DCI's "Artistic Shift"

[perc2100]

Calling out the 2nd place corps (who tied for visual caption win I might add) and saying they had a sub-championship level visual program is preposterous. Maybe if that sub-championship level show was watered down enough to be as clean as BD was ... then would it be Championship level?

1) yes, had Crown been as clean as BD & won a Championship then, yes, their visual program would be Championship level

2) I did this elsewhere last night, but let's look at Crown's visual scores/spreads:

* GE Vis: .4 on one sheet, .5 on another (2nd and 3rd respectively) with a total GE Vis deficiency of -.45

* Vis Proficiency: WON (yea) by .2

* Vis Analysis: deficiency of -.7 Ouch

* Guard: deficiency of -.5

Vis Caption deficiency (with averages) = -.5

GE Vis + Total Vis TOTAL deficiency: -.95

Being down in total vis captions by almost a full point does not win a Championship most years (hello, Phantom Regiment 08: I don't mean to exclude you). But Crown also had sub-par Percussion. And those two factors do not make for a DCI Champion.

Am I being harsh? Maybe, but I'm also kind of trying to be clinical/blunt about the numbers to see where Crown faltered. Their show was popular (my favorite of the summer by A LOT), but it was not that close to Blue Devils when it comes to clean. There is a fine line be challenging vs effective, and at Finals no one cares how challenging your design is if it's not executed as well as other corps.

Yes, sometimes a dirtier show is more worthy of winning.... because it's a better show

.

And that's the real argument, isn't it? Which show is "better?"

I think it's indisputable that BD had a cleaner performance. Once we start arguing "better" is when things get tricky, and that's what the verbiage on the sheets outlines I guess. IMO, we can start having those debates when two corps are performing at the same level. When one corps has great brass, 6th place percussion, and dirtier visual execution, it's becomes easier to justify putting a corps that is executing at a Championship level in all captions a higher number.

Let's use Cavies as the example. I saw a corps like SOA get slammed down to 11th place when they were out executing a few corps in front of them. Why is SOA not getting the benefit that our champion received? It's a double standard.

I don't think Spirit's show has anywhere near the sophistication of Cavaliers, Scouts, or Boston. They performed it 'OK' but from a design/effect standpoint it was pretty rudimentary (NOTE: that's not a bad thing, it's just a bad thing if you're hoping to be, say, Top 6). Also, their visual program was pretty dirty. Their brass & percussion were decent, but they definitely were not competitive with Scouts, Cavaliers, or Boston.

Early season, when more sophisticated shows are dirtier than "simpler" (for lack of a better word) shows, the simpler/cleaner show typically got rewarded. Cavaliers, as your example, were FILTHY in June/July, and their show was an incoherent mess. Spirit, on the other hand, came out of the gate pretty solid, and therefor beat Cavaliers a few times early. Cavaliers cleaned like crazy, tweaked their show considerably, and by the end of the season were performing better than Spirit AND had a more sophisticated show design. We can debate design, but I don't think it's any question that Spirit performed at a level below Cavaliers in nearly every way.

Most would say that Madison had the best show of the 7-9 race, yet ended up in 9th and out of the TOC money for 2013

Hmmm; I don't know about "most." That's an interesting qualifier, but I don't necessarily think it's the case here. I think you can safely say "most" LIKED Scouts show better than Cavaliers (I did, to be honest), but I don't know about "best" show of 7-9. In fact, I think more people would say Boston Crusaders had the "best" show of 7-9. They certainly out-performed Scouts in every caption, IMO (don't know recaps, to be honest so Scouts might've beat them in one or two), and with the exception of percussion maybe Boston outperformed Cavaliers in every caption.

GE should be no more than 20% of the score ... period.

Brass 20

Visual 20

Percussion 20

Analysis of Music 10

Color Guard 10

Now THIS is old school thinking! I don't have any problems, personally, with the weight being 'overall effect' of a program. Drum corps shows haven't been designed JUST to listen to records in decades, and show designs are ALL about coordination of music + visual + guard (to put it really simply). I'm not saying the sheets are perfect now, but I'm OK with how things are weighted

In a system like that ... A SYSTEM THAT MAKES SENSE ... Crown would have been in a race with PR and SCV .. not BD. Cavies would have been 11th or worse. BK probably wouldn't have made finals .... Surf would be pushing 12th or 13th ... Madison would have been top 5 .... Cadets would have been 3rd or 4th .. Boston would be pushing 5th with Madison. If the system is changed to weight what is important in a MUSICAL COMPETITION ... the end results would change dramatically. You can have 150 members vogue for 13 minutes so long as they're playing music .. you have a show. You can't do 13 minutes of silent drill and call it drum and bugle corps. Catch my drift?

You had me until you started up with that stuff I bolded: Surf competing for Top 12 this season is such a goofy argument, and impossible to take seriously. Jersey Surf was NO WHERE NEAR Top 12 in music execution (or design): NO. WHERE. NEAR. If DCI had a 60%-weighted Music score, Surf would have probably have been a few placements lower (their GE & Vis is what helped keep them 20th).

And Madison: Top 5?! Lol

They were consistently 9th in Music captions, and TOP 7 in GE captions (i.e. they were closer to Cavaliers & Boston because of GE, not music). I think their Vis scores were 10th or lower, so by your 60% music weighting it's possible Madison at best would've stayed 9th, where they deserved, or they might've dropped a placement w/out the added weight of their Top 7 GE scores.

Edited August 12, 2012 by perc2100

[Tad_MMA]

You can do NEW and INNOVATIVE without changing the definition of M&M. Zingali and Brubaker proved it. Why is this so hard to understand?

What is that definition of M&M? Zingali DID redefine it through Garfield! There is a lengthy Hopkins/Cesario "reunion" conversation on a 2005 Cadets DVD: the 20th Anniv. of their 3peat. Michael shared that the visual staff would be SCREAMING at each other on the buses after shows, because the judges didn't "get" what they were doing. Don Angelica really helped convince DCI that this kind of change was good.

A couple of interesting examples: In '82 and '83, they were being ticked because they couldn't keep "established" intervals. Well, they explained, this line is at a 2; THAT line is at a 3. Why WOULD they be one uniformed interval? They're two distinctly separate parts of the asymmetrical drill! And, they would explain to the judges: Put on your blinders. How much can you see as you rate? Do you understand that you're seeing EIGHT Blue Devils march by you in that space, but you see THIRTY-TWO Cadets whiz past? So, if you see an error, it's one of 32---not 8. I wish I knew how to upload DVDs to YouTube. There is some great stuff there. And it's important to learn it, because as I said, we're not HERE but for those THEN.

[supersop]

I guess I'm going more off of content rather than the actual execution. My bad for that. Yes I'm pushing it by saying Surf was a 13th place contender in that respect .. but cmon ... was there many more enjoyable musical selections out there? They had demand, technical parts, great flow .... it was a winner .. AND they used a heavy amount of A&E for their closer and pre-show.

Again with Madison .. I'm talking content. Boston tends to get choppy in their arrangements .. Cavies very choppy .... BD (while better this year than in the past) is still choppy. Crown had one of the purest content shows I've heard in a long time and they executed it. SCV, I can say the same, but they need more power to match Crown and PR.

My old school thinking on how the numbers should be chopped up truly defines my logic on what placement would or could be if the system were different ... because with my line of thinking, the emphasis on visual would be far less and some of those shows listed would have less demand on the performer physically .. giving them a better opportunity to perform their "content" at a higher level.

I feel like I"m backpeddling here ... but I want to make sense and not just look like a dino.

[Hrothgar15]

What is that definition of M&M? Zingali DID redefine it through Garfield! There is a lengthy Hopkins/Cesario "reunion" conversation on a 2005 Cadets DVD: the 20th Anniv. of their 3peat. Michael shared that the visual staff would be SCREAMING at each other on the buses after shows, because the judges didn't "get" what they were doing. Don Angelica really helped convince DCI that this kind of change was good.

A couple of interesting examples: In '82 and '83, they were being ticked because they couldn't keep "established" intervals. Well, they explained, this line is at a 2; THAT line is at a 3. Why WOULD they be one uniformed interval? They're two distinctly separate parts of the asymmetrical drill! And, they would explain to the judges: Put on your blinders. How much can you see as you rate? Do you understand that you're seeing EIGHT Blue Devils march by you in that space, but you see THIRTY-TWO Cadets whiz past? So, if you see an error, it's one of 32---not 8. I wish I knew how to upload DVDs to YouTube. There is some great stuff there. And it's important to learn it, because as I said, we're not HERE but for those THEN.

What they did was good.

Saying “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” incessantly during your show is anything but good. It’s irrelevant, and dumb.

[Tad_MMA]

What they did was good.

Saying "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" incessantly during your show is anything but good. It's irrelevant, and dumb.

I was responding to the M&M comment. I wrote an interesting piece for MMA about going to the Symphony to hear "Pictures at an Exhibition" only to have a narrator ruin the performance. I believe it was called "The Most Annoying Article Ever."

[supersop]

What is that definition of M&M? Zingali DID redefine it through Garfield! There is a lengthy Hopkins/Cesario "reunion" conversation on a 2005 Cadets DVD: the 20th Anniv. of their 3peat. Michael shared that the visual staff would be SCREAMING at each other on the buses after shows, because the judges didn't "get" what they were doing. Don Angelica really helped convince DCI that this kind of change was good.

A couple of interesting examples: In '82 and '83, they were being ticked because they couldn't keep "established" intervals. Well, they explained, this line is at a 2; THAT line is at a 3. Why WOULD they be one uniformed interval? They're two distinctly separate parts of the asymmetrical drill! And, they would explain to the judges: Put on your blinders. How much can you see as you rate? Do you understand that you're seeing EIGHT Blue Devils march by you in that space, but you see THIRTY-TWO Cadets whiz past? So, if you see an error, it's one of 32---not 8. I wish I knew how to upload DVDs to YouTube. There is some great stuff there. And it's important to learn it, because as I said, we're not HERE but for those THEN.

They changed the demand .. they changed the up top look of design .... they were more expressive with line, form and pattern to match the organic qualities of the music .. but it was still Marching and Maneuvering without question. It had nothing to do with WGI staging ... grid block sets for everything no matter the mood ... heck, proper voice staging isn't even taken into consideration anymore. Add to that the body and movement taking priority over precision marching .. and the definition of M&M is totally different.

Nothing like what took place in the mid 80's innovation period.

[Tad_MMA]

They changed the demand .. they changed the up top look of design .... they were more expressive with line, form and pattern to match the organic qualities of the music .. but it was still Marching and Maneuvering without question. It had nothing to do with WGI staging ... grid block sets for everything no matter the mood ... heck, proper voice staging isn't even taken into consideration anymore. Add to that the body and movement taking priority over precision marching .. and the definition of M&M is totally different.

Nothing like what took place in the mid 80's innovation period.

I think I get your drift.

[flammaster]

What they did was good.

Saying "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" incessantly during your show is anything but good. It's irrelevant, and dumb.

Oh but I loved seeing the big ole 15's on the field!

[corpsband]

1) yes, had Crown been as clean as BD & won a Championship then, yes, their visual program would be Championship level

2) I did this elsewhere last night, but let's look at Crown's visual scores/spreads:

* GE Vis: .4 on one sheet, .5 on another (2nd and 3rd respectively) with a total GE Vis deficiency of -.45

* Vis Proficiency: WON (yea) by .2

* Vis Analysis: deficiency of -.7 Ouch

* Guard: deficiency of -.5

Vis Caption deficiency (with averages) = -.5

GE Vis + Total Vis TOTAL deficiency: -.95

Being down in total vis captions by almost a full point does not win a Championship most years (hello, Phantom Regiment 08: I don't mean to exclude you). But Crown also had sub-par Percussion. And those two factors do not make for a DCI Champion.

You're begging the question. If the argument is that the judging somehow failed, you can't use the judging to support your argument.

[PB&J]

You're begging the question. If the argument is that the judging somehow failed, you can't use the judging to support your argument.

Ha, that's exactly what I thought when I read that! I feel all warm and fuzzy whenever I hear someone use the phrase "beg the question" correctly. All those philosophy classes...

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/begging-the-question