Gwaltney and Rennick - Two birds of a different nature

[Plan9]

Based on last night's percussion score in Allentown I have to say that the Gwaltney experiment is not going well. If PR was at least keeping reasonable pace with the other top tier corps in percussion they could very well be 2nd overall above crown and possibly vying for gold medal come next week.

But given that PR was 2 full points down to Crown last night and nearly 2 points to BD means there is zero chance of a 1996/2008 finals night surprise. Which is really a shame because I think in all other respects Turandot is a championship caliber show.

I for one will be hoping for a change after this season. I don't dislike Gwaltney and know that he has achieved phenomenal success with WGI, but it's clear after 2 sub-par years that something isn't working. Plenty of corps turnover good instructors and have to rebuild, but by year 2 you should be at least in range of your peers and not 2 full points off of the pace at this point in the season. Even the corps he came from scored higher then them last night. So something is clearly not working. And it's not just one night, this has really been the trend the entire season.

I'm sure Shane would be the last to offer excuses for the percussion section not keeping pace with the other sections of PR. I will only offer that, unlike most other top tier corps that changes a caption head, PR lost a bunch of its championship line, following Renneck to SCV. So, Shane had to start from scatch with new talent and try to keep pace with other sections that were largely entact from the previous season.

Having a corps score in the 2-4 range consistently in all captions except percussion must be unnerving to this exceptional percussion writer/instructor. He will meet the challenge and will bring PR percussion back to prominence, for sure, ...but perhaps not this year, which is unfortunate with a surging corps show. My suggestion to those that want the best for PR: Hang in there, Shane's got the juju and will bring the Sanford back to PR someday....soon!

[Phantom1701]

I'm sure Shane would be the last to offer excuses for the percussion section not keeping pace with the other sections of PR. I will only offer that, unlike most other top tier corps that changes a caption head, PR lost a bunch of its championship line, following Renneck to SCV. So, Shane had to start from scatch with new talent and try to keep pace with other sections that were largely entact from the previous season.

Having a corps score in the 2-4 range consistently in all captions except percussion must be unnerving to this exceptional percussion writer/instructor. He will meet the challenge and will bring PR percussion back to prominence, for sure, ...but perhaps not this year, which is unfortunate with a surging corps show. My suggestion to those that want the best for PR: Hang in there, Shane's got the juju and will bring the Sanford back to PR someday....soon!

I get that, but the scoring is so low at this point that there is more going on than simple player attrition due to Rennick's departure. PR is a top caliber corps and gets hundreds of kids to audition every year for the drum line. Many are college students from the Illinois, Michigan, Ohio area. So I find it hard to believe that this is all simple due to a lack of quality players.

The formula just isn't working. Your points would be spot on if it were still year 1, but it's now year 2 and they seem to be struggling as badly as last year, if not worse.

And many corps turnover staff and don't see such a dramatic drop off in scoring.

[chaos001]

I think it's best for the both of us if we follow a good ol' rule of thumb: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Seriously, getting rid of him would be the absolute worst idea ever at this point.

[Plan9]

I get that, but the scoring is so low at this point that there is more going on than simple player attrition due to Rennick's departure. PR is a top caliber corps and gets hundreds of kids to audition every year for the drum line. Many are college students from the Illinois, Michigan, Ohio area. So I find it hard to believe that this is all simple due to a lack of quality players.

The formula just isn't working. Your points would be spot on if it were still year 1, but it's now year 2 and they seem to be struggling as badly as last year, if not worse.

And many corps turnover staff and don't see such a dramatic drop off in scoring.

I have to say that this fast-food/instant-gratification logic is what drives corps to the frantic search for success....and untimately to failure. You don't have to go very far to see that the most consistent corps today....that is....the corps that keep their staffs, designers, techs and corps family support together....succeed. Look at BD, CC and Cadets, then look at what's going on at Cavies. PR was cherry-picked of staff, as was Cavies...this was unfortunate but it's reality. But they have to know that the road back to success must be built on stability of staff, The frantic search for the "magic staffer" may be good for DCP discussion but it is no answer. In fact, consistency/stability forms a sort of atmosphere that lifts the entire unit. They begin to trust each other, learn from each other and most importantly.....listen to each other.

It was painful to watch PR 09 desperately pulling their design apart, point fingers in search of a guilty party (and the fans were the worst of all)....while all the time, the guilty party was IMO, the "lack of unity" (common input) in their design.

PR is at a cross-roads and my guess is that they are committed to getting to this state of stability and unity of creativity back .....and in my view, Shane is more than up to the task....patience.

[Phantom1701]

I think it's best for the both of us if we follow a good ol' rule of thumb: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Seriously, getting rid of him would be the absolute worst idea ever at this point.

Well, I'm sure you'll get your wish, but let's talk in another 3 years.

And this is not about instant gratification. It's about maintaining a level of excellence that had already been established. I'm not saying winning the Fred Sanford every year, but it would be nice to think that PR could at least stay on par with the other top tier corps.

Something I find very interesting is that no one is shocked when a key staff member leaves a corps and the performance/scores suffer the following year. At the same time no one seems to think that it is even possible for a new staff member to come in and the scores be better the next year.

Look at whenever Gino moved to a new corps...the brass was immediately better for that new corps, every time. So it's not beyond the realm of possibility to expect that in his 2nd year at them helm Shane would be getting the line to score better than it is.

Granted, I'm upset because I see the potential of the show this year and the glaring miss right now is the drum scores. I also realize score and placement is not everything when it comes to PR (see 2010) or most other corps, but it is what drives these corps to the standard of excellence they do ultimately achieve. And having a shot at the title is a big motivator to them maxing out this show's potential. But with the drum scores lagging behind all year it just seems like too much of a gap to even conceivably overcome.

[snaredude08]

As for last night's score...

The numbers they're looking at for last night's show are even lower than the 7th/6th place echelon that they've been looking at all season. The score has actually dropped since Atlanta -- not just a little bit, but a drop from 17.3 to 16.6. Have they not only failed to improve, but gotten .7 worse in the last week? Of course not. That would be absurd. I'm not arguing currently that they should be above their current echelon, but I think it's safe to say that last night's scores are a least a little bit off.

As for why? Could have been a bad show, or bad field positioning by the judge, or so on and so forth. My personal theory (which gets into conspiracy theory and judge bias and stuff, so take it with a grain of salt) is that it has to do with the judge in question (Pipitone). The most noticeable thing about last night's perc scores is the fact that Spirit passed by Phantom. This isn't suprising, however, when you look at scores from quarters/semis/finals last year. The two nights you had other judges (quarters, finals) Spirit scored in the 11th/12th range, which I think was an accurate and respectable spot for them. Semis, however, you had Pipitone, and Spirit randomly got 8th in percussion. I enjoyed their show and their drumline a lot, but their book flat-out did not justify 8th. They were clean, but the book honestly probably wasn't even in the top 12 that year on difficulty. Effect and musicality, yes, but not difficulty. So I think that last night's discrepancy just comes down to subjectivity in judges. A .7 drop from last week's score, to me, says a combination of judges having different definitions of what is required to achieve each number, combined with the whole difference of opinion I mentioned above.

More food for thought on this point... Crown has also been scoring 6th/7th in percussion the whole season. Last night, they got 1st. Suffice to say there's some screwiness going on in percussion judging at the moment.

[Kevlar496]

I think last night might have been an anomaly. Not sure what JJ saw or heard, but I'm sure he felt justified in the numbers he put up. Let's see what happens Monday and Tuesday. I'm very hopeful that Shane, Matt, and the rest of the drum staff will fix the issues before next week. I also think that Shane should stay on as caption head. He faced the unenviable task of having to completely start over at PR. Not one person stayed from the 2010 line. I think he has done a great job of trying to rebuild, with being labeled unfairly as an "indoor guy".

SUTA!

[perc2100]

to be honest, the percussion caption is the one caption year in and year out where you see wild variances from the rest of the recap. it isn't tenth'd like other captions, and you can see teams outside the top 3 win.

there's many reasons for that, but honestly...drummers have the balls to make the call

No kidding! It's not even one show, it varies wildly at times from show to show. One Saturday a corps could get 7th in percussion, the next Saturday they could win percussion. That's not all because of a performance variation, but has to do with a judge's opinions/tastes. I know more percussion judges in DCI/WGI than I do in other captions, and they are all the 'Alpha' types who aren't afraid to generally say, "my opinion/ranking is right & the other guy is wrong." It's something I love as a fan, but get frustrated with at times as a staffer

[perc2100]

I never understood the "piston stroke" technique used by Phantom, Crown, Cavies, etc. Why not spare yourself the pain and allow your body (wrist and arm) to move naturally and reduce shock. I've seen too many people get hurt from playing with that technique.

Also, didn't Sandy Rennick write the pit book for Phantom while Paul was there?

If you're referring to keyboard piston stroke technique, it is arguably much more natural & reduces shock than a 'prep stroke' technique: especially when you're dealing with faster phrases with lots of velocity (i.e. many phrases in the average DCI pit book).

The theory behind piston stroke technique is that you start with the mallets in the 'up' position (dynamics dictate the height), and the mallet comes up + automatically moves in the direction of the next note.

For example, if you are going from C-F, w/Piston Stroke technique you would:

1) start with mallet in the 'up'/set position (think horns up, or sticks out)

2) move down to strike the C bar on the downbeat

3) immediately striking the C the mallet comes up and to the right in the direction of the F

when doing this slowly it feels unnatural when you're getting used to it, but you're really using the natural force and motion with the stroke

With conventional, prep-stroke technique:

1) start with mallet roughly parallel to the bars (set position: vs starting with mallets up)

2) bring mallet up slightly before the downbeat: a 'prep stroke'

3) move down to strike the C bar on the downbeat

4) hold the mallet down parallel to bars to return to 'set' position for the next note

5) move mallet to the F

6) repeat

Arguably the piston stroke technique for keyboard playing is more natural, and healthier on the wrist muscles.

It's hard to explain with just words (I'm more of a visual-style teacher when it comes to technique). Lee Howard Stevens describes it superbly in his 'Method of Movement' instructional book, complete with helpful pictures and diagrams.

[JamMan]

If you're referring to keyboard piston stroke technique, it is arguably much more natural & reduces shock than a 'prep stroke' technique: especially when you're dealing with faster phrases with lots of velocity (i.e. many phrases in the average DCI pit book).

The theory behind piston stroke technique is that you start with the mallets in the 'up' position (dynamics dictate the height), and the mallet comes up + automatically moves in the direction of the next note.

For example, if you are going from C-F, w/Piston Stroke technique you would:

1) start with mallet in the 'up'/set position (think horns up, or sticks out)

2) move down to strike the C bar on the downbeat

3) immediately striking the C the mallet comes up and to the right in the direction of the F

when doing this slowly it feels unnatural when you're getting used to it, but you're really using the natural force and motion with the stroke

With conventional, prep-stroke technique:

1) start with mallet roughly parallel to the bars (set position: vs starting with mallets up)

2) bring mallet up slightly before the downbeat: a 'prep stroke'

3) move down to strike the C bar on the downbeat

4) hold the mallet down parallel to bars to return to 'set' position for the next note

5) move mallet to the F

6) repeat

Arguably the piston stroke technique for keyboard playing is more natural, and healthier on the wrist muscles.

It's hard to explain with just words (I'm more of a visual-style teacher when it comes to technique). Lee Howard Stevens describes it superbly in his 'Method of Movement' instructional book, complete with helpful pictures and diagrams.

Odd. I was under the impression that the piston stroke (which is apparently what I do) is associated with the fulcrum being in the blade of the hand (or center) rather than in the natural spot between the thumb and pointer. It's this shift in fulcrum location that has destroyed the wrists of several of my friends who should have known better.