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More SoundSport and DrumLine Battle details released


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Yeah, especially in the scholastic world, battery music is best when it's written for the chops of the kids you have. :smile:

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* DLB will be judged by a three-judge panel, with an emphasis on entertaining the audience and not technical skills.

the judging is such a critical part of establishing what these activities will thrive on and foster. Ok so DLB won't be about technique/skill... makes sense because of the "online battle" component...

but if SOUNDSPORT is the same way... it would be AWFUL. I hope that SoundSport has a larger emphasis on exceptional difficult playing/design like DCI/WGI. Or atleast have a division where this the emphasis.

Edited by charlie1223
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how does everyone feel about instruments having to be carried? Clearly philosophically they do this to exclude the larger grounded front ensemble equipment, likely to make it more feasible for start-ups & local communities. Plus, it makes it a little bit more of a level playing field (i.e. the lesser funded groups won't lose because a better funded group has more, pricey instruments in their arsenal.

But these current roles seem to exclude groups like the one posted on DCP with the all-female thing. These guidelines exclude even MORE economical options, like trash cans, buckets, poles, etc. With some minor adjustments to the rules, some groups could turn this into a pseudo competitive STOMP. This year for my spring percussion ensemble concert, I'm trying to program more pieces that use non-traditional instrumentation, and there are so many options of even already composed literature, let alone writing simplistic yet showy, crowd-friendly stuff. Would these roles exclude stuff like Cadets 2000 tenor break, where the drums are on stands? Or the 1995 Cadets bass drum + floor tom "run-around-the-drums" feature. Both of those short moments were wildly popular and elicited TONS of crowd applause: do the DrumLine Battle rules preclude moments like that? If there are strict limitations that literally keep this DrumLine Battle event nothing more than DRUMLINE movie reiterations, DCI would be missing out on some cool things. It's a heck of a lot easier putting together an ensemble on the cheap, especially for alumni or community-based groups that don't have battery instruments from a school at their disposal, if you only need to spend $200 at Home Depot vs purchasing or begging to borrow a full line of battery equipment.

Again, there are only a few vague guidelines we know about, so I might be jumping the gun with my thoughts

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how does everyone feel about instruments having to be carried? Clearly philosophically they do this to exclude the larger grounded front ensemble equipment, likely to make it more feasible for start-ups & local communities. Plus, it makes it a little bit more of a level playing field (i.e. the lesser funded groups won't lose because a better funded group has more, pricey instruments in their arsenal.

I thought the same thing when I read the write-up. Rather than banning grounded percussion, it might be a better idea to ban pitched percussion instead, but allow grounding. The idea being you can have drums on stands, but no marimbas.

Let's face it...there's a lot of potential for cool Stomp or Blue Man-esque stuff in the battles...and that would be very cool.

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how does everyone feel about instruments having to be carried? Clearly philosophically they do this to exclude the larger grounded front ensemble equipment, likely to make it more feasible for start-ups & local communities. Plus, it makes it a little bit more of a level playing field (i.e. the lesser funded groups won't lose because a better funded group has more, pricey instruments in their arsenal.

But these current roles seem to exclude groups like the one posted on DCP with the all-female thing. These guidelines exclude even MORE economical options, like trash cans, buckets, poles, etc. With some minor adjustments to the rules, some groups could turn this into a pseudo competitive STOMP...

... If there are strict limitations that literally keep this DrumLine Battle event nothing more than DRUMLINE movie reiterations, DCI would be missing out on some cool things. It's a heck of a lot easier putting together an ensemble on the cheap, especially for alumni or community-based groups that don't have battery instruments from a school at their disposal, if you only need to spend $200 at Home Depot vs purchasing or begging to borrow a full line of battery equipment.

Again, there are only a few vague guidelines we know about, so I might be jumping the gun with my thoughts

I'm guessing that rules will be in a continuous state of perfection. After all, we've been changing the rules for DCI since 1972 and apparently we still haven't gotten it right. :tongue::devil:

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I thought the same thing when I read the write-up. Rather than banning grounded percussion, it might be a better idea to ban pitched percussion instead, but allow grounding. The idea being you can have drums on stands, but no marimbas.

Let's face it...there's a lot of potential for cool Stomp or Blue Man-esque stuff in the battles...and that would be very cool.

Banning all pitched percussion isn't much better... If you want to use trash cans that you put on the floor I don't think that really fits into the idea of it being a DRUMLINE. And I think the original idea is for it be just cymbals, snares, tenors, and bassdrums. Drumline Battle isn't supposed to be a super orignal/creative venue. It's supposed to be strictly drumline related in the old school sense. That creative cool Stomp, Blue-man thing you want, that belongs in SoundSport.

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Banning all pitched percussion isn't much better... If you want to use trash cans that you put on the floor I don't think that really fits into the idea of it being a DRUMLINE. And I think the original idea is for it be just cymbals, snares, tenors, and bassdrums. Drumline Battle isn't supposed to be a super orignal/creative venue. It's supposed to be strictly drumline related in the old school sense. That creative cool Stomp, Blue-man thing you want, that belongs in SoundSport.

You're probably right. It also may be that the Stomp/Blue-Man, entertainment driven groups are going to be steered to SoundSport, leaving the DrumBattle thing as a more "pure" form of battery-only combat. Which would make sense, and would work well.

SoundSport is sounding more and more like an "anything goes" sort of thing, which I really, really like.

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