Blue Devils Guard

[CorpsFan710]

Top 3 things that confuse me about BD's guard:

1.) Lack of spinning on the move - Well, they have 2 of the 3 down....Body and EQ.

2.) Functional transitions - BD's guard was the only guard in the top 5 that would just hold their equipment and run across the field to their new spot....stop....then spin. So distracting. Surprised they didn't get nailed for this in Ensemble too.

3.) Lack of vocabulary (comparatively) - Not nearly the amount of EQ variety as the other top 5. (ok, as Cavs, BC, and Crown...they have more than the Cadets).

Those 20s should have been 19.5 at the most....I can see a 10 in Achievement, but there's no way they deserved above a 9.5 in Content when they're being ranked within the box with the other top 5 guards. I thought they'd be at least 3rd in Content behind Cavies and Crown...very close to BC. I bet there's a lot of discussion on how the top box is supposed to be judged this off-season. Scott Chandler has put a spell on the DCI judging community.

Edited August 18, 2010 by CorpsFan710

[do.it.up.]

BD's guard was hands down the best at Finals. I don't buy the argument that they had less difficult work, either. Having some background in guard, I definitely thought BD had the hardest work this year, and last year. All of the ridiculous backhanded rifle work, partner lifts, and unison tosses made for a spectacular equipment and movement book. Their work undoubtedly compliments and accentuates their music in a way I have not seen from any other guard.

Congratulations to the BD guard for 3 perfect 20's! WOW!

[chealion313]

BD's guard members are GREAT performers, great dancers, and great with equipment work...BUT to receive perfect scores each night when there were obvious drops? Not buying it. Last time I checked, dropping does not make a guard perfect. 19.8, 19.9, maybe..but definitely not worth a 20.

[saxfreq1128]

2.) Functional transitions - BD's guard was the only guard in the top 5 that would just hold their equipment and run across the field to their new spot....stop....then spin. So distracting. Surprised they didn't get nailed for this in Ensemble too.

3.) Lack of vocabulary (comparatively) - Not nearly the amount of EQ variety as the other top 5. (ok, as Cavs, BC, and Crown...they have more than the Cadets).

Those 20s should have been 19.5 at the most....I can see a 10 in Achievement, but there's no way they deserved above a 19.5 in Content when they're being ranked within the box with the other top 5 guards. I thought they'd be at least 3rd in Content behind Cavies and Crown...very close to BC. I bet there's a lot of discussion on how the top box is supposed to be judged this off-season. Scott Chandler has put a spell on the DCI judging community.

Regarding point 2... I noticed that too. Then again, it fit the general movement philosophy of the entire corps this year, no? The guard wasn't the only section to stop what they were doing and run to another spot. I thought it made their responsibilities more consistent with the rest of the corps.

#3... I guess I'd disagree. If anything, this ought to show people that a trickier book does not a better/more effective book make. I thought the variety of responsibilities all of the guards you mentioned showed was incredible, but I do think BD edged them all out in the end. I /remember/ parts of BD's work, just from watching it. I don't think the other guards were quite as distinctive, on the whole. There were exceptions -- the opener work from BC was incredible, Crown's flag line always kills, Cavs' movement during 'Smile' was fantastic... but on the whole?

Edited August 18, 2010 by saxfreq1128

[do.it.up.]

BD's guard members are GREAT performers, great dancers, and great with equipment work...BUT to receive perfect scores each night when there were obvious drops? Not buying it. Last time I checked, dropping does not make a guard perfect. 19.8, 19.9, maybe..but definitely not worth a 20.

With this judging system, 20 does not mean "perfect".

If the second place guard was given a score of 19.8 or 19.9 and BD was better in the judges' eyes (drops or not), there's no way to justify that they didn't deserve a score of 20.

[CorpsFan710]

Regarding point 2... I noticed that too. Then again, it fit the general movement philosophy of the entire corps this year, no? The guard wasn't the only section to stop what they were doing and run to another spot. I thought it made their responsibilities more consistent with the rest of the corps.

if your design choice is to transition poorly, that should be your design choice, and you should be judged accordingly even if it fits your concept. If I title a show "Bach Chorales and triplet rolls" and just play bach chorales and triplet rolls, should i get rewarded the same as people who make design choices which give them the opportunity to display higher levels of coordination in their musical book? The fact that their horns, drums, and props transitioned just as poorly as their colorguard should've affected the ensemble and effect sheets even more. Bad orchestration isn't a motif, it's bad orchestration. You can't claim things as fitting your concept and expect words written on the sheet to be ignored because of it. That's part of the game of design: Design a show that creatively explores the parameters agreed upon by the rules committee. Theoretically, that's how you make sure it's an even playing field - Everyone knows prior to the season what will be rewarded and what will not.

#3... I guess I'd disagree. If anything, this ought to show people that a trickier book does not a better/more effective book make. I thought the variety of responsibilities all of the guards you mentioned showed was incredible, but I do think BD edged them all out in the end. I /remember/ parts of BD's work, just from watching it. I don't think the other guards were quite as distinctive, on the whole. There were exceptions -- the opener work from BC was incredible, Crown's flag line always kills, Cavs' movement during 'Smile' was fantastic... but on the whole?

BD smoked everyone in achievement...which is acceptable... it's been obvious for a while that "achievement" no longer means "derived achievement" in the judging community --- it now means "cleanliness". My argument isn't even that they shouldn't have won guard. I just think they should've been 3rd in the top box at BEST. If that means they were 9.5/10.0 and second place was 9.8/9.5, so be it. You have to rank and spread correctly within subcaptions also.

[DAvery]

OK LETS TRY 100 WORDS OR LESS...LOL..I HATE LONG POSTS..LOL

Guard= inherent in all captions

Even the music captions?

Corps proper=( visually, dance or whatever)...GE

You mean Vis GE, right?

Corps proper on guard equipment=Guard and GE Judge

Why is the "corps proper" only evaluated by the guard judge when they are on "guard equipment"? What is "guard equipment"? If your guard uses a trumpet as a prop, should that be considered "guard equipment" for the entire corps? And what about work with no equipment? If work with no equipment by the "guard" is evaluated by the guard judge, why not the "corps proper" also? This would be the specialist, why do evaluate ALL body movement?

[DAvery]

,

Edited August 18, 2010 by DAvery

[saxfreq1128]

if your design choice is to transition poorly, that should be your design choice, and you should be judged accordingly even if it fits your concept. If I title a show "Bach Chorales and triplet rolls" and just play bach chorales and triplet rolls, should i get rewarded the same as people who make design choices which give them the opportunity to display higher levels of coordination in their musical book? The fact that their horns, drums, and props transitioned just as poorly as their colorguard should've affected the ensemble and effect sheets even more. Bad orchestration isn't a motif, it's bad orchestration. You can't claim things as fitting your concept and expect words written on the sheet to be ignored because of it. That's part of the game of design: Design a show that creatively explores the parameters agreed upon by the rules committee. Theoretically, that's how you make sure it's an even playing field - Everyone knows prior to the season what will be rewarded and what will not.

Unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending on how you look at it -- given the current judging circumstances, that's exactly what BD did: creative exploration of the set parameters of a drum corps show. I do see your point, but it'd be difficult to argue that what they did is contrary to what the sheets have made available for reward. It also depends on how you're defining bad orchestration... I'm not sure that the judges were rewarding the 'chaos'. I think they were rewarding the fact that the chaos was so intelligently planned and deliberate. Random chaos is easy to improvise, and is consequently messy; planned chaos that masks its own coordination is pretty difficult, and I think the judges were convinced that BD was offering the latter.

As for "evening the playing field": I think knowing what will/won't be rewarded is always contingent on the years and years of performance that have come before the shows in question. Whether or not BD 2010 will ultimately be a total game changer remains to be seen, but I think it's safe to say that from here on, what judges will come to expect of corps using props will change; now, some props will have to be a lot more integrated and a lot less static to be as impressive.

It's about precedent, and continually, corps (not just BD, and not just this year) are setting new ones.

Edited August 18, 2010 by saxfreq1128

[corpsband]

Unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending on how you look at it -- given the current judging circumstances, that's exactly what BD did: creative exploration of the set parameters of a drum corps show. I do see your point, but it'd be difficult to argue that what they did is contrary to what the sheets have made available for reward. It also depends on how you're defining bad orchestration... I'm not sure that the judges were rewarding the 'chaos'. I think they were rewarding the fact that the chaos was so intelligently planned and deliberate. Random chaos is easy to improvise, and is consequently messy; planned chaos that masks its own coordination is pretty difficult, and I think the judges were convinced that BD was offering the latter.

Interesting pov.

It's my understanding brass, perc and guard are narrow focus performance captions in which there's a very clear "what" in the top box and a "how" in the bottom box. Clearly the perc judges understand this concept and I congratulate them on their ability to limit their focus to their caption. Your argument above would seem to indicate that this is not the case in guard. If you limit yourself to "what" and "how" I'm not sure I can understand the way this caption was judged top to bottom.

Thought experiment: have each guard do an empty field run thru with the show music piped in over speakers. Evaluate the guards. Do the numbers you come up with even vaguely resemble the numbers in Indy?