Isn't It Time to Revamp the Judging System?

[Jeff Ream]

I would suggest defining the sheets as audience effect rather than audience reaction for just that reason. Look, any system you choose is subjective and practically arbitrary. I would much rather see one that at least has the goal of rewarding shows that are designed to elicit reactions from the audience.

Mike

how would you define audience effect other than audience reaction? based on what you say above, it's still the same thing.

the problem with GE is, that what fans think is GE, and what is on the sheets do not coincide.

I dont have a copy of DCI's GE sheets, so let's use WGI's percussion GE sheet

MUSIC EFFECT

Communication

how do you translate that to the crowd?

Musicianship

ok that can translate somewhat...but often the "gimmicks or effects" get credit over the cleanliness

Creativity

incredibly subjective. what you may find creative, I may not, and the guy next to us may find it totally different yet

Blend and Balance

if anything can get to the crowd here, it's bad blend and balance

Excellence as relate to Effect

what we may define as excellent, others may not

Expression

what you may find beautiful I may find hideous

Idiomatic Interpretation

some people love the sytle of jazz BD plays now...or well, the arrangment of it. others detest it. so how does audience appeal fit into this

OVERALL EFFECT

communication...so the corps that swaggers the best or implores the fans to give it up score well here?

Audio/Visual Coordination

what some people think lines up well, others don't.

Imagination/Creativity.

please opinions vary so widely on this even in indoor

Pacing and Continuity

to be honest, I doubt the average fan even thinks about this

Impact/Resolution

some people want every tune to end loud. some fans love soft endings. Some fans love some of each.

Range of Effects:

again, depends on what you the fan likes.

Entertainment

hell we can't even agree on that on DCP, how can you get a stadium full of people to agree?

[crfrey71]

I think the main objective is making changes in the judging system would be to somehow eliminate the "leaving room" problem that judges have to deal with. This is turn gives the perception of slotting. Again, if a corps deserves a 9.3, like one poster mentioned, then give them that score.

The one thing that happened for the worse when we went from the tic system to the build-up system is that we don't have corps winning a caption, like for example, the Bridgemen did with percussion, back in 1982, when the corps itself finished 8th place.

Look at 1990, the DCI championships, the corps finished in the same exact order in every major caption (Total GE,Total Visual and Total Music). I find that hard to believe that not one corps could be better than another corps in one caption, while not as strong as the same corps in another caption.

http://www.corpsreps.com/scores.cfm?view=s...;showid=1990186

Edited June 30, 2010 by crfrey71

[MikeN]

how would you define audience effect other than audience reaction? based on what you say above, it's still the same thing.

Good examples, there, but I submit you can do that for any GE caption from any major circuit. <shrug> If you feel GE is appropriate as-is, then that's that. But I submit that if you want to see shows freed from the need to sometimes abandon the audience for judges, then you have to first adjust the criteria so that doing so doesn't get rewarded.

As an admittedly extreme example for 2010, I'd say while BD is marching and playing the pants off of everyone in execution, they'd not be winning the battle for "audience effect." (Of course, were I king for a day I'd also decrease the value of GE / design against performance, I think that what you do is not insignificant, but not as important as how you do it. Which dovetails into my earlier post about the competitive aspect that keeps getting buried.)

Mike

[luvah]

If it were up to me, I would add a judge to judge the whole show from a single perspective. This judge would concentrate on things like musical staging. Musical and stylistic continuity. How does the visual package support the musical package, ect.

Right now we have 5, 8, or a double panel of judges judging parts of the show, and no one watching the whole show. Here are some examples of design flaws or staging and continuity issues that the current judging sheets miss. I.E. The current judging system, from a fractional judging system perspective actually rewards things that are design flaws (that take away from the overall effect of the experience) from a single perspective.

1) The whole trick to drill design is to effectively stage a horn show--with kids playing the horns. Obviously, if we take a 3 or 4 minute break from playing the horns during our 10 minute drum and bugle corps show, then the drill designer is free from the encumbrance of musical staging issues, and that frees up the drill designer and the visual performers to do many things that the visual judges will like--things that would be impossible if the horns were being played. So, the judging actually rewards corps for not playing the horns. When I see a drum corps take advantage of this hole in the judging system, I call it a "musical discontinuity." If we continue down our current design trend, we will begin to wonder why we are carrying around these silly hunks of metal w/ only a very limited visual appeal. We could just move all the music into the "pit"--that way we could free up the visual performers to do things like dance around on the field. I don't know if there is an activity like that, with a "pit" orchestra--with visual performers dancing on a stage? What would we call that? LOL.

1 cont) In fact, there are an array of staging issues that effect the way the music is perceived by the audience. For ex: Big horns speak slower so if the low brass is back field it has a tendency to be heard by the audience as late. That can also cause front to back phasing visually. Modern drum lines tend to lose presence when back field, so there are limitations on what drum lines should play backfield--only things like open rolls, and accent tap patterns that can have presence to the audience. If the drum line is playing back field and the drum judge who is standing 2 feet in front of the snares is the only one who hears it, what's the point of that? A related issue is caused by the fact that most drum corps don't have cymbals any more. The cymbals are all on front sideline. If the drum judge goes out to the middle of the field to listen to the battery solo, he remains unaware that all the audience can hear are the sus. cymbals on the front sideline. These are musical staging issues that my judge would help the corps fix before finals.

So, My judge would certainly take Music staging and musical continuity into account in a way that the present sheets ignore.

2) The visual design should draw the eye to a single point of emphasis on the field. In visual art appreciation, we are continually aware that a painting should "draw the eye" or "lead the eye" to a single focal point. If it does not, that is a design flaw in the art. For drum corps, that focal point is continually changing, but it should always exist. We should not reward visual aspects of a show that draw the audiences eyes away from a musical soloist. We used to have the idea that a standing drum solo was appropriate, the assumption being that the audience would enjoy watching the drummers hands for a few seconds while they take their licks. But because of the fractured nature of the judging sheets, corps have been forced to abandon this idea-- and now we can't even see the drummers hands during the solo, because they are dancing around or marching. Visual judges seem to have a problem with the idea that the drummers hands should be the visual focus during the battery solo (they just can't take their eyes off the color guard). My judge wouldn't have this prejudice. His attention would go wherever the design of the show told it to go, and if his attention was pulled by distracting influences, he would help the corps get the issue ironed out before finals.

There are other issues as well (like should the show be designed primarily for a low or a high audience), but we need at least 1 judge to take the "whole show" into account from a single perspective.

LUVAH

[Jeff Ream]

Good examples, there, but I submit you can do that for any GE caption from any major circuit. <shrug> If you feel GE is appropriate as-is, then that's that. But I submit that if you want to see shows freed from the need to sometimes abandon the audience for judges, then you have to first adjust the criteria so that doing so doesn't get rewarded.

As an admittedly extreme example for 2010, I'd say while BD is marching and playing the pants off of everyone in execution, they'd not be winning the battle for "audience effect." (Of course, were I king for a day I'd also decrease the value of GE / design against performance, I think that what you do is not insignificant, but not as important as how you do it. Which dovetails into my earlier post about the competitive aspect that keeps getting buried.)

Mike

I'm not saying it's perfect as is. I'm just saying that adding in the audience is actually making muddy waters look like the Cuyahoga River back in the 70's.

Hence, like you, I'd like to see different weighting to the what and how.

and really the easy way to do it is have the judges still have 100 to work with per sub box, and let the multipliers handle it like WGI does.

WGI Percussion for the PA sheet is 15 out of 40. Judge puts out a number out of 100, and the laptop multiplies that number by 1.5...viola, a 9.0 becomes 13.5. for the how, that 90 becomes 22.5

add the two up and you have 36 out of 40.

so, take that 90 in book on the DCI sheet and multiply by .75...you have 6.75. then take the what and multiple by 1.25...that 90 becomes 11.25.

add em up you get an 18 out of 20

[Joe Salvatore]

I was in on the discussion regarding the five-judge panel model when it was first voted in. One reason for the five-judge panel in the early season is that it allows DCI to afford to send judges around the country to sample all the corps and to offer the kind of input that might be too late if only offered at the end of the season. This has gone a long way to eliminate the regional differences fans often complained about in distant years, when corps would come out strong in one region and take a scoring hit when encountering judges from other regions. It's the fairest to the corps and the members to know where they stand according to a national linear scale that is uniform and fair.

Thanks for the clarification on that Michael, I often wondered if that was the case.

My ideas in no particular order of emphasis:

1. Clean it or no/less credit (was the case in the early adoption of the tickless system of 83 - 86ish) - not a tick system but does not permit full credit until cleaned

2. I like the 2 execution judges (lot of ground to cover and complexity of show visual designs having members everywhere) and especially want 2 different opinions averaged together at major shows (no 1 judge with particular preferences making final decision)

3. Would like a 3rd visual/color guard execution judge in the box - really tierd of great and impressive designs that seem impossibly difficult to judge execution from the field resulting in rather untidy lines when viewed from where us audience members view the shows

4. Even out the major captions of GE, Visual, Music (like 34, 33, 33 points)

I especially disagree with George Hopkins propsal to remove the percussion execution judge from the field.

[Joe Salvatore]

oh one other tweak.....

get rid of ensemble music and bring back percussion ensemble and brass ensemble. now, if you have a horn player, your view is skewed that way, and the opposite if it's a drummer

Wow, good contribution Jeff.

I really did not realize that they had combined them in that manner.

I am all for a spearate judge for each.

[Ed from Kansas]

There are a lot of good ideas here. My belief is that execution is very important. Straight lines, cleanly played music, etc. Eliminate the slotting and have the corps perform in a random order. What is being done now definitely punishes the corps that have to go on first because they have to leave room at the top. I'm not an expert but I do believe that some tpe of tic system would level the playing field.

[Bob984]

I still think that effect, especially music effect, remains the number one scoring problem, and yet there is no easy solution......it will always be more subjective than performance.....

I know the difference between a great arrangement, an ok arrangement, and a poor arrangement.............keep in mind that performance excellence only impacts how well an arrangement is played.....if the arrangement is weak, performance excellence does not necessarily make it much better.........for me, I think the quality of musical arrangement (continuity, emotion, dynamic range/contrast, melodic content, and phrasing opportunities) have a huge bearing on musical effect. When I think of what I consider to be great shows from the past, all of them had great/memorable arrangements. My problem today is I don't think programs that have excellent arrangements which are working are fully rewarded. Worse, is corps that have arrangement problems and having trouble with musical continuity are still getting very high effect marks if the book is well performed, thus making the "effect" caption simply another performance caption. When a musical book does not connect with a majority of the audience, yet receives an astronomical effect score; I have a problem with that.

I also agree that the whole "hometown" thing can have an effect on the crowd and possibly distort things, but not to the extent listed on some of these posts. I have seen fans in Allentown go wild for west coast and midwest corps, actually booing once when the eastern favorite was a little too close to a western corps that deserved a clear win. I do think a great musical program will be well received regardless of where it is performed. When a program has emotionally captivated the audience (for example, 2008 Phantom), it needs to be fully rewarded in the effect caption, and if deserved, a spread should happen over a program that does not fully lock with the audience, no matter how well it is performed. Effect scores should not necessarily correlate to performance scores.....it should be totally feasible to win performance and be 8th in effect, or win effect and be 8th in performance. You will never see that happen, though, unless a change in judging effect philosophy and retraining occurs. I am not saying that we should make effect an "applausometer". However, I do think that a corps should have to "move" an audience in order to achieve extreme scores, which is why I suggested adding a box 6 for 19 or above in the caption......if a creative team can't produce a product that totally moves the audience, the corps should not be an automatic lock to win just because they are clean.

An effect caption should be maintained, and it will never be perfect, but I think that the music effect caption has been where the most flawed evaluations have happened, and where there is room for overhaul, change, and retraining.

GB

[whitedawn]

end scoring, because it is ridiculous to start with.