in a caption in two consecutive nights, they get ripped by others, especially staff, for that.

Another issue is that it isn't a very transparent system. Judges rarely talk publicly about what goes in to each caption and why one corps got scored at a certain level in each caption. They'll debate it with staff but not much with others. This limits the perception of objectivity of it as well, because it makes it hard for others to see that the system is being applied consistently.

As to no gray area in rudiments and attacks, I do understand what you're saying, but hear me, too. If one guy in a line makes a small but audible, visual mistake in a rudiment, sure, we can agree to tick that a tenth, and probably percussion judges in the right position can do that pretty objectively and consistently. But where it gets messy, or where some errors have more effect on a performance than others, or where there's ticking up and down the line, as most corps scoring below 80 under the current system are executing, that's where the objective, consistent ability to count and quantify mistakes falls through. Not everybody's going to come up with the same count and not everybody's going to perceive different levels of error at the same quantified measure.

Everybody who questions this should go back up above in this thread and read again what Tom Peashey wrote. He trained judges to use that system. He knows as well as anybody that it doesn't make things more objective than build-up judging. There will still be variance, either way. You do the best you can to make it right and then in the end you live with a degree of ambiguity.

one thing DCI used to do, which when you compared to the recap for drummers anyways, was the percussion judge commentary on the dvd. I'd print the recaps off, go listen, and yeah, I can get what he's saying, and I'm getting a good up close listen to the book without hearing everything else.

and, by using that tool and knowing the sheet, i have not one complaint about any percussion scores in the years that was available.