Carolina Crown 2013

[corpsband]

And if we can't expect a literal translation, I'd personally much rather leave the spoken word out, especially if it's being done over top of something that isn't even part of the work they're trying capture.

I generally agree with your preference -- and felt the same way when I had only heard recordings of the ballad. It's quite a different thing live -- at least it was for me. Perhaps you'll feel the same way. And if not -- that's ok too. It really is ok if some people don't like all of Crown's design choices:-)

Edited June 22, 2013 by corpsband

[InspaDave]

For what it is worth I am totally digging the counting during the percussion feature. It is also good the see their drums with a much better book than they had last year.

[skywhopper]

Seems me you're using the term "gutless" just to bait other posters. You could just say " I don't like electronics" which is basically what you're actually saying. But that wouldn't cause people to get fired up in their replies.

Really, after all I've written you think I'm just trying to bait people?

"I don't like electronics" is not at all what I've been saying...

[MikeD]

That has to be one of the biggest cop-out arguments.

Why? If the design team's goal is to create something close to the original, then using the instrumentation of the original is a valid design choice. For example, in the Crouching Tiger example N.E. mentioned, my goal was to get the sound of the original, and I had a great cellist, so I made the design choice to feature the young woman on cello. I could have written it as a flute solo, trumpet, etc...but I was able to stay close to the original. That is a valid goal; it would also be valid NOT to do that, if that was what the arranger wanted to do. There is no one single way to do something is the point.

[skywhopper]

The start and finish of the ballad IS from EOTB. Furthermore the entire show seeks to capture EOTB even if the source music is not always EOTB. IMO in that endeavor the designers succeeded ( and your argument fails). It's a translation of EOTB to a different medium -- you can't expect literally transcription . Otherwise we'd have a 5 hour long drum corps production !

I would totally buy a ticket for this.

[N.E. Brigand]

I didn't cite Simon's review to "prove" that Einstein on the Beach is bad. That should have been clear from my statement that one valid response to Simon's review is to decide that he's wrong.

I cited Simon's review in defiance of claims that Crown's show must be good, or must include certain elements, simply because some people like the source material, or because the source material included those elements.

Where has anyone said such a thing?

(Another example, not specific to Crown: just because the music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon features a cello solo, that doesn't mean that the best possible marching band adaptation of the song needs to include a (miked) cello.)

What is wrong with that? We got wonderful response from both judges and audience when I arranged that show for the band I teach, complete with an electric cello.

Does it need a cello? No. We had a marvelous cellist, so we used her. It was a design choice, just like Crown has made with their show.

If an audience member doesn't like some aspect of Crown's show, it is no defense to say, "But that's how it was done in the opera house!"

Sure it is, if their goal is to create something close to the original.

You do realize you've just done the very thing you say no one does?

If someone feels the voice in Crown's show doesn't work (and I'm not saying that; I haven't seen their show yet), responding that the voice comes from the original doesn't magically make it work for Crown.

Anyway, congratulations to Crown on their victory tonight. I hope, when I finally see their show, that I love it.

[N.E. Brigand]

(Quoting a theater review by John Simon:) "The usual defense of Einstein is that 'it turned me around' or 'it completely changes your sense of time.' But although I fervently champion art as an eye-, ear-, mind-, and soul-opener, I see no point in changing our sense of time.

What a close-minded review. That right there is the essence of it, to me. Minimalist music has nothing to do with being in a trance or being drugged out. I can't find the quote at the moment, but Steve Reich has a good one criticizing this stereotypical view of his music, and of the other major minimalists (including Philip Glass).

Now to be fair, Philip Glass is not my favorite composer, and I'm not the biggest fan of his music. But I do love minimalist music in general, and I appreciate what he's doing and why it's important (and especially why it was in minimalism's earliest days). This reviewer clearly does not get understand what minimalist music is about.

But to add a second addendum, I think this review has little to do with Crown's show because their show is so radically different from the original Einstein on the Beach in so many ways. I love E=mc^2, but it's not "minimalist" at all.

EDIT: to clarify why I didn't like the review, it's not just because it was critical of EotB. It would be like writing four paragraphs tearing apart a DCI show and then saying "but anyway, I think all music played on a football field is stupid". Then why'd you bother writing the rest of the review? If you disagree with or dislike the art in such a foundational way, then your review probably won't be very interesting or useful.

You raise some very interesting points. Why would someone like John Simon write a review of a show, like Einstein at the Beach, that he doesn't expect to like? Well, maybe his editor told him to. I am reminded that in Cleveland, Donald Rosenberg, the classical music critic of the only local daily newspaper, felt that the Cleveland Orchestra began to falter after the former music director, Christoph von Dohnanyi, was succeeded by Franz Welser-Moest. And since Rosenberg's job was to report his honest and informed opinion about the leading ensemble in Cleveland, he had to write often that Welser-Moest was leading the Orchestra astray. Eventually the Orchestra, very worried about the effect repeated negative reviews could have on their income, was (apparently) able to persuade the newspaper to reassign Rosenberg to other, lesser reviewing jobs. (He sued, unsuccessfully.) But what else could Rosenberg do? My music critic friend in California said that he hoped, were he in a similar position, that he'd be able to afford to take a different job: it can't be healthy to be forced to repeatedly attend performances you don't like.

However, sometimes a critic will choose to review something he doesn't like (though, of course, we must remember that the critic may not know in advance how he's going to feel!) in order to make a point that no one else seems to have made. And that point may well be that an entire class of art is suspect. From time to time, someone has to say that the emperor has no clothes. A fair number of people last year on these forums said that Dada was never any good in the first place, that it was, for example, the decadent art of rich kids who bought their way out of serving their countries. And so forth. If nobody ever says that out loud, then everyone assumes that Dada is good, and, maybe, that they're not allowed to dislike it.

In fact, to take your hypothetical: I met a prominent wind ensemble composer a few months ago, one whose work has been played in DCI, and he more or less told me that, to him, drum corps is a second-rate art form, because the music takes back seat to the visuals. I think it's good for people in the drum corps bubble to encounter opinions like that, now and again, and ask: could it be true? Why do I disagree? Similarly, it might be good for someone to express his honest opinion that minimalist music is bad art, and that its very attempts to rework time is a foolish idea. Who knows? A century from now that may be the standard opinion, and Simon could look like a wise prophet. My music critic friend, who as I said is an admirer of Glass's work, is not a fan of most serialist music, and feels that the admiration given to that genre for many years was harmful to the overall state of classical music.

Again: my point in posting Simon's review of EotB was not that he was right, but that Glass's work shouldn't be taken as holy writ.

It may be worth reposting my favorite paragraph by Simon; the subject is film criticism but most of it could apply to thinking about any art:

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What is film criticism all about? Praise for our product, says the industry. Recognition, or failing that, constructive suggestions, say the film-makers. Reliable guidance, says the public. All of those things, say the reviewers, except, of course, praise only for good products. None of these things principally, say critics. Critics are after something harder and more elusive: pursuing their own reactions down to the rock bottom of their subjectivity and expressing them with the utmost artistry, so that what will always elude the test of objective truth will at least become a kind of art: the art of illumination, persuasion, and good thinking and writing. The industry is not to be indulged, any more than the film-maker is to be told how he should make movies: the one would be dishonest, the other presumptuous. The public, to be sure, is to be guided, but not in the simplistic way it hopes for.

It is not for the critic to do the reader’s thinking for him; it is for the critic merely to do his own thinking for the reader’s benefit. This may seem like a slight difference, but it is in fact tremendous.

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"Pursuing our own reactions down the rock bottom of our subjectivity" is what we should be doing when we attempt to seriously discuss Crown's show (or any of the other corps' shows).

[skywhopper]

Congratulations to Crown on defeating Blue Devils in their first contest of the season. With The Cadets' strong score from last night as well, and the great things we're hearing about SCV, BK, Blue Stars, Madison, Pacific Crest, Cavaliers, Spirit, and Crossmen, it's shaping up to be an exciting season already.

[jasgre2000]

I watched Crown's show on Youtube for a third (or maybe fourth) time and this is what I would do to fix the narrative in the ballad. First, I definitely think it needs to be there; I wouldn't cut it all together. Second, I would cut out everything before "Two lovers . . . ". Everything before that is unnecessary in my opinion and a little cheesy. I especially don't like the long pause before the word "love". That is a little over the top. Finally, I think the narrative loses quite a bit from being from a younger person. I think part of the impact of the narrative in the source material is that it is performed by an older grandfathery gentleman who comes off as someone with a lot of experience in what he is talking about. I'm not sure if this is true, but it seems like it may be Einstein himself that is supposed to be speaking. Putting those words in the mouth of someone in their teens or early twenties causes it to lose some of its profundity, in my opinion. I'm not sure whether the rules would allow for an older gentleman to perform the narrative live with the corps. If not, I would find that a sample there would make things better.

Also, I think the violin part that is beneath the narrative in the source material is some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. They include a bit of it in the beginning, but I would have preferred that they kept more of it ... maybe they can weave some of it into the music they have there now (which is also beautiful, but not as good as the Glass stuff in my opinion).

These are all just opinions, of course. I love the show and after seeing several of the shows so far, I think it is the one to beat at this point. I'm super excited for this season.

[superOOk]

Thinking of watching run-through today @ Homestead HS -- anybody have any idea about the schedule today?