Judges biased towards some corps

[AmFlag61]

I can't belive im going to get into this one but heres my take..ughhhh

you are very right "G"

Problem is the audiance ( which it's good there is one..lol ) is filled with:

1. Parents who even if there kid pooped all over the field....They got screwed

2. 2 year drumcorps experts. ( you know all that wisdom )

3.40 year experts ( again, you know all that wisdom ) alot with great experience, others wouldn't like anything today if Mother theresa herself designed it.

4. Plain ole experts who marched......you know the 3rd soprando in 1970 who got put on the equipment truck because they couldnt play or march.

5. And of course the person who never judged...dont know or follow the sheets to know what is required or not.

6. and lastly the educated Drum Corps person or at least the ones who try.

Thank God their BUTTS are all in the seats otherwise there would be no audiance to perform for. But that is by nature , what we are an what we do, the good and bad of it

Personally, I've always enjoyed the shows that Mother Theresa designed, especially the '69 Our Lady Of The Night Knights show "Hello, Sailor".

[JimF-LowBari]

People b-wording about judging????

Y'all sound like a bunch of dinosaurs....

After all it's all about the education, right?

Edited August 18, 2010 by JimF-LowBari

[Vanguard07]

I think everyone is guilty of having a bias for this corps or that. Personally, I want to punch someone in the face every time I see SCV in 6th/7th place and BD celebrating another championship. And then, of course, I watch the videos and part of my has to honestly agree with the judges on this or that. I have never honestly see the judges make a decision that make me say "wtf?!"

[Plan9]

Since when ?? The Crowd is there to observe what going on. The crowd is full of parents, and bias and lack-of trained eyes. SImple as that.

Spectators are there to spectate, not adjudicate.

Performers pay their fee, break a sweat, march a show and compete and get judged for reasons that have made the activity what it is/was. Entertaining the crowd is the cherry on top. Not the sole reason for doing what we do.

G

Bravo G!

[GUARDLING]

Personally, I've always enjoyed the shows that Mother Theresa designed, especially the '69 Our Lady Of The Night Knights show "Hello, Sailor".

She was quite the designer wasn't she

[N.E. Brigand]

I can't believe I'm going to get into this one, but here's my take... ughhhh:

You are very right "G" -- the problem is the audience (and it's good there is one, lol) is filled with:

1. Parents who, even if their kid pooped all over the field, would say, "They got screwed";

2. Two-year drum corps experts (you know all that wisdom);

3. Forty-year experts (again, you know all that wisdom) -- a lot with great experience, others wouldn't like anything today if Mother Teresa herself designed it;

4. Plain ol' experts who marched: you know the 3rd soprano in 1970 who got put on the equipment truck because he couldn't play or march;

5. And of course the person who never judged: don't know or follow the sheets to know what is required or not;

6. and lastly, the educated drum corps person, or at least the ones who try to be.

Thank God all their butts are all in the seats; otherwise there would be no audience to perform for. But that is by its nature, what we are an what we do, the good and bad of it.

I think everyone is guilty of having a bias for this corps or that. Personally, I want to punch someone in the face every time I see SCV in 6th/7th place and BD celebrating another championship. And then, of course, I watch the videos and part of my has to honestly agree with the judges on this or that. I have never honestly see the judges make a decision that make me say "wtf?!"

OK, so the difficulty isn't the judges, but that (part of) the audience doesn't understand what's good and what's bad. What's the solution, that keeps that portion of the audience attending despite their current dissatisfaction with the product? Or are they unimportant enough that they can be allowed to leave?

[MikeN]

I've seen a couple of curious choices that left me scratching my head, purely through recaps. Note - I have no idea who judged what at DCI Finals this year.

Brass performance - corps finished in perfect order 1-12. I call BS on that, purely through statistics. Shouldn't be happening.

Adding double judges exposes what *should* be happening - no two judges agree. I've been involved with several musical activities, and the numbers almost *never* agree. Look at music GE - One had the top 5 in order, the other had *Crown* #1. However, both Visual GE judges had the top 6 in the same order, even down to the 5th place corps being in 3rd.

It looks like the only judge who had the real intent of actually ranking the corps was the field percussion judge, whose ordinals end up like with what you'd expect to see.

I think corps judging has become its own insular monster, where the idea has somehow taken hold that the rankings and ratings should build on this nice pretty arc all summer, showing steady improvement. Which is completely *not* how it works in actual performance or competition. Some nights are good, some are bad, some are *really* bad, some are spectacular - but this never gets reflected on the sheets.

Sorry, done with my rant.

Mike

[BRASSO]

The judges are the LEAST biased people at a drum corps show.

You don't think most of the the DCI music and brass judges have a bias in favor of older Classical Music over newer music genres like( say) Rap Music, Alternative Rock, or Country and Western Music ? Of course they do. The judges don't leave their preferences and biases behind when they put on their judges attire. That would be naive to think such a thing, imo. We All have biases and preferences.... judges included. They re as biased as the rest of us. The key is whether or not the judges can set those biases aside when judging a show that is not played to those natural biases and preferences the judges have. Some fans think yes.... some fans think no.

Edited August 18, 2010 by BRASSO

[N.E. Brigand]

You don't think most of the the DCI music and brass judges have a bias in favor of older Classical music over newer music genres like, say, Rap music, Alternative Rock, or Country & Western music? Of course they do.

If the music judges are biased in favor of older Classical music, it didn't show in the results this year, where jazz and pop held the top three spots.

And I don't know much about the background of DCI judges, but in marching band, at any rate, the programming certainly doesn't skew Classical. My own high school marching band director, who also served regularly as judge of other bands, never had us play Classical works (this was the late 1980s; he only retired this year). We competed with Broadway, Big Band, and even Prog. Rock, by likes of Duke Ellington, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the Alan Parsons Project.

Question for anyone knowledgeable in music history and/or theory: are there any good classification systems for music as a whole? A way to determine whether Bach and Puccini are more alike or more different from each other than are Johnny Cash and Black Eyed Peas? I have to wonder, when hundreds of years of music are lumped together as "Classical", whether musicians of the future will find Rock and Country & Western to be pretty much the same thing, more closely related to each other than Vivaldi is to Wagner.

[squeefritzmon]

Makes me wonder what these judges think. If this was pre-2007 we would be able to know. Ever since 2008, judge audio is not included on the dvds.