Perfectly Clean Wins?

[newterak]

Question. I'm a little confused about precicesly what the word "clean" means in this context. What part of the captions does that apply to? Are we looking at the Visual and Music categories under the 'Excl', 'Ach', 'Tech', etc numbers? Or is it something else? Is it how straight the lines are and the precision of the curves in forms? Diagonals? Feet timing? All of the above? Just curious if the opinions here match how judges score, which is not often the case.

A lot of people bring up 2001, I think it's one of the best case studies of 'clean' vs 'design'. Cavies won GE (essentially design) but failed to win any performance caption. I think Drums went to Cadets and Brass, Guard, Viz Performance went to BD.

You can't have good design numbers without good performance from the members because then the design fails to communicate and vice versa but I think generally you focus on the second half of the performance captions (Brass, Guard, Drums, Viz) which is 'Ach'.

Clean is good GE by itself.

In GE terms this falls under 'Effect through excellence'

[garfield]

one thing to remember is that the cleaner the show is performed the easier it is to read what was designed so your design numbers will go up because the program becomes clearer due to the clean performance of the program. This is why BD's shows always come off so well, because they are being performed clean enough to be able to read everything in the design. A well designed show that is dirty doesn't read as well because it is harder to understand the design due to the non cleanliness of the performance.

No one on this board knows me as a BD honk, but this post hit dead center home for me.

I was in the stands in Dublin for several hours yesterday watching BD's practices; my son was at my side. BD was rehearsing a 16-bar set for, I believe, the benefit of the guard. I can't tell you how many times I heard "Reset", but I'd bet that it was 10 times.

Trying to describe it in words is tough - I can't come up with the music title - but the part they were rehearsing is where the corps is moving right-to-left and playing (sorry for this; follow the rhythm) "Da-Da...Da-Da-Da-Da...Da-Da...Da" at full volume towards the stands, with the snare line playing that wide-open, crisp long roll (anyone identify what song I'm referencing?).

Well, anyway, it was clear that this set was for the benefit of the guard, because the horns were all over the place. Articulation was audibly bad - surpringsly so much that my son and I both looked at each other in disbelief and "Yuck". Other than seeing the guard's minute improvements, the set was a real mess both audibly and visually.

Then, last night at the show, it was like someone turned on a light switch and BD was "on". That set just jumped off the field! The articulation that wasn't even close just a few hours before was razor sharp. The attacks nearly stung they were so precise. The visual punctuation of the drill just came ramming together with the music to the point that the entire 16 bars hit us like a thunder-clap. My son and I looked at each other and just smiled, "Wow!". There was no doubt that the performance made the design completely accessable and understandable, and the effect couldn't have been more pronounced.

A hard set, muddied up, can't get as much design credit as it would if it were played clean. The juxtaperformance of BD's (non-run-through) practice v. their performance just a couple of hours later made that clear as a bell to us yesterday.

And, I must add, BD's show is absolutely incredible (again, no honk here). Especially if one has the time and opportunity to witness the show, in pieces, several times during a day of practice. The more you see the show in little bits and pieces the more sense it begins to make and (ironically) the more "anti-Dada" the performance becomes to the observer. I'm one of the old Dino's who's been watching for 40 years and stopped loving BD at the end of the jazz age, and my love for classic BD was not nearly that of many, many others anyway. This year's show, however, perfectly accentuates for me, at least, the OP's question.

But...but...on the other hand, 99% of the fans in the stands last night did NOT sit through all-days like I did. They had one shot to receive, accept, and judge their impression of the show.

I brought 13 friends to the show, and these were a group of people who actually marched and ran drum corps in Marion, OH and Bellefontaine, OH during the last few years of VFW and the first decade of DCI. In many cases this was their first show in 15 to 20 years. I met with them after the show and judged their wide-eyed responses as being genuine excitement for what they'd just witnessed; they were all pumped Dinos. I talked with nearly all of them this morning to get their feedback, and when I asked them who was their favorite, they said, to a person...

The Madison Scouts.

"Dino-syndrome"? Probably. But these were excited, non-biased "newbie" fans who didn't expect the show to mimic their BITD experiences, and ended up appreciating a more "accessible" show instead of the technically brilliantly designed and executed one that won.

I wonder which more reflects the "newbie" fans that the activity seems to want to attract.

I'm secretly hoping that PR pulls off another '08 upset (I like long odds in my business, too!) but, if BD wins, I won't be one of those who says they didn't deserve it. In fact, I'm sure I'll be standing and screaming my appreciation of their incredible talents and hard work because, yep, they deserve it.

I'm just wondering if I can get those 13 back to the show next year...

[ShortAndFast]

1993.

I was thinking 1993 myself. Certainly from today's point of view, Star had the superior design but was not as clean as Cadets. Many people (including some judges) in 1993 would have claimed Cadets had the better design, though.