Hello Choreography, Goodbye Marching

[Grandpa]

I think part of the problem is perception: most people/fans who are familiar with marimbas, xylophones, wind chimes, bongos, etc. know that they are naturally not loud. In order to make them more noticeable (and more and more, they are becoming prominent/primary), they sound unnaturally loud; it isn't what we are expecting when we hear them. Do I see the need for some amping? In general, yes. Way too often, though, it is too loud for a lot of people.

Agreed. in order to hear the pit, something else has to suffer. I can't hear some of the subtler stuff going on in the snareline sometimes. Should we amp them too in order to bring out all those connecting notes? It becomes a bit of a viscious circle once you start on that "need to hear them all the time" thing.

[perc2100]

That being said do I think there is a place for that type of show? Absolutely. The question becomes "How do you judge shows that are so disparate in theme, style, and substance?" For instance, how do you take a Jersey Surf show which apparently constantly entertains, with a Madison Scouts with a bit more "traditional" show, with the Cadets whose theme is ever-present while still incorporating newish twists (e.g., recorded voice), with Blue Devils who decided to create their own rule-book this year in terms of what a show is (more Cirque du Soleil event than traditional drum corps show)?

For one, execution is a big part of the sheets, and lets face it: Jersey Surf isn't coming near the level of execution as Blue Devils are.

Also, the judging sheets have pretty descriptive wording on them to place a corps in a specific 'box.' The highest box will have language like "achieves musical clarity at the highest of levels all the time" while the lowest box will have language like "fails to achieve musical clarity most of the time." Each box has a lengthy list of criteria with different verbiage to differentiate where a corps is performing in any given criteria. When a judge takes that into consideration (they used to circle or highlight each phrase in a box), their score will be dictated by how many phrases are circled/highlighted. For example, if a corps has 8/10 phrases circled in Box 5, with two phrases highlighted in Box 4, they will likely get a score roughly in the mid-Box 5 numbers.

It's actually not as complicated as one might think, and it's almost like a giant math word problem. While each corps design style can be significantly different, the criteria is the same and a judge ranks groups based on where the performance rated in the different boxes of each subcaption.

On the other hand, is this any different from what's been going on through the 80s when DCI found its stride? I remember reading an article in the Wall Street Journal, of all places, about drum corps. Even the author was able to pigeonhole corps by their style at that time (BD - jazz, Phantom - classical, Cadets - precision marching). Are the latest iterations of style and content so much different from what was the case back then? How did we compare a show based on Coltrane to Aaron Copeland to Mussorgsky? Does it produce more difficulty or the same level in terms of comparing the relative achievements of each corps now versus then?

I don't think it's much different. It's not like we had SCV 1973 last season and BD 2012 this season. The changes have been fairly incremental over the years thus making it 'easier' for judges to keep up with the trends.

[perc2100]

I think part of the problem is perception: most people/fans who are familiar with marimbas, xylophones, wind chimes, bongos, etc. know that they are naturally not loud. In order to make them more noticeable (and more and more, they are becoming prominent/primary), they sound unnaturally loud; it isn't what we are expecting when we hear them. Do I see the need for some amping? In general, yes. Way too often, though, it is too loud for a lot of people.

Yeah, I can agree with this. It's kind of like when snare heads went from plastic to kevlar in order for them to be heard better/more often. I always have jokingly tell my brass friends that it's a compliment to them that pits must be amped because the brass section is too darn loud! (that is only partially a joke: it's not coincidence that amping came into play around the time that corps members rose to 150ish and brass lines got louder).

As an arranger, I often battle with the dichotomy of wanting the pit to be properly heard & 'featured' as a melody voice while wanting them to NOT step on the melody from the wind instruments. It's a tough line to walk, and in an activity where percussion can be such a huge factor in over-all placement (I honestly think BD lost DCI in 2008 because of their percussion deficiency, and had their percussion played better BD would've won DCI - yes, that doesn't have anything to do with amping, but I'm more trying to underscore how integral a high-placing percussion section is to winning DCI) I totally understand why staffers/arrangers want to ensure their front ensemble is properly rewarded.

[JamMan]

OP, where were you 7 years ago when I started ranting about aerobics on the field instead of marching?

Anyway, as you've noted, things elite over time. Be happy with it or don't, it doesn't matter what you think.

[Some Random Drummer]

The only thing I want to take umbrage with in this thread is the concept that the people who dislike the new style of show dislike it for traditional reasons (i.e. - they think things have always been done this way, so they should be continue being done that way).

I've been following DCI for only a handful of years now, and I don't believe that at all. The reason I prefer less heavily choreographed shows isn't because that's "the way things always were."

It's because I enjoy that product more.

I love Broadway. I love the shows, I love playing in the pit orchestras, I love listening to the recordings on my iPod . . . all of it. One of the most heavily listened to albums in my library is Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. But when I go to a drum corps show, I'm not going to a Broadway show. I'm going to a drum corps show, and those are two different products. It's not that I dislike Blue Devils' show this year - and I am blown away by how well they execute it - it's just that I prefer shows that are more marching-oriented. Phantom's show, SCV's show, Crown's show, etc . . . those shows are, to me, the ideal drum corps shows of this year, and not because they are closer to what things "have always been," but because I think people dancing around on a football field with instruments in their hands looks silly. People wearing color guard uniforms (although you can argue that's what BD has on, anyway) should be tossing rifles and dancing and all that. But the musicians are there to play, and march.

That's my concept of a drum corps show, and not based on tradition, but simply based on the product that I prefer.

So while I wouldn't agree with the statement that I'm only taking issue with these more creative shows now because they're earning high scores. I've always dislike this type of show, no matter what their score was, and the fact that they're winning is not just some convenient excuse for me to make my criticism known - I've always felt this way about drum corps, and for reasons completely separate from scoring or whatever. I like seeing people marching. Case closed. It's not about what "traditionally" was drum corps, it's about what I enjoy seeing.

And if it reflects just more "change" like we've always seen, then I say this change is for the worse, NOT because of tradition. Other changes that have been implemented (stationary pits, amplification in those pits so people don't break instruments/their hands, Bb horns, etc . . . ) I think have been positive. This change I don't think is positive, and that's simply because my ideal concept of what a drum corps show should be involves marching, not dancing.

[over60]

The reason I started this thread is because I attended the Rockford TOC show and saw (and heard) the Blue Devils. First of all, I've LOVED this corps since it burst upon the DCI finals scene in 1974. I was there. I still love them. The quality of their members and staff, year after year and decade after decade, is amazing. I've always thought that the Blue Devils, by virtue of all their DCI titles, was the best marching musical group in the world.

But even though we've all witnessed the changes in the visual (marching) styles over the last couple of decades, the last few years of the Blue Devils shows, and their continued competitive success, will accelerate the change until one very important aspect of the activity has all but disappeared---marching, in the traditional sense. In my original post I stated that the new breed of instructors don't want to march. They want to perform Broadway type "stage shows" on a football field, replacing marching with choreography and staging and props. So, they proposed and voted in favor of new rules for the Visual scoring sheets whereby now it's possible to get maximum Visual (and GE Visual) scores without having to perform strenuous marching shows.

If you don't think the activity in general is going to drastically reduce marching, read Chuch Naffier's post (arrangerX) on the first page of the thread. He has been around the activity a long time and has served on the DCI Judges/Instructors Taskforce. He ends his lengthy response with this, "Marching is going to disappear. Music isn't going to disappear. It will look different. It will sound different."

Some posters say it's just a matter of "style". Really? No, it's much more than that. It's a fundamental change to the activity. It's not that the new Visual rules ban marching, but if corps want to get the highest scores and placements, it would be foolish to have a fast-paced drill that is extremely difficult to execute cleanly as well as very tiring for the brass players and marching percussionists and that affects their ability to play music well and thus hurts their scores in the Music captions as well as Visual.

Under the current rules, having a strenuous marching show will be a competitive handicap versus the corps that perform less physically demanding shows. That's why, in the last paragraph of my original post, I said that with the Blue Devils winning yet another title by virtue of their staff taking advantage of the new rules more than other corps, the others will realize they can concentrate on putting on "stage shows" instead of traditional drum corps shows to maximize their scores. That's not a copy of style, but of substance. Success breeds imitation.

Do you want to see more and more stage shows and less and less marching? It's coming, soon to a football stadium near you. I'm sure you've seen the DCI slogan over the years, "Marching Music's Major Leagues". Now what? Let's have a contest.

[bluecoats88]

the only flaw in your logic is that if you actually watch the corps (and I mean get over the fact that they have voice, and props, and occasionally have members doing something different) you will notice that the corps members are marching alot and very well. Everyone seems to be honing in on the things they don't like and missing the fact that underneath all of the stuff the drill is there and the marching is being done well. I would put their marching technique and cleanliness up against any other corps in the top 12 and hands down BD is executing their drill and marching technique better than all of them.

and for those complaining that BD only runs around in scatter drills - watch the show - they actually run less in their show then Crown does in theirs. but because BD has the horses and the Voice overs everyone seems to focus on the small amount of non marching they do, but Crown dances, runs, lies down, and all kinds of other stuff much more than BD and no one seems to mind that.

[BozzlyB]

Let the guards dance and let the rest of the corps (sans pit) march, and change the rules to make it so. Ban body movement from drumline and hornline. My 2 cents.

[Jeff Ream]

ok youre a drummer..heres a question..i work with drummers all the time and noone answers me, they just laugh. Back in the late 80s and 90s I remember many many many tapes saying the pit is visually in the way, the pit is way to loud,many tapes , every week..they even moved pits to the side, on the field etc et...well now we make them louder..lol..did i miss something?......lol

funny, i have hundreds of tapes from back then and I never remember hearing that the pit was too loud.

now I know visual people whine about the pit's placement, but hell, visual people whine about everything being in the way of their art

[Jeff Ream]

Jeff hits this on the head. What used to almost appear as spontanaeity - because it was so well done, like the kick accents from Cadets snare line in 2000, for example - has become "for the sake of" or mechanical..."forced" as he puts it. Degree of difficulty is an important consideration, but do i have to turn myself into a pretzel and play a 16th note run in order to display "simultaneous responsibility"?

It's crazy to think that a straight up interpretation, with NO "body enhancements" during a chorale-type brass passage, for example, can perhaps be MORE effective nowadays in its economy of, or absence of, interpretive movement; Stillness being/creating the "effect."

The best combination I've seen in a while....of the choreographed combined with old school is this year's OREGON CRUSADERS. It is such a cool blend of contemporary and traditional and the calls at the end to Suncoast, Blue Devils, Garfield and Cavaliers are just SO fantastic and fun.... a reminder that BOTH styles have a place on that "stage" and can still create goose bump moments for the fan (and still get a score?)...i suppose the tag on that sentence is the other side of the coin.

thank you for making it even more clear than I did.

yes, watch any drum break today. it's all the same moves, some line up with the music, some don't. Many feel like they're put in there just to have something to do...and far too often the body gets in the way of what the hands are doing. I'm sure the same can be said for brass.

Look, I don't mind body if it works, but too often it's done to be done. I think back to watching Crown Friday, and I remember saying "does that really fit, or are they doing it to say they are doing it?"

IMO, of the top 4, the two best I felt at using it and making it work were Cadets and Phantom. Didn't over do it, but did it where it worked.