Standing-O's for participating?

[perc2100]

For anyone to dictate to me what does or doesn't deserve a standing ovation is the same as telling me what I should and shouldn't like.

EXACTLY!!!

[BRASSO]

It's also not the feedback the show designers need to improve the entertainment value of their shows.

Some Corps designers have been quite successful in competition and don't care a wit about the anticipated audience reception to their shows. I am under no illusion that my personal responce to a show will have any bearing on a Corps Designers future show whose current show has been deemed " excellent " by the audience ( the judges ) that matters the most to that Corps.

[Plan9]

A few things:

1) who cares what other people do? Give a standing ovation if you feel the group of kids/members/sports team deserves it, regardless of outcome. It's not unusual for a pro team to lose a Championship and the have their fans give them huge support for their efforts.

2) in a youth activity, do you really think it's wrong to encourage participation & effort? I know that as a parent my feelings on youth activities have changed drastically over the years from when I didn't have a child. I personally think it does MORE harm to perpetuate a "you only get mad applause for winning!" and I think that could potentially ingrain worse tendencies than giving standing o's for participation and not winning. My son is eleven, and he gets VERY frustrated when he doesn't excel at something immediately. He's fortunate to be pretty intelligent so he does incredibly well in school with very little effort, but he is not athletic at all (like me: he comes by it honestly). When he was younger and tried organized sports it was a long process of teaching him not to flip out when he's not succeeding (or when others are better than him). There's nothing wrong with encouraging lower-achieving kids/teams/drum corps with applause for their efforts.

In the case of a drum corps, we are talking about kids who give up A LOT to perform for a crowd. Especially groups who don't score very high, where members don't get a ton of respect from judges maybe because of things outside of their control (poor show design, inexperienced staff who doesn't rehearse the group well, really good competition, etc), where is there harm in showing them the love and encouraging them? The 16 year old struggling on 3rd trumpet in Pioneer who isn't winning DCI might be the 20 year old trumpet soloist for Blue Devils if people foster her interest by encouraging her with applause?

Again, it's all about what YOU want to do. I don't go to many drum corps shows (I haven't been to a live show in a couple of years to be honest - I get most of my drum corps fix via Fan Network), so on the rare occasion I attend I tend to show appreciation to all. When I was going to several shows a summer, I tended to only give Standing O's to groups I really liked. It really is all about what you want to do, and if you feel only the top shows with the best execution and highest placements deserve your Standing Ovation, then cool

Nicely said.

[Plan9]

Some Corps designers have been quite successful in competition and don't care a wit about the anticipated audience reception to their shows. I am under no illusion that my personal responce to a show will have any bearing on a Corps Designers future show whose current show has been deemed " excellent " by the audience ( the judges ) that matters the most to that Corps.

How could you possibly know this?

[perc2100]

there's a difference between a corps making you stand up with an incredible performance and people standing up to stratch as a corps leaves the field. I clap for all corps and will stand between shows because usually the seats are so #### uncomfortable at most stadiums.

Exactly; I think there's a pretty obvious sentiment being expressed between "yea: good job kids" vs "AWESOME SHOW!!"

[JimF-LowBari]

Exactly; I think there's a pretty obvious sentiment being expressed between "yea: good job kids" vs "AWESOME SHOW!!"

Yep, what I was thinking of when I posted that members can tell what the audience is giving them.

And when you get to be my age, standing up after every corps is needed so your joints won't stiffen, IOW - if I don't stand up now, I might not be able to later.

[N.E. Brigand]

I've read complaints about overuse of the standing ovation in (professional) theatre dating back to at least the 1980s. Here's a recent blog post by the critic John Simon bemoaning the practice, which begins, "There should be a difference between a good performance and a great one. Sensibly, one applauds at the end of the former and rises to one’s feet for the latter." and goes on to consider reasons why the standing O has become ubiquitous.

But then again, in that same blog Simon also wondered why people love the music of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart.

I have no interest in music from before roughly 1840, and can only wonder at the adulation of, say, Bach and Mozart...

Quite! Simon has been primarily a theatre and film critic (professionally since about 1960) but he's also written extensively on the other arts, including enough music criticism to collect in a good-sized volume that was published in 2005. But his tastes are quirkly. However, you'll notice that he was responding to another music critic, B.H. Haggin, who didn't care for any classical works written after about 1900. Simon's tastes perhaps are more in line than Haggin's with the drum corps repertoire.

As for the difference between audiences in drum corps and professional theatre, I completely agree that the standards for one needn't apply to the other. To turn to Simon again, I have read that as a student, he was dismissed as the critic for his college paper (at Harvard) in 1947 after giving too glowing a review to a new play in its out-of-town (i.e., away from NYC) tryouts. He was expected to be more critical: "nothing could be that good". I think they play in question was Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. Imagine a DCI judge being fired for scoring a corps too highly!

[N.E. Brigand]

From a members, staff or judges point of view, the show just marched may have been cr*p but to the audience it may have been the most entertaining thing they'd ever seen.

For anyone to dictate to me what does or doesn't deserve a standing ovation is the same as telling me what I should and shouldn't like.

I don't think anybody here is telling you what you should like. The question is, do you really like all the performances enough to give them a standing ovation instead of merely applauding? And if you're giving all the corps a standing ovation, how do you reward the corps that you think are extra special?

[JimF-LowBari]

I don't think anybody here is telling you what you should like. The question is, do you really like all the performances enough to give them a standing ovation instead of merely applauding? And if you're giving all the corps a standing ovation, how do you reward the corps that you think are extra special?

OK let's define "Standing Ovation". Is it standing and clapping after the corps finishes the show and troops the stands (if they still do that)? Or does there have to be cheering and other sound effects involved? My answer to your last sentence is what the audience is doing besides the polite applause.

Edited June 13, 2013 by JimF-LowBari

[perc2100]

I don't think anybody here is telling you what you should like. The question is, do you really like all the performances enough to give them a standing ovation instead of merely applauding? And if you're giving all the corps a standing ovation, how do you reward the corps that you think are extra special?

Heck, I practically gave a standing ovation for the eggs benedict I ate yesterday at a local restaurant: no skin off my bones showing appreciation to the kids on the field rehearsing & performing for me.