On the Drastic Change in Arranging Style

[Lance]

"How true something is to the original" is not a subjective claim.

yes, it is, even if you agree with the person's opinion.

[Hrothgar15]

yes, it is, even if you agree with the person's opinion.

Not if we have an objective measure by which to define it, which we do. There's no subjectivity in the measurement, only inaccuracy. A perfectly accurate measurement of the edit distance between two musical arrangements is not a function of the opinions of the measurer.

Great. Now you're going to get me actually implementing an applicable form of the algorithm just to prove my point.

[Lance]

Great. Now you're going to get me actually implementing an applicable form of the algorithm just to prove my point.

You're the one who's using this theoretical "dci arrangement comparison algorithm" as the entire source of evidence for your claim.

I believe it is possible to make one, though. It would be fun to put it to the test for say SCV 88 vs. 89, or for measuring the "trueness" of different orchestral arrangements of the original piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition. Take into account what happens to overtones when you change the key of a piece and the choice of instruments used in combination with each other as opposed to another combination, and you're talking about a pretty sophisticated "objective measure."

[Hrothgar15]

I believe it is possible to make one, though. It would be fun to put it to the test for say SCV 88 vs. 89, or for measuring the "trueness" of different orchestral arrangements of the original piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition. Take into account what happens to overtones when you change the key of a piece and the choice of instruments used in combination with each other as opposed to another combination, and you're talking about a pretty sophisticated "objective measure."

Definitely. What I have in mind works with a numeric representation of the written music, not an acoustic sampling, so it wouldn't take into account overtones. The SCV 1988 vs. 1989 example is a pretty straightforward one. The openers are largely different so there's some percentage with no similarity at all, and then depending on what the weights would be for added/removed passages, instrumentation switches, etc., the dissimilarity would increase for the Masquerade opening duet, repeated initial Masquerade verse for '88, switch from ensemble ('88) to euphonium solo ('89) leading into the push at the end, etc. Nothing subjective except for how you weight the different classes of deviations, but there's even a way around that.

I think we're getting on the same page.

[mobrien]

"How true something is to the original" is not a subjective claim. It is an objective, mathematical claim.

The moment you take a piece of music and change the orchestration, re-write the phrases, drop stanzas, etc, etc, you've changed it. "How much" seems to be a pointless metric. Has it been changed? Yes. Why would changing it a little be better or worse than changing it a lot? What if changing it a lot made it better suited to the medium?It's what friggin medium are you IN, and how the piece been modified to maximize its impact IN THAT MEDIUM that matters.

Again, this whole over-hyped argument is misplaced following this season, considering that the arrangements on the field, outside of BD, were very conservative. The least conservative approach may have been Shanefield and McIntosh's re-imagining of "Dismantling Utopia" into being something very different (and in a drum corps setting, BETTER) than what PMG originally recorded. That would seem to indicate that sometimes, getting far off the reservation is a good thing - which starts cutting the legs out from the whole one-size-fits-all belief re: what is and isn't 'good arranging.'

===

Can't we just get a special sub-forum titled "I Hated BD 2010, Therefore All Modern Drum Corps sucks" and be done with it?

Edited November 18, 2010 by mobrien

[Hrothgar15]

Again, this whole over-hyped argument is misplaced this season, considering that the arrangements on the field, outside of BD, were conservative. Too conservative for my tastes, with the exception of Shanefield and McIntosh's re-imagining of "Dismantling Utopia" into being something very different (and in a drum corps setting, BETTER) than what PMG originally recorded.

Can't we just get a special sub-forum titled "I Hated BD 2010, Therefore Modern All Drum Corps sucks" and be done with it?

Wasn't going to bring up the Blue Devils 2010 show in this topic, but we can talk about it if you want.

Plenty of the music this past season was arranged conservatively, but how much was arranged idiomatically as identified in the MSARP clip and in this topic? With a few notable exceptions, not much. The Glassmen's 2010 wind arrangements, say, could have fit just as well for a scholastic marching band, but as for that of the clip in the first post, not a chance.

[Stu]

> "The drastic change in arranging style is astounding, and mostly what's responsible for a decreased personal emotional connection (this I'm sure of) and audience emotional connection (just a conjecture, don't want to speak for others, IMO, IMHO, what have you). What's caused it?"

Well, you have actually posted “what caused it” without realizing it. Here it is in your own words with a short explanation of how you answered your own question following your quote:

> "How true something is to the original" is not a subjective claim. It is an objective, mathematical claim. It's defined by the so-called "edit distance" between notes and sections in the arrangement compared to those in the original. This is the same algorithm used by word processing applications to determine which alternative words to suggest for a misspelled word, say those with the smallest n edit distances. Sure, you can define the formula in different ways, but as long as you're explicit, there's no room for subjectivity or bias outside of the mathematical sense… What I have in mind works with a numeric representation of the written music, not an acoustic sampling, so it wouldn't take into account overtones."

These postings need to be the beginning of a thesis placed in an academic periodical that only three people will ever read for the sole purposes of completing Doctoral studies and/or professor tenure-ship! DCI arrangers of old did not write theoretical music on paper within the context of a cerebral academic process, they just wrote stuff that sounded good to their ear!!!

Edited November 18, 2010 by Stu

[Bruckner8]

lol at these in particular.

the idea of pieces being more true to the original back in the day is also hilarious.

I used the term "original" in the following contexts, both of which were left out of your critique!

<<4) BRASS: Addition of harmonic elements to melodic line that were never in original (trumpet divisis on rising lines, end of intro)>>

<<8) Very clear phrase structure (that is, usuing the original music as it was intended, instead of trying to make it do something it doesn't want to do)>>

So, let me get this straight...you work hard to quote only #s 6, 10, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, yet the focus of your criticism is based on #s 4 and 8.

RE: #8. Musical phrase *IS PRECISELY* the one thing that can transcend transcription. The entire point of the OP is to find such things, note them, and then ask "why do arrangers insist on NOT doing that today?" Musical phrase is the ONE THING that CAN be traced back to the original, easily, without mind-numbing analysis from the listener. For even if Madison has turned their hornline upside-down, given the melody to the tubas, and background the middle/upper voices, I'm sure the phrases would've still felt natural. I'm claiming natural phrases, as intended in the original, is an idiomatic choice of the time period...completely in bounds with the current thesis.

How does that make me a target for humiliation? (i.e., amusing you, re: hilarious)

If one wants to gain credibility, one must show how my claim is incorrect. (I'll help you out: To do that, you'll need to show that original phrasing does NOT match the arrangement, or that everyone today sticks to original phrase intent. Good luck with that.)

RE: #4. This is just a fact. I'm lost as to how that can be used to "diss" someone.

I'm no protector of "original intent." If you knew me better, you'd know that I'm usually one to say "As soon as we arrange it for drum corps, it's not original anymore, so get over yourselves." I get your overall point.

But you're completely out of touch with the process of Thesis<>Critique in this context.

[mobrien]

Plenty of the music this past season was arranged conservatively, but how much was arranged idiomatically as identified in the MSARP clip and in this topic? With a few notable exceptions, not much. The Glassmen's 2010 wind arrangements, say, could have fit just as well for a scholastic marching band, but as for that of the clip in the first post, not a chance.

In other words, you've set up this imaginary demarcation point in your mind ("idiomaticallly correct"), and anything that doesn't fit the criteria is wrong or bad.

Ok.

I DID old school drum corps in the 70s and early 80s. We had fun, but those of us with music backgrounds back then knew that a lot of of we and other corps were doing was pretty crass. There were a few masters in the art form (Ott, Sanford and Royer, most notably), but there were also a lot of well-intentioned weekend warriors who could only turn out "drum corps versions" of whatever you handed them. I'd argue that the style of the 70s and early 80s was less eclectic than now, and while there are some current cliches I'd like to see retired, by and large, arrangers seem to have figured out how to marry more sophisticated voicings with the specific, unusual needs of a musical form whose musicians are constantly moving in and out of close range to the audience.

Edited November 18, 2010 by mobrien

[3rd Glasgow BB]

It's not an opinion but rather a falsifiable hypothesis.

ooooooo!!!

If you don't mind I'll borrow that sentence and drop it into the "how was your day at work dear" conversation I plan to have with my wife over dinner.