Comment at Winter Olympics II

[Kamarag]

speed kills. it really does. it wasnt that long ago that you save the 180 bpm or higher tempos til the very end. now if you arent at 180, you better be in a ballad or transition

Yep, and it's a real shame. I think this is one area that the judging community and design/instructional communities really need to take a hard look at.

I know at Teal last year the corps had a whole section of the show at mid-level tempos (the Timberlake/Youngblood stuff) and it was incredibly well-received by audiences. Was it difficult? Musically absolutely, visually though, not in the least. The judges, at least on the musical side, either loved it or couldn't figure it out most of the time (several music judges had never even heard of Justin Timberlake). I can't say what the visual judges thought...never listened to those tapes.

One day, the designers and judges will agree that not everything a corps does needs to be at Mach 5 unless it's a ballad. Hopefully, that day comes soon.

[Jeff Ream]

Yep, and it's a real shame. I think this is one area that the judging community and design/instructional communities really need to take a hard look at.

I know at Teal last year the corps had a whole section of the show at mid-level tempos (the Timberlake/Youngblood stuff) and it was incredibly well-received by audiences. Was it difficult? Musically absolutely, visually though, not in the least. The judges, at least on the musical side, either loved it or couldn't figure it out most of the time (several music judges had never even heard of Justin Timberlake). I can't say what the visual judges thought...never listened to those tapes.

One day, the designers and judges will agree that not everything a corps does needs to be at Mach 5 unless it's a ballad. Hopefully, that day comes soon.

well, they are running out of tempos that anyone can play/march at.

Plus too many use tempo as a crutch like a ton of notes. ok, great you can run/play fast. what else have you got?

and, IMO, too many can't run and play well at those tempos, at least early

[The Other Mike]

well, they are running out of tempos that anyone can play/march at.

Plus too many use tempo as a crutch like a ton of notes. ok, great you can run/play fast. what else have you got?

and, IMO, too many can't run and play well at those tempos, at least early

Now if "I" said that ? I would be accused of bashing the kids

[SFZFAN]

well, they are running out of tempos that anyone can play/march at.

Plus too many use tempo as a crutch like a ton of notes. ok, great you can run/play fast. what else have you got?

and, IMO, too many can't run and play well at those tempos, at least early

I really wish all corps would step back a bit, maybe slow it down and play entire pieces of music. I miss the concert piece so much.

Who didn't love it when corps would stop for a couple of minutes, on the 50, and blow your face off.

[Jeff Ream]

I really wish all corps would step back a bit, maybe slow it down and play entire pieces of music. I miss the concert piece so much.

Who didn't love it when corps would stop for a couple of minutes, on the 50, and blow your face off.

eh, i don't need an old school concert, i just need less 200 bpm

[deftguy]

As a guard member that has marched "old school" and today's guard, I think the demands are pretty much equal, but in different places. We had to do high marking time while spinning which is exhausting. Today we run, utilize the whole body, do less spinning, and more movement which is equally exhausting. We worked long hours to get the precision we got back in the day, and today we work long hours on perfecting movement that features the whole body, and behaving more like dancers than guard members(not a slight, but a reality). I do think that things move too fast to clean, but that does not mean there are no clean guards. To me it is just harder to tell what is clean and what isn't because of the ensemble work that dominates today's guard. I think rifles(right or wrong) have become just a prop that a guard can do without, and that being as clean as we were in the day is not as important. The reality is, it is a different time, and things other than just cleanliness and uniformity are back seat issues to what guards are doing now.

[corpsband]

I think this is the crux of the discussion. Who cares? I can't even conceptualize that. IMO, substance should always outweigh flash. This is what the pairs skater commentator was saying, too. That they are trying to do too much to execute it well.

Well (for me) it's easy to say "who cares" so long as we clearly identify what we are giving away and what we are gaining.

The kind of choices I'm talking about"

120 bpm symmetrical squad drill with perfect angles on toes

*or*

180 bpm complex drill integrated with the guard while maintaining great spacing and form (and maybe slightly less than perfect toes)

it's an easy call for me to say "who cares" about perfect toes. i'm willing to trade a slight loss in some areas for very significant gains in others.

So its not that I don't care about great marching technique -- but I'm not willing to exchange modern drill and movement for slightly improved marching technique.

[76strad]

Here's what I personally see im only 17 but here's my idea.

When the Drill writing software was first created and then perfected, same for the Music writing software. The corps directors, drill, and music writers could progress much further. So I know I talked to one of my band directors who marched back in the day with the chalk boards and all. I guess its like he said where as a whole you spend less time fixing the hand written errors on simpler drill and music, and more time perfecting Drill thats already correct, same for music. So I see it as each corps with the resources availbe theses days can expand in each area as they see fit. However I agree music does suffer at points, but overall they have the ability to make a good combination of both, I see in shows an area for both. But yeah theres my beating around the bush answer.

Oh and I almost forgot FLAME!

[Dave]

Well, frankly I've had to spend just as much time on the field dealing with computer errors as hand-written ones--possibly more, since it seems like every year I marched that we used drill from a computer program, the drill writer would accidentally send some hapless member on a suicide endzone-to-endzone sprint and not realize it until we were trying to learn it.

[euphononium]

Well, frankly I've had to spend just as much time on the field dealing with computer errors as hand-written ones--possibly more, since it seems like every year I marched that we used drill from a computer program, the drill writer would accidentally send some hapless member on a suicide endzone-to-endzone sprint and not realize it until we were trying to learn it.

So true. There's always a couple members that end up getting switched or there's a page missing here and there. Sometimes you can even tell where the drill writer stopped for the night and picked back up the next day and got a totally different idea going. It's also great when Pyware prints out a set of dots that don't belong to the drill at all. I could go on and on.. but really, I've done hand written drill and computer generated drill and both have their ups and downs. I've found that drills completed on the computer tend to have slightly higher demand with a smaller amount of rewrites. Sometimes, in order to make an idea work, the drill writer just makes it look pretty on the computer and tends to forget the human element... (3.5 to 5's aren't that bad, right?)

Technology..