DeKalb, IL

[wheelerand]

Teri,

I think he said that because from his field level vantage point he couldn't see them well enough to form an opinion.

Mike

Mike,

That's exactly the problem I have with us fans saying the judges were right or the judges were wrong, in general. Now in this case I happen to agree with Teri; I thought Cap Sound had the better performance and definitely the more high-impact show Friday night. However, I also know that as a fan, I cannot possibly see the entire corps at once well enough to score them. If I'm watching the drummers (which I have a tendency to do), then how do I know how well the guard is doing? And I almost NEVER watch the pit...

That's why there is a team of judges for these shows - they can concentrate on areas and make much better judgments than can the average fan in the stands. Now, having said that, I do think it's possible to disagree with the way an individual judge scored a particular caption if you happened to be paying attention to that caption. I did not look at the caption scores for Cap Sound at DeKalb and compare them to previous scores, so I really can't comment on the individual captions very well, but others who have looked at those scores may well have some valid points about how DeKalb was scored.

I admit that the judging process has me a bit baffled. I was at Finals last year - every performance. I saw the Cavies score higher on Finals night than they did on SemiFinals night with a show that just plain lacked the energy of Semifinals. I saw Magic score over a 99 with a show in which one person fell down, of all things. So I freely admit that I am no expert on judging or scoring. Nor would I want to be - it's a thankless job, like being an umpire in baseball. The best - THE BEST - you can hope for is that you won't be noticed.

Now I do believe that even I could go to a given show and watch a caption - say Cap Sound's guard - and then watch that same caption in the next show and make a somewhat intelligent comment about whether the second show was better than the first, etc. But as I understand it, that has no real bearing on the scores. It's more germane, if I understand correctly, to compare scores within a given show. So I'm not sure it would be reasonable of me to say, "corps X should have scored Y in caption Z because last show, they scored Y-1 in that caption and they were better in this show". As I understand the scoring system, it would be more relevant to say, "Corps X was better than Corps Y in caption Z, so they should get a higher score in that caption". Am I getting the gist of the system?

[audiodb]

Am I getting the gist of the system?

I'd say so.

And also bear in mind that no one can see or hear everything. Even the judge assigned to judge field percussion, for example, has a number of different sections to evaluate (snares, tenors, basses, cymbals, assorted pit performers, etc.). His focus may be drawn to a tough snare lick for a moment, missing something that the marimbas are doing at that same time. He may move in close for a better chance to evaluate one section, but at the expense of missing another (they refer to that practice as "sampling"). Over the course of the performance, each section will get a fair share of the competent judge's attention, though.

In the same manner, we can't catch everything from the spectator's vantage point. But we can certainly express opinions on the portion we do catch.

[TerriDitt57]

I really don't want to be rude here but to totally disregard the guard? 

Huh? I'm not disregarding the guards, just admitting that I couldn't see them from where I was.

do you at all understand where the HUGE discrepancy came from?  They lost THREE freaking points from their show in Whitewater July 9th.

Ah, the perils of comparing scores from different shows....

Nevermind... Hands in air in disgust.

I never lost 3 pts in all the years in marched juniors. even going from Local IDBCA shows to DCI shows.

that was total corps. But that's just fine.........

I will adapt........(drinking purple koolaid.....)