DCI's "Artistic Shift"

[Stu]

Are the following art?

THAT is the problem!!! My opinion has nothing to do with legacy old fart vs. young snot nose progressive, but one of purpose of existence. DCI, imo, should be commercial entertainment, high quality performance yes, but commercial entertainment nonetheless; not ART. DCI should not be a venue to educate the public on the 'historical' aspects of DADA, or a venue to present an artistic palate with a canvas of artistic expression which expands the mind of the public, or a place which causes me to expend energy of expanding my intellectual knowledge; but DCI should be about shear entertainment which allows the public to escape their day to day grind for a while with high quality entertainment. Can there be variations of what music or motion is performed? Of course. And should those be presented at the highest level of performance? Yes; But the focus should not go into the cerebral intellectual world of ART. That is what is driving away the numbers and only leaving a small subset of those who art interested in the finer aspects of ART.

[Tad_MMA]

THAT is the problem!!! My opinion has nothing to do with legacy old fart vs. young snot nose progressive, but one of purpose of existence. DCI, imo, should be commercial entertainment, high quality performance yes, but commercial entertainment nonetheless; not ART. DCI should not be a venue to educate the public on the 'historical' aspects of DADA, or a venue to present an artistic palate with a canvas of artistic expression which expands the mind of the public, or a place which causes me to expend energy of expanding my intellectual knowledge; but DCI should be about shear entertainment which allows the public to escape their day to day grind for a while with high quality entertainment. Can there be variations of what music or motion is performed? Of course. And should those be presented at the highest level of performance? Yes; But the focus should not go into the cerebral intellectual world of ART. That is what is driving away the numbers and only leaving a small subset of those who art interested in the finer aspects of ART.

In YOUR opinion. Of COURSE it's cerebral--- especially at the General Effect level! That's where the Apples meet the Oranges. The Proficiency judges don't care whether it's Dada, Stravinsky or Sanny Claus; who is cleaner??? GE doesn't just tell us which meat tastes best; it tells us that one is Burger King, another is Porterhouse and a third is Kobe. And this IS and always HAS been about ART. Funny, people weren't shrugging their shoulders as much when Cavies won in 2002 or Cadets in 2005. Look at their GE music numbers! OFF THE CHARTS! Where the HECK was the melody??? Neither show (in MY opinion) stands on its own without the visual presentation.

I wish the Interneck had been around after Garfield beat Santa Clara in 1985. There would have been MUCH more of an outrage. Erte topped Frivoloty. Oh, the ART of it all!

[Kevin Powell]

Really? If these designers of which you speak are true artists, then they should be able to take any public commentary/criticism with a grain of salt. As to respect they allegedly "need"? Really? They (the designers) need respect from DCP, a forum of anonymous (relatively) commentary/criticism made up of people with widely varying views on what drum corps is and/or should be? If that is the case, they (the designers) need to, respectfully, grow some. I think the volume of discussion for or against particular shows is praise in itself for the designers. Whether perceived good or bad, the (artistic) product had an impact on someone to a degree to make that person share his or her opinion on a public forum. I'd say that was successful art, whether it won the prize or not. Whether it was good drum corps, is a different question

The Program Coordinator for BD has been doing award winning design for a very long time. That is simple to say and back up. First DCI winning guard was Spirit of Atlanta in 85. I think 16 more DCI high aux since then. I have no idea how many WGI championships he has won.

Will Scott take the criticism to heart. NO. It is not in his nature. He'll shrug off criticism unless it is a technical issue. Then he will quickly correct it and move on.

He will simply work to the extreme boundaries of what he is allowed to do and do it in a way that is champion caliber. That has always been what drives Scott Chandler.

Saying that it is the designers is the wrong approach because there will always be someone like Scott. If people want DCI to be more entertaining, people need to collectively grow the BALLS you mention and go to DCI.

It helped in Madison - Why not the entire activity.

Figure out how to make that happen and leave the designers out of it.

[BRASSO]

Content = design? I guess. But if you look closer at the actual sheets .. even on the execution captions .. the sub-captions include design elements. Maybe we're all confused because every single caption has design as part of the score .. even when it's an execution caption. There isn't a set standard for "required" content or "compulsory" content ... so what do we have to go off of? Excellence of design? Demand of content? Frequency of the demand? Conventional design vs. WGI design? And how is that weighted against the actual execution ... it's 50/50 in the execution captions.

The entire scoring system is a mess. I hope I do sound confused .. because we all should be confused.

I do believe that GE should not be more than 20% of the score .. as the captions and sub-captions are set up now. When you take the composition and design into account in all captions that are giving credit .. that's still nearly 25% of the score if GE were only 20% of total score. Crunch the numbers ... I'm sure I"m close after you divide everything.

As it stands now .. design is worth about 35% of the total score not including bleeding over of captions which brings it up to about 50%. Is it not? And if you listen to every judges tape .. composition, content, design, staging, etc etc etc is the majority of what's talked about. That's because the system is 60% visual .. and only the visual captions have Composition and content "written" as sub-captions. Add that to the GE captions which is another 20 pts for Design. No matter the caption .. design is taken into consideration. And that's what baffles me ...... if Content or Design is always talked about .... then what's the explanation for the 10's being given in design sub captions that aren't taking demand into consideration? .. and the lower numbers being given to corps that are execution driven just like our current champion? None of it's quantifiable. Even the Analysis (formerly known as ENSEMBLE) caption is also judging design. They changed the name to Analysis to give credence to adjudicating design as part of the caption.

So here's what needs to be clarified. Execution captions should be execution only. Period. If you want design being awarded .. it should be in the GE caption only. Analysis captions (aka Ensemble) should only be looking at how everything fits together and how that's executed .. not the design itself. If things were judged the way it was designed to work ... the results would be far different than what they are now. However, there's no accountability in DCI judging .. no transparency .... and definitely very little oversight.

And the thing that's funny .. at the end of the day we can all say that BD was clean as snot .... or close to it. They were. But in truth, that's not what's weighted in the judging system we have today. Not in the least. Where's the balance? Where's the explanation? Where's the accountability?

I can say the same for Cadets show last year .... I can say the same for just about every champion since 2008. I didn't agree with 05, 06 or 07 either. The end results do not match the criteria laid out on the judges sheets.

Design is heavily weighted

Demand is not

Visual is heavily weighted

Music is not

Execution is not

So the entire .. "clean wins" thing no longer works for me. It's all rank and rate and to heck with the sheets. That's easy to do when every judge has design and visual on the brain.

I am in total agreement with you on how you have layed out correctly in my view the unbalance we see in this weighted system. Judges are judigng their fellow adult colleagues in the show design more and more than they are the performers levels of execution on the field in competition.One could see in the very first show this year that The Cavaliers were not going to finish in the top 4 as is their custom... no matter how hard the performers worked on cleaning the show and executing it. Higher up, it was clear at the 1st show that the BD's were going to be right there for another title this season as the show had innovation, creativity and" well constructed show design" written all over it.( whether we liked it or not is beside the point here ) Same with Cadets early last season. That show design was a home run and it was evident in early June it was a vehicle that could put them in the winners circle if it was reasonably clean by Finals Week. Conversely, while entertaining, it was pretty clear that this year's Cadets show design was going to take them out of a Title contention from Day One in June.

Edited August 14, 2012 by BRASSO

[Jeff Ream]

" The result was to use me as a resource for "Event Enhancement and Expansion," "Judge Training and Selection," "Competitive Growth" and "Program Standards and Expectations." Everyone responded as a community: the Corps, the instructors, and the judges. While all these items were important, the new Rules and Systems got our first attention."

Step 1 Achieved? I'm not so sure.

Granted, the rules and systems changes went into effect .. but the interpretation of those new rules and systems haven't given the fans the desired and hoped effect we were looking for.

Maybe with the Judge Training and Selection and Program Standards and Expectations ... we will get the result we want. However, that doesn't mean the general needs of the fan will be met with satisfaction. We don't truly know what the vision of Mr. Cesario is, or how that will effect change within the DCI judging system.

Things seem to be moving forward into a new age. Cavies use of synth and dub step, along with BD's voiceover's and Blue Knights scifi version of Firebird were effective, in some cases offensive and rejected by the general and old school fan, but ultimately pretty brilliant. If this is the direction MC wants to go, then these will not be the types of shows that Legacy fans are going to want to pay money to see.

In short, it's been pretty clear that the educated fan (with a bit of silver dust in the hair and deeper pockets) wanted to see a return to a more traditional sense of what drum corps truly is. More volume, power, pageantry, precision M&M ... more like what Madison has been trying to achieve these past few years. And, for those corps who did follow that pattern, we wanted to see them rewarded properly by the judging system. That did not happen in 2012. Because it didn't happen, I highly doubt it ever will.

it's going to be an evolving process. No system is perfect upon implementation. I see some steps that did pay off this year in terms of rewarding achievement.

But the thing is, many people want to sayMichael tells the corps what to do. He doesn't. they create, and if his advice is wanted, they ask.

See it's not HIS direction. It's the designers direction. His role is to advise if asked to do so.

The problem there is the sheets are set up to reward what's being done if done well. There's no check list of must do's, and in that way the sheet work as they allow the designers to have flexibility without being locked into "ok must do the company front,then the ZPull, then storm the sideline at RMFL.

[Jeff Ream]

I was pretty general in my post .... I didn't slam any of the corps i called out as examples .. I merely stated that those examples are going in a different direction than legacy fans would like to see take place. I also said their shows were pretty brilliant.

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?

Yes, sometimes a dirtier show is more worthy of winning.... because it's a better show. I'm not saying that was the case with 2012 (and maybe I am) .. but in the past .. yes. This conversation can go in a million different directions (demand, crazy demand, coordination, conventional design, technique, execution .. and what truly is General Effect), but let's not go there. That's what MC was put in place for. The only person that could truly answer the questions in the debate is him.

Forget I even brought BD into the conversation .... 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. 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 .... beaten by a dirty show filled with Eurotrash house music and beating them in brass how? I mean seriously how? There are some questionable practices being used in the judging community .. there is still a 60%+ weight on visual in the total score ..... there are a healthy portion of things WRONG with the scoring .. and the rewarding of those scores.

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

Brass 20

Visual 20

Percussion 20

Analysis of Music 10

Color Guard 10

That's 100% with 60% being music ... as it should be. If a change like this were made ... show designs would be VERY different. More in line with how the average/legacy fan wants to see them designed ... driven by music .. with visual that supports the music. Even if you had to go 15 Brass, 15 Percussion and 10 Ensemble .. it would be a better scoring system.

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?

Then the question becomes .. who is the chief judge? What are their demands of the judges who work for them? What is the emphasis in all sub-captions? What vocabulary will be used to explain themselves while judging?

As to Mike's comments about static scoring ... he's talking the rank and rate issue with the DCI judging mindset .. same with BOA and every other marching arts competitive circuit. Sheet criteria is thrown out the window when you're talking a regional or finals situation .. In fact, the only caption that actually made some calls and look wonky all season was percussion. KUDO'S TO THEM! Every caption should be scored that way. Give the number based on what the performance earned .. not handing out .1 here and there to "make a call".

Fix the issue of the scoring weight .... then fix judges actually giving the score that is required by the sheet criteria .... and you'll have more movement, more excitement ... more of a following of DCI with butts in the stands.

notice it's always those ###### drummers with the balls to make a call?

That's any circuit

[Jeff Ream]

But judging isn't about studying pictures and video: it's on-the-fly decision making. Besides, I didn't say Devs were perfect: "near perfection" by definition means there were mistakes. Heck, I've talked to the judge that gave Garfield a perfect score in 87, and he even said, they weren't perfect, but pretty darn close. I know Devs got several perfect scores on sheets, but I tend to look at that more like "they were x amount of points better than 2nd" not "wow, their guard performed flawlessly."

Are you saying that Crown (or in captions where Crown was 3rd, Phantom) marched cleaner than Blue Devils? People can quibble over who had "harder" visual demands, but talking strictly performance I don't think anyone else was super close to Blue Devils in visual. Argue Crown was better in music in general (I would), argue other percussion sections were better, but there doesn't seem to be a huge consensus that Blue Devils were out-marched.

let's be honest:

perfect scores come about now due to a lack of numbers management starting at the bottom.

[Jeff Ream]

You've only been on this forum for 2 years ... go back and search it yourself. I'm very independent from any corps I ever marched with. I'm vocal about what's wrong with the system .. no matter who it favors or doesn't. If my former corps puts out a crap show and wins ... I call it crap plain and simple .. and I've never erased a post ... happy hunting.

true, you may be the second most blunt person on DCP

[Jeff Ream]

Okay...so...I'm about ready to step in it, but please remember when your teacher used to say, "There's no such thing as a stupid question."

I saw two shows in particular this year that really seemed to fail to connect with the crowd generally. The first was the Troopers and the second was the Blue Devils. After both corps left the field there was a collective, "uh. mmmm. not sure what that was."

I am not comparing the execution of these two shows, but Cesario says in the article, ". One of the biggest interests is making our shows "COMPELLING". We want to present convincing, persuasive programs---things that grab the fans and find a way of bringing them to the Corps."

Please forgive me for this lame question, but as it relates to this "Grab Effect" are there similarities between these two shows in this area?

well, both relied heavily on the intelectual part of the triad of effect, and not much on emotional or aesthetic. The thing is BD did a better job selling the intellectual stuff,and Troop didn't.

my continued rant about efect judging is to truly be effective, you should touch on all parts of the triad equally, and that does not seem to be how it is applied in the judging world....and as such, it leaves fans dismayed, confused, bewildered, and in many cases, just flat ###### off

[supersop]

well, both relied heavily on the intelectual part of the triad of effect, and not much on emotional or aesthetic. The thing is BD did a better job selling the intellectual stuff,and Troop didn't.

my continued rant about efect judging is to truly be effective, you should touch on all parts of the triad equally, and that does not seem to be how it is applied in the judging world....and as such, it leaves fans dismayed, confused, bewildered, and in many cases, just flat ###### off

Jeff, I think DCI should hire you and me to rewrite the sheets and train the judges in the future :P