Jeff Ream Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Seconded. . . .procedurals on a marching band circuit might be boring to some, but, considering some of the most important changes made to the activity over the years see their gestation in these meetings, it would be great to hear the rationale some have for their ideas. I'd watch it, and open a DCP thread to argue about it. I think the whole Januals thing, minus possibly save super sensitive financial info should be shown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 and DCI is the corps themselves. Yup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRASSO Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 (edited) Some of the highest scoring shows I've judged on GE weren't happy sunshine shows that had the crowd going nuts. In most cases, a GE judge is fundamentally asking himself or herself if the theme as portrayed on the field had a coherence to it between music, visual, guard work and so forth. In other words did the show accomplish its stated theme. The brillance of the BD staff as I see it, is that there is no requirement at all that this show have coherence or any intelligence. Coherence for the Club Volataire theme runs counterproductiove to the theme's designed essence of incongruity, confusion, nonsense, and incoherence. As such, the show can leave the judge confused, conflicted, and yet not only not be penalized, but ironically there can be credit awarded for the shows confusion, incoherence and the ultimate unconnectedness of it all to anything.. audience, judge, performer, insight, or intelligence. The Dada group was the very essence of anti intellectualism as described by even those that were in this anarchist group. The theme selected by BD was brilliant from a purely competitive position because, unlike other shows from Corps, the BD show designers were under no fundamental requirements at all to have the theme make any sense whatsoever. By contrast, one can not do this with ( for example ) a Christmas theme or a Spartacus inspired theme or a Vegas inspired theme... or most themes for that matter. If none of these shows matched up well with the stated theme, we can be assured the judges would penalize them for such incongruity or a confused state of affairs on such conventional themes where a large degree of rational thought must prevail to make more conventional shows and themes work for the judges primarily, and secondarily for the audiences. Edited July 23, 2012 by BRASSO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danguernsey Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 In most cases, a GE judge is fundamentally asking himself or herself if the theme as portrayed on the field had a coherence to it between music, visual, guard work and so forth. In other words did the show accomplish its stated theme. The brillance of the BD staff as I see it, is that there is no requirement at all that this show have coherence or any intelligence. Coherence for the Club Volataire theme runs counterproductiove to the theme's designed essence of incongruity, confusion, nonsense, and incoherence. As such, the show can leave the judge confused, conflicted, and yet not only not be penalized, but ironically there can be credit awarded for the shows confusion, incoherence and the ultimate unconnectedness of it all to anything.. audience, judge, performer, insight, or intelligence. The Dada group was the very essence of anti intellectualism as described by even those that were in this anarchist group. Excellent observation. I might add that the Dadaists were also radically anti-formalist. They rebelled against the prevailing notion of beauty embodied in the formalist doctrine of "art for art's sake" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Proponents of "art for art's sake" (eg, Whistler) believed that the formal properties of art making--line, color, form, composition--are autonomous, or self-referential in-and-of themselves, freeing art from having to serve non-aesthetic ends like religion, politics, and morality. The Dadaists subverted what they felt was the disconnect between "art and life" in formalist practice, using "collage" to confound the boundaries between the two, blurring art and non-art elements appropriated, or "borrowed," from social life (manufactured "junk" like urinals, bicycle wheels, glass, metal, newspaper, etc). This was done to satirize not only religion, bourgeois morality, and rationality, but also the elevated status of the artist--ie, the artistic genius who produces "original" masterpieces with an ennobling theme or beautiful form. For the Dadaists, in the age of industry and mass-production, the artist is no longer an "original" creator, but instead a mere "reproducer" of the manufactured world already provided for him/her. Hence, art is in constant "replay" and, along with it, artistic identity becomes machine-like. As for BD, the vast majority of posters on the BD threads (Brasso is an exception) focus mainly on the formal elements of BD's show (ie, coordination, or lack there of, of sound and visual) with scant attention to the Dada theme. The emphasis on the formal aspects is understandable given that most drum corps folk, including staffs and judges, probably have a limited knowledge of art history. I presume that most designers and judges are music educators or from WGI. Explicating, or assessing, fully the strengths and weaknesses of BD's Dada show, formally and thematically, requires an in-depth knowledge of art history, IMHO. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamMan Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 That's the million dollar question. And until there's more transparency into the judges training, we'll never know. What more transparency is needed? We can all see the sheets, hear the tapes, and read the scores. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fsubone Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 What more transparency is needed? We can all see the sheets, hear the tapes, and read the scores. Can we hear the tapes? Do they post them online somewhere so we can all see what they're saying to each corps? i know that the staff gets to hear, but that doesn't really give much insight into the "why" of how judges give scores. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brado Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 I like the Blue Devils for what they are. They have a different sound than any other corps on the field. They have an attention to exellence that other groups just do not have. I love that they do not just march around (or roll around on the ground) for a minute and stop and play a big loud major chord with a horn tweak to the press box and then repeat the process several times in several different fashions. Every 'moment" in a Devils show will be different. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crown Phan Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 What more transparency is needed? We can all see the sheets, hear the tapes, and read the scores. I would love to be able to do this. I hope this is something that becomes available soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketman Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 (edited) I have refrained from commenting on BDs show until I had the opportunity to actually see it. To be honest, I don't have a problem with them musically or visually. Sure they do more free form stuff than I would like but, whatever. However, and I say this with all due respect, the voiceovers (IMO) do not enhance your show AT ALL to me. I would enjoy it all the same if they didn't happen and probably moreso. As my pappy use to say, "just because you can do something doesn't mean you should." BD, cut the voiceovers, they are COMPLETELY unnecessary! RM Edited July 28, 2012 by Rocketman 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanKShields Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 The fans speak after each BD performance...& the silence is deafening. I'm torn. On the one hand, I've got plenty of criticisms of BD's (and other corps') scatterbrained, impatient, and visuals-obsessed shows these past several years. On the other hand, I'm not ready to spin around and put audiences in the driver's seat yet either. Most of the time, the "general audience" everybody seems to worship doesn't even know what the hell it's saying about music. For instance, all the yakking about "hummable tunes" -- what is that? (Try getting Joe Audience to hum the Madison Scouts' 1982 crowd-favorite classic "Strawberry Soup" sometime, and you'll see what I mean.) Certainly, there's plenty that can be done to get the old excitement and musicality back, and it may take another generation of show planners to do it, but please let's not deify "the crowd". Audiences are a useful indicator of some things; but they also react unpredictably -- even stupidly -- towards great things that challenge them, and often badly mis-state or misunderstand why they like some kinds of Music over others. It's like dealing with a schizophrenic sometimes, except that the schizo doesn't have the false impression that he bought the band when he bought a ticket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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