The tick system from BITD

[BozzlyB]

Ticks are highly subjective (What is a tick and what is not?).

This would penalize corps trying to do something more difficult.

I personally would much rather see a corps attempt something truly amazing, and be just a little dirty, than a corps perform a semi-easy show that is nearly perfect.

For instance, my favorite show is Phantom 2008...... and with any kind of tick system.... even involving only a third of the judges, that show would have probably finished 4th or 5th.

EDIT: Now that I think about it.... if there was a tick system, Phantom Regiment would have probably never even attempted a show like Spartacus..... and that would be a far bigger travesty than them just finishing 4th or 5th.

Dude seriously? You need to go back and take a look at some of the charts from the 70's and 80's. I'll agree that stylistically there are great differences in the writing compared to today, but from a rudimentary difficulty standpoint (should clarify I'm talking mostly bout drumming here) there was plenty of corps not "playing it safe" because of the judging system. Blue Devils drum solo's in the 80's are as difficult to play as anything being put on the field today IMO, and there are lines too numerous to mention that were playing sick notes in a time where drum "solos" were actually features that lasted longer than 15 seconds.

Edited January 16, 2010 by BozzlyB

[Peel Paint]

This is exactly what I've always feared was the root of the issue.

We're all winners! Yea!

Wrong in life, and wrong in DC, IMHO.

OK, good, then you solved it. You're right, of course. They dropped tick judging because a bunch of liberal pantywaisted educators had seized control of DCI and jammed their trophies-for-every-competitor agenda down everybody else's throat. That does sound just like DCI in the early 1980s, doesn't it??

As Tez suggested, tick scoring is highly subjective, as much as build-up. Since I know you don't buy it, get three buddies to watch the same show in June and all four of you independently count the ticks, minute by minute. You will not agree. Or you may end up with about the same number of "errors," but you won't have heard and seen them in the same places in the show. It's (relatively) easy to count errors in a championship show in August, though you always have the problem of your eyes and ears being somewhere else than a different judge's. When the show is dirty in June, it's really hard to get agreement across judges as to just how many mistakes occurred.

A tick in execution would be a (for instance):

Blown attack or release

diddleflops that sound like buzz rolls

a flag out of time with the rest of the line

timing issues across the field

Most of us would agree on the flag one, at least in one five second period. What if she or he is consistently off? How many ticks is that? One for every spin? One for every rotation? The others are even harder to score objectively. If one player is late on a release (are you sure it was only one?), that was easy, but in June, it might have been three players, it might have been a section, it might have been half the brass-- the judge may not be sure. So is that one tick, five ticks, or what?? The diddle one-- if the error goes on for awhile, how do you score that? Timing issues across the field, I'm sure you can see the problem. The judge doesn't know for sure when and where to start and stop counting. You don't get unanimous agreement among judges. And when you don't have agreement, you don't have consistent, reproducible reliability, and you still have subjective judging. Other factors are going into the scores besides "errors".

[INSIDETHEFORTY]

Seems to me, in order to be fair, that the judges using a tick system would have to know and understand the technique that each corps uses and teaches. With such a wide variety, especially in the visual category, this would be VERY difficult.

In order to properly judge a corps, the technique must be understood, regardless of whether the judges use a ticksystem or today's sytem.

Example:

Cadets start off on the RIGHT foot, while most corps start off on the LEFT foot. To judges who have never seen that technique, it would look like a mistake, tick or present sytem. The judges have to have an understanding of the techniques used by any and all of the corps they judge....period.

Stickin' my foot in,

Ron Gunn

[garfield]

OK, good, then you solved it. You're right, of course. They dropped tick judging because a bunch of liberal pantywaisted educators had seized control of DCI and jammed their trophies-for-every-competitor agenda down everybody else's throat. That does sound just like DCI in the early 1980s, doesn't it??

Allow me to clarify...I said I've always feared that was the case, I never said I knew it to be the case. Fact is, I've NEVER gotten a straight answer on this. Answers always seem to be "because I think so" or "...I heard someone say...". I really don't know the answer and I was hoping to get one, not another personal perspective. I respect that you disagree with ticks. My first read of your explanation below left me as well. Hopefully on second or third read I'll get it.

[Tez]

Dude seriously? You need to go back and take a look at some of the charts from the 70's and 80's. I'll agree that stylistically there are great differences in the writing compared to today, but from a rudimentary difficulty standpoint (should clarify I'm talking mostly bout drumming here) there was plenty of corps not "playing it safe" because of the judging system. Blue Devils drum solo's in the 80's are as difficult to play as anything being put on the field today IMO, and there are lines too numerous to mention that were playing sick notes in a time where drum "solos" were actually features that lasted longer than 15 seconds.

OK.... yes there was some great, really difficult licks being played in the 70s.... but was it perfectly clean? How many ticks did it get when there was slight timing problems?

But really, when talking about difficulty, I was more referring to visual aspects of modern drum corps.... yes I know they aren't as clean as groups in the 70s, but how could you possibly get a group of 80 people to jazz run at a 4 to 5 step size at 190 bpm and it be anywhere near as clean as going 8 to 5 at 120 bpm? You can't. And let me tell you than I find what today's corps do visually 100 times more entertaining than what corps did visually in the 70s.... not trying to insult them.... that's just the way it is to me.

Anyway.... there is no way that anyone could convince me that the tick system being abolished after 1983 has no relation to the drastic change in show design through the mid-80s. I don't know exactly which one affected the other more... but they were definitely related. So one could easily say that with the tick system still in place throughout the 80s and beyond, drum corps would not have evolved as rapidly as it did, right? Maybe it would have changed, but not as much, right?

I think we have the build-up system to "thank" for the rapid "modernization" of drum corps as much as anything. And if this "modernization" had not happened, myself, along with many others, would not have become die-hard fans of this great activity.

[INSIDETHEFORTY]

Dude seriously? You need to go back and take a look at some of the charts from the 70's and 80's. I'll agree that stylistically there are great differences in the writing compared to today, but from a rudimentary difficulty standpoint (should clarify I'm talking mostly bout drumming here) there was plenty of corps not "playing it safe" because of the judging system. Blue Devils drum solo's in the 80's are as difficult to play as anything being put on the field today IMO, and there are lines too numerous to mention that were playing sick notes in a time where drum "solos" were actually features that lasted longer than 15 seconds.

I'm not a drummer, but it seemed to me that the Bridgmen had some pretty tight drum lines in the late '70's and early '80's. They weren't "playing it safe", not by drumming blindfolded, or doing the multiple roto-tom solos they invented! Today, you see corps doing variations on drum shows that were made famous by the Kingsmen, Devils, SCV, Bridgemen, Oakland Crusaders, North Star, and let's not forget, the Hawthorne Muchachos! I realize that some of the corps I listed did not win DCI, but the drum lines they produced got people out of their seats, screaming! Oh, and they did it with the "tick system" in place!

Just my 2 cents,

Ron Gunn

[INSIDETHEFORTY]

OK, good, then you solved it. You're right, of course. They dropped tick judging because a bunch of liberal pantywaisted educators had seized control of DCI and jammed their trophies-for-every-competitor agenda down everybody else's throat. That does sound just like DCI in the early 1980s, doesn't it??

As Tez suggested, tick scoring is highly subjective, as much as build-up. Since I know you don't buy it, get three buddies to watch the same show in June and all four of you independently count the ticks, minute by minute. You will not agree. Or you may end up with about the same number of "errors," but you won't have heard and seen them in the same places in the show. It's (relatively) easy to count errors in a championship show in August, though you always have the problem of your eyes and ears being somewhere else than a different judge's. When the show is dirty in June, it's really hard to get agreement across judges as to just how many mistakes occurred.

Most of us would agree on the flag one, at least in one five second period. What if she or he is consistently off? How many ticks is that? One for every spin? One for every rotation? The others are even harder to score objectively. If one player is late on a release (are you sure it was only one?), that was easy, but in June, it might have been three players, it might have been a section, it might have been half the brass-- the judge may not be sure. So is that one tick, five ticks, or what?? The diddle one-- if the error goes on for awhile, how do you score that? Timing issues across the field, I'm sure you can see the problem. The judge doesn't know for sure when and where to start and stop counting. You don't get unanimous agreement among judges. And when you don't have agreement, you don't have consistent, reproducible reliability, and you still have subjective judging. Other factors are going into the scores besides "errors".

Sounds to me that some people think of today's judging system as being "objective"? How is it "objective". Please, explain this to me?

Inquiring minds want to know,

Ron Gunn

[Tez]

Would somebody 'splain what was wrong with the judging system:

3 tick judges subtracting execution errors

3 accretive judges who gave credit for execution

3 accretive G.E. judges

...and why it wouldn't be a better system than today?

I have quoted the OP, because I want to ask the inverted question.

Myself, and others have tried to explain why we think the tick system does not work.... but it seems our explanations are never good enough.....

So please, tell me why you, or anyone else thinks the tick system (for some of the judges) works better than a build up. Do you think that corps are not being penalized properly for mistakes? Has there been any recent shows that would have drastically benefited/been hurt by the tick system? If a tick system were to be implemented in the near future, what effect, if any, would it have on show design/instructional techniques?

I would love to have this discussion.

[garfield]

In order to properly judge a corps, the technique must be understood, regardless of whether the judges use a ticksystem or today's sytem.

Example:

Cadets start off on the RIGHT foot, while most corps start off on the LEFT foot. To judges who have never seen that technique, it would look like a mistake, tick or present sytem. The judges have to have an understanding of the techniques used by any and all of the corps they judge....period.

Stickin' my foot in,

Ron Gunn

Hey Ron, thanks for jumping in, but your answer doesn't make sense and I'm hoping you'll post another example. Firstly, reinvoking the tick system doesn't include firing all the judges. A judge today whose qualified to be a judge would have the experience to know Cadets start on the right foot. In next year's show if Cadets start on the left foot they wouldn't be ticked on it if they all executed it together. When another corps walks onto the field and sets it wouldn't be a tick just because Cadets march down the 50.

A tick in your example would be if one random MM started on the right when the rest of the corps started on the left. And if that detail is part of show programming it means they've done it before - the judge would be aware. And if it's the first show of the season the corps staff had better get to the judges before-hand and say "fourth row, third from the left" (or 2nd mellow on the xx,) is going to look out of step but he's really not - we meant to do that."

Imagine: "Third snare from the right is going to look like he's playing completely out of time with the others. We meant to do that." What would today's judge say into the tape? "Yeah, great job making that guy look like a buffoon. I LOVE that!"

If a tick is given to something new this show, and it's effectively accretive to the show design, the build-up judging should score it well to compensate, shouldn't it?

Now, again, this is friendly discussion and I don't begrudge anyone's opinion.

It just seems to me that of all of the things we b***h about here the most likely one to change is the score sheet and application.

Please discuss if you can stomach (rehash) it.

[dbc03]

A tick in your example would be if one random MM started on the right when the rest of the corps started on the left.

How many ticks does this get?

What if he is out of step for the entire show? A tick per step? Per 30 seconds of being out of step? Then what about the corps that had a guy out of step for only 20 seconds instead? Does that guy get the same number of ticks as the guy who was out of step for 30 seconds?