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What will help DCI become more entertaining


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Pete, it is true the activity had its roots in military. Beyond that, drum corps is a TEAM activity. I have no problem with the majority of the clothing being a match. Not sure how I would understand Alabama football versus Ole Miss if everyone did their own thing with attire!

My problem is with the accessibility of the shows. It's still too "unemotional" for the majority of potential audience members. The overall appeal is much too limited.

Oh, I agree that they should dress similarly in general (Cavies guard an exception in 2012 because of the Warlhol theme); I thought the concern expressed was that corps were getting away from a military uniform. BD, for example, all dress the same (ensemble), but it doesn't look military. And that's the right thing to do for what is basically a jazz dance band.

The Cadets, on the other hand, have a problem. Their long tradition creates a discord between what the artistic ideas they are presenting and their look. Of course, it looks fine to us since we're used to it (and for the record I love it), but newcomers are likely to say, "Why are they playing Barber dressed like that..." I speculated that Toy Soldiers was a cry for help. "Look, the uniform is relevant!" tongue.gif

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less clinical, symphonic wind-ensemble-like perfection and more emotion. Raw, visceral stuff that causes you to react. Everything sounds so clinical and boring nowadays. To be fair, I sit there and marvel at the achievement, but I feel or remember nothing. I'll take goosebumps and a visceral reaction, passion and emotion, over perfection any day.

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Right, Pete!

Then again, we sure don't want them all to wear coats and ties, either!

I wish all corps would have the budget to dress their entire ensemble (each year) to fully represent their program completely. We're not there yet.

smile.gif

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less clinical, symphonic wind-ensemble-like perfection and more emotion. Raw, visceral stuff that causes you to react. Everything sounds so clinical and boring nowadays. To be fair, I sit there and marvel at the achievement, but I feel or remember nothing. I'll take goosebumps and a visceral reaction, passion and emotion, over perfection any day.

What an excellent post, luvscorps! Could not have said it any better. Thanks!

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Well, this all convinces me that the artistic direction of DCI corps is pretty healthy. Some thoughts:

1. All the "uniforms" are costumes and always were. Drum corps are not actually little armies. They just dress up like armies to do a show. When the show has nothing to do with the military, the military costume is not appropriate. Neither are the rifles, by the way. So why do they dress up like armies? Because that's what the VFW, AL, etc. organizations that created the activity wanted. So it's not surprising that it's slowly going away now. (I do agree that Crown's costume is too generic and lacks, um, soul?)

2. After wondering why several folks seemed to agree that the emphasis on visual is too high, I now realize that what you mean is is that the music judges take the drill difficulty into effect, while the visual judges are less likely to take music difficulty into effect. This does sound like a real problem, because music judges did do drill at some point (assuming they marched), while the visual judges didn't necessarily do music, so they would feel reluctant to assess the difficulty there. However, there's a mitigating factor: Visual judges are splitting their attention between the guard and the ensemble, and so for much of the time the music isn't relevant to their assessments. That's clearly part of the reason they're not mentioning it much. You can't compare that to the music judges, who are limiting their assessment to musicians who are in fact doing drill almost all of the time. Still, you're making a valid point, I just think it's being blown up into a "the problem with drum corps today" crisis.

3. The Cavaliers show from 2012 was scoring low - for them - on essentially all captions throughout the season, as far as I can tell. 7/11 in Bowling Green they were 7-8 points behind Carolina Crown and came 3rd (behind Crown and BlueCoats) in every single subcaption. That's a disaster. My take on their show was that the members might have looked up Andy Warhol's art on the internet and couldn't figure out what their show had to do with it. I sure couldn't. Perhaps this sapped their enthusiasm (an essential ingredient to success). This is speculative, of course. Actually, the show concept screamed for the guard to wear the iconic Cavaliers ensemble uniform but in the alternating garish color scheme Warhol liked to use, (i.e. different colors assigned to the same parts in different members uniforms). Not just the pants in "Warhol blue" and the rest of the outfit just ... strange. And strange haircuts. Have any 2012 Cavvie's post-mortem'ed the show on DCP?

I totally lol'd at this. I do remember someone earlier in the thread saying that everyone's in costumes, not uniforms, and that's apparently a problem. I'm no marching band, music, or military historian, but I imagine we band geeks owe a lot to the military as far as precedent on style, music, look, instrumentation, etc. That Cadet's uniform looks a lot like formal military attire for (I'm assuming) West Point or the US army in general which certainly has it's roots in European formal and military attire. BAC too. oh and Madison. but no one strays too too far from a stylized variation of some sort of military garb. Crown's uniform, especially the last two seasons, has been very bland. Part of that could be that their uniform inserts were basically their cream base color. Crown to me just looks like they could be any high school marching band from anywhere, everything about them (shows, drill, unis) to me just screams BOA. But I do like the chameleon thing they try from year to year.

For the Cavaliers, I think the unfortunate truth is that design is a broad umbrella. If you design a show poorly, you're going to get knocked in every caption because a huge part of design is highlighting talents and doing your best to hide your blemishes and flaws. Plus I hear they lost some age outs and vets and that is never good coupled with changes in staff (especially changes in heavily established staff, Gaines!) and now I hear they're brass philosophy is going through changes. But even with that, they still looked like the Cavaliers, the drill was clean, it was just bad.

But maybe to understand why that show was so....questionable is to compare it to BD's show (perhaps rather compare it to what BD's show could have been). They both were art shows, BD more directly so, but Cavies show was also about dealing with fame (whatever) but it's still doable. BD's show could have been a super hammy piece of poop where the corps forms a big D A D A or something and had old timey mid-Atlantic accented radio broadcast about who knows what and "and now this part of the show is the WWI part of the show" pew pew pew, boom boom coming from the speakers, made a couple of duchamp ready made shapes in the drill, various dada art on the sideline on the large panels guard changes behind, like this show could have been terrible. And I think that was just what happened with the Green Machine. they took a kinda narrow theme and took a painfully literal interpretation.

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Hi TESB:

I agree that Crown's uniform is too bland. Clearly they had the right idea; make a uniform that can be easily modified to fit any show, but it backfires because that's what it looks like, and you don't want people thinking that while watching the show. They needed to keep us from realizing that. Buying the generic nachos is fine, but keep the bag out of view during the party...tongue.gif

The problem with going away from a military uniform is perhaps that you are then necessarily going toward a band-style uniform, simply because they are way ahead of the curve on this. There must be another direction, though, right?... Fred Windish mentioned something about coats and ties...

Hi Luvscorps:

I love those old simpler shows too, but it's hard to say that Juliet and Angels & Demons lack visceral emotion. And yet, they are both good examples of the highbrow music that is so common in drum corps today. And it serves the members well by giving them the kind of music they would learn in college. Mommy and Daddy are paying for most of this activity, after all!

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I love those old simpler shows too, but it's hard to say that Juliet and Angels & Demons lack visceral emotion. And yet, they are both good examples of the highbrow music that is so common in drum corps today.

Mozart and a film score?

(That said, I get your point... :) )

Mike

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Support all of the corps? Seriously, bear with me through this. If people started showing up early and supporting every corps, then we'd see more entertainment. Right now, the lower corps usually perform in pretty empty stadiums, which sucks. So they see that the top corps are winning with shows that can be deemed less exciting, but are scoring well and are performing under the lights in front of big crowds. So the trickle-down effect happens, and the smaller corps think a less-entertaining but more judge-oriented show will get them in front of the big crowds and under the lights. So.... by supporting all of the corps instead of just the top ones, it allows for more diversity in show design. If not every designer is gunning to beat the Blue Devils or whomever is on top that year, then they can stretch the creative muscles and do something that people will enjoy, instead of just keeping up with the front-runners.

At least that's my thought. I still think every show has entertaining qualities, but I'll check back 30 years after aging-out and see if I still feel the same.

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The Cadets, on the other hand, have a problem. Their long tradition creates a discord between what the artistic ideas they are presenting and their look. Of course, it looks fine to us since we're used to it (and for the record I love it), but newcomers are likely to say, "Why are they playing Barber dressed like that..." I speculated that Toy Soldiers was a cry for help. "Look, the uniform is relevant!" tongue.gif

When a local concert band attired in white short sleeves, black pants, black dress shoes, at a summer outdoor band concert plays ( for example ), Jean Sibelius composition of " Finlandia ", are you concerned that the musicians were not dressed properly for the musical piece ? Or, when the ( for another example ) Univ. Texas Longhorn Band in their white cowboy hats plays a theme show on music from the rock band " The Who ", do you focus on the uniforms of the band not fitting the theme and/ or music ? And when a Symphony Orchestra that is dressed in modern tuxedos, bowties, and tails, women musicians in formal dress attire, etc and a Conductor dressed in same, plays music from Gounod's " Faust " or Symphony #36 from Mozart from the 1700's, or plays music from the musical " Oklahoma " do you find the musicians and conductor on stage not dressed appropriately in concert with the history timeline of the piece or matching the music played itself ? Just curious, thats all.

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Support all of the corps? Seriously, bear with me through this. If people started showing up early and supporting every corps, then we'd see more entertainment. Right now, the lower corps usually perform in pretty empty stadiums, which sucks. So they see that the top corps are winning with shows that can be deemed less exciting, but are scoring well and are performing under the lights in front of big crowds. So the trickle-down effect happens, and the smaller corps think a less-entertaining but more judge-oriented show will get them in front of the big crowds and under the lights. So.... by supporting all of the corps instead of just the top ones, it allows for more diversity in show design. If not every designer is gunning to beat the Blue Devils or whomever is on top that year, then they can stretch the creative muscles and do something that people will enjoy, instead of just keeping up with the front-runners.

At least that's my thought. I still think every show has entertaining qualities, but I'll check back 30 years after aging-out and see if I still feel the same.

Different crowds today. You have a snob element today (that has taken over the majority I think) that cannot appreciate anything but perfection and won't sit through something less than a top 6 performance. Just read the threads here on DCP. As a parent now, I cannot fathom why some would not support younger corps despite them not having 150 members or being as "good" as the older bigger corps. I think it's simply great that they are out there learning and putting something on the field that is expanding their skills. I know that I probably sound like an old dino in this respect, but I enjoy watching the smaller "younger" corps perform.

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