2010 Finals Booing?

[MikeD]

A few boos? It was probably a few thousand. As long as people pay to watch a competition, there will be booing.

Boo's aside, there is more angst towards the drum corps activity & today's weird, dark, depressing show designs than ever before. This activity is just about at a crossroad where it can either save itself...or kill itself.

As for "ticks"...you & I both marched in the "tick" system. Surely you don't believe that the"tick" system was totally subjective, at least not nearly as subjective as the build up system. It was a more accountable & responsible system which allowed the corp staff & members to review where the mistakes occurred in the show.

This much I know...some things must change or this activity will die a slow death.

I marched, taught and judged under the tick system. Of course they were subjective. A judge on the field listened to a phrase being played and had to subjectively decide whether the attack/release, etc...was good or bad. If good, no tick. If bad...the judge had to decide whether the error was 0.1 bad, or did it deserve a 'group error'...giving it multiple ticks...and how may did it deserve? Two? Three?? Four? etc...In percussion, trying to effectively evaluate the pit using a tick sheet is really impossible.

A performance tape with comments is a far better mechanism of determining the weak areas...under ticks, when a tune ended we would just draw a vertical line on the sheet to indicate that the tune was done. You really did not know where the tick(s) happened within the number.

IMO....the best performance is not the same thing as the best execution. There is more to a performance than the elements a tick sheet could capture, esp with the advanced show designs we see today.

[BoBosco]

A few boos? It was probably a few thousand. As long as people pay to watch a competition, there will be booing.

Boo's aside, there is more angst towards the drum corps activity & today's weird, dark, depressing show designs than ever before. This activity is just about at a crossroad where it can either save itself...or kill itself.

As for "ticks"...you & I both marched in the "tick" system. Surely you don't believe that the"tick" system was totally subjective, at least not nearly as subjective as the build up system. It was a more accountable & responsible system which allowed the corp staff & members to review where the mistakes occurred in the show.

This much I know...some things must change or this activity will die a slow death.

The activity has died a long painful slow death for me since the mid-90's. It's called artistic expression, I do beleive, and it has morphed into the elitism that defines a drum corps staff. I remember when finals used to be exciting from 12th place to 1st place performances, when the crowd would at leap from their seats for something in each and every show and when the shows had something that really made you WANT TO CLAP YOUR HANDS OFF! well, last year I sat on my hands and was bored to death through most of the shows, because it's art, not drum corps. Oh, yes, I say that again...it's art, not drum corps. So, I wish I heard the booing, I likely would have turned to the crowd and said -"where were you 15 years ago when all this started ferment?" I like how you said, weird, dark, depressing show designs. Yes, that is the best way I can think of describing it. I told my friends that I thought last years shows were a terrible waste of such good talent. The talent of the kids in the corps wasted by the idocy of staff's over creativeness. Someone force all the staff's to watch 1980-1990 finals vidoes and tell them why the crowd cheered for all the corps loudly! Oh, never mind, they don't care, they have creative expressions to waste good talent with.

(sigh) If you want art, go to the musuem or the stage, if you want drum corps....thank god for the legacy collection.

[GUARDLING]

The activity has died a long painful slow death for me since the mid-90's. It's called artistic expression, I do beleive, and it has morphed into the elitism that defines a drum corps staff. I remember when finals used to be exciting from 12th place to 1st place performances, when the crowd would at leap from their seats for something in each and every show and when the shows had something that really made you WANT TO CLAP YOUR HANDS OFF! well, last year I sat on my hands and was bored to death through most of the shows, because it's art, not drum corps. Oh, yes, I say that again...it's art, not drum corps. So, I wish I heard the booing, I likely would have turned to the crowd and said -"where were you 15 years ago when all this started ferment?" I like how you said, weird, dark, depressing show designs. Yes, that is the best way I can think of describing it. I told my friends that I thought last years shows were a terrible waste of such good talent. The talent of the kids in the corps wasted by the idocy of staff's over creativeness. Someone force all the staff's to watch 1980-1990 finals vidoes and tell them why the crowd cheered for all the corps loudly! Oh, never mind, they don't care, they have creative expressions to waste good talent with.

(sigh) If you want art, go to the musuem or the stage, if you want drum corps....thank god for the legacy collection.

There were just as many snoozers back then also I remember hating YES hating Suncoast for their show designs and how deep and boring they were and although people love them now Star was disliked quite a bit because IT WASNT DRUM CORPS. Its always IMO been a subjective form of entertainment with designers pushing the envelope YES even back in the 70s......I think people forget that and we all tend to have selective memory at times.

[Captncontra]

Would you go to a symphony concert and boo their performance just because you didn't like their programming?

If someone chopped up a Mozart concerto as much as BD chops up everything they play? Absolutely.

[The Other Mike]

If someone chopped up a Mozart concerto as much as BD chops up everything they play? Absolutely.

Now THAT, gets a high five for funny mental image of a PDQ Bach concert

[The Other Mike]

sorry, double post, please feel free to boo me

Edited August 15, 2010 by The Other Mike

[THeShadeOfNight]

Blah blah back in my day blah

shortened up your post for ya. I feel bad for you, truthfully that you can no longer enjoy an activity as enriching and precise as this. I hope you find something you like again someday.

And don't EVEN tell me "old" fans leaving the activity is a tragedy. They will be replaced, easily, ten-fold. If you could see the area I live in and how many band kids convert to Drum Corps-ism DAILY you would know dci is alive and well. Will be for a LONG time commin...

Also this isn't flamebait (at least any more than booing is...)

[The Other Mike]

shortened up your post for ya. I feel bad for you, truthfully that you can no longer enjoy an activity as enriching and precise as this. I hope you find something you like again someday.

And don't EVEN tell me "old" fans leaving the activity is a tragedy. They will be replaced, easily, ten-fold. If you could see the area I live in and how many band kids convert to Drum Corps-ism DAILY you would know dci is alive and well. Will be for a LONG time commin...

Also this isn't flamebait (at least any more than booing is...)

ANY fans leaving is a tragedty

[Captncontra]

And don't EVEN tell me "old" fans leaving the activity is a tragedy. They will be replaced, easily, ten-fold.

Obviously you didn't didn't see the half-empty stands at finals this year.

[GUARDLING]

ANY fans leaving is a tragedty

its happend before and will again. I remember in the 70s and 80s family memebers who came before me hardly went to shows because it was the DEADLY DCI...THE DOWNFALL OF DRUM CORPS and said what we did was NOT drum Corps anymore. I will say 30 plus years later what I said to them then. " Get over it" like it or not it "IS" drum Corps NOW!!!!