Could SCV be a dark horse?

[perc2100]

Its early and its possible... but unlikely, imo.

SCV is a little over 2 points in back of the front runners. I love their show, but believe that all 3 Corps of Cadets, BD, and Crown have more available points to get out of their shows than does SCV in their show.

That said, I'd love to see them get there. But if they don't, I don't care as this year's show appears to be a hit with fans, and in my opinion this national appeal for their 2013 show will only increase as the Corps moves into the Midwest and then into the East, before finally getting to Indy.

This is such an apt sentiment, that I think often gets overlooked on DCP. If someone likes a show or a particular corps, IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THEY WIN OR LOSE! The day after Finals you'll wake up and be the same person you were Saturday, the show you really like is still a show you really liked, and you can enjoy it on DVD/FN/whatever. Scores matter to the current MM's & staff, but for fans all we really need to focus on is showing the love to the corps who please us most. It's easy to get too hung up on scores and Champions, but at the end of the season all we as fans should care about is if we liked the shows

[MikeN]

Amen. The list of my favorite shows includes far more non-champions than title winners.

Mike

[N.E. Brigand]

I'm dumb too, but I'll give it a shot. Looking at the recaps for Denver, for instance, you'll see that each category, like "Visual Proficiency" or "Music - Percussion" is subdivided into two columns. The first columns are titled "Cont" or "Comp" or "Subst", while the second columns are titled "Achv". If a given first column has a larger score than its related second column, i.e., if the "Content" or "Substance" of the drill or the percussion book shows more difficulty than the corps is "Achieving", the corps can improve its overall score simply by performing better: they have "room to grow", and since there's still more than four weeks to finals, all corps are sure to get cleaner. Of course, they want the content to go up too! They do this in part by adding elements to their shows to make them more difficult and in part simply by getting cleaner, because the judges can see or hear more clearly what you're doing in the first place. However, several people here have emphasized that it's harder to make a show more difficult than it is to clean, so it's better to have higher content than achievement numbers at this point.

I would substitute "difficult" with the term "effective." It might be semantic, but there have been plenty of examples of incredibly effective content but not necessarily incredibly difficult. Sometimes something might even appear more difficult than it really is (or, with a slightly lesser achieving group, something simpler might appear more difficult due to members struggling).

Thank you, that makes sense. Great music is certainly not all sixteenth notes!

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Link to discussion threads for all 2013 World Class corps

[TRacer]

Conversely, Live by the form, die by the form....

Sounds like a jab at that style, whih has worked VERY well for many organizations for a while...

Come on...

I've been teaching marching a looong time...dot has its shortcomings as do form responsibilities. Yes, dot works well when you're in an ideal environment (correctly marked field) but put the group in a less-than-ideal environment (like a poorly marked or faded field, "converted" baseball diamond, or worse yet, a soccer field) then "just" dot won't help. SCV used to do exhibition shows early in the season at San Jose Earthquakes soccer games on an MLS marked field which was a great way to "drill" the show into us (so to speak); it made us appreciate what those in the '60s and '70s had experienced marching on fields with no yard lines and a center stripe.

You did realize not everyone wrote their 2013 drill using Pyware and instead used paper and pencil, right?

Edited July 8, 2013 by TRacer

[tja273]

For starters; 1988 Madison Scouts. :lookaround:/>/> A week before finals they were just barely beating the Velvet Knights. NO ONE saw it coming!

I know I didn't. After us in 3rd and SCV in 2nd, I was wondering who the hell won!!

[PeeWee]

I am extremely proud and humbled by what the Vanguard is putting on the field this year. I know I speak for other alumni when I say "They ARE the Santa Clara Vanguard."

Is the show abstract? Avante-garde? Modern? No. Is it accessible? Emotional? Absolutely!

The major achilles heel I see with the corps right now is the sound being produced by the hornline, and the unusual method of teaching and marching drill. I don't know whether the brass instruments themselves are the factor or the way the members are being taught to play them, but there is a distinct difference in sound between SCV and Crown/Phantom/BD/Cadets. The pure tone and clarity of sound is not yet being achieved. And I don't like their Cavalier-style marching approach. With seemingly no regard to form or interval, their current style of marching takes much longer to clean.

The 2013 Santa Clara Vanguard will go down in my book as one of my favorite Vanguard shows of all time. It will join the ranks of 1987 and 2004. Will the judges award them with a medal? I don't know. Does it really matter? Well, no, it doesn't. Part of Vanguards tradition through the 1970s, 1980s, and regained again in the late 1990s was always making the Top 3 of DCI. I wish with all of my heart that they would keep that tradition alive. But I will love this show regardless.

[billj]

Does anyone else see this opportunity: when the brass and percussion go behind the backdrops, what about a full corps costume/uniform change? They could come out dressed as the students/peasants. it would fit the music, since they are playing Do You Hear The People Sing. Thoughts?

[Cleveland1]

At this point SCV has a better shot at being a dark horse than Phantom and Bluecoats.

mostly because SCV has been scoring about 3 points the lead (usually crown), sometimes more sometimes less, but at the same shows its about 3 or a little under 3 points.

Phantom and Bluecoats are tight between each other, usually scoring less than .5 from each other, but consistently 4 or so points off the cadets. Which is safely a top 3 contender right now, we will see come minnesota.

But its not only that scv is about one point better consistently at shows where they face the top tier in DCI, they are also usually high on captions they need to be high on.

In Denver SCV was .7 away from winning music. What held them back was their Brass score, a full 1.5 behind BD, 1.3 behind crown. IF that score would have been about .5 behind BD or even Crown then they would be right there for winning the music caption due to their tight percussion. The only problem is by the end of the year, if they beat BD's percussion, it will be by .1 or .2 with both corps having near perfect percussion scores. (yes i know the cadets could win percussion too)

So if SCV improves their brass scores, which naturally improve with cleaning, and will likely improve with changes to improve scores such as eliminating or modifying sections that may be holding them back. If SCV gets mid to upper 19s in all their music captions, which is doable, they improve their shot at being a dark horse, as long as webb is not judging finals as he has consistently given SCV low scores.

Another improtant thing to look at is GE. You do not win the championship if you do not win GE. the scores are somewhat weighted towards GE, making each GE caption more imprtant than each music or vis caption. What you want to see at this point, to make a push, is 1.5 or less off in GE, hopefully both GE being around .5-.7 off the leader. SCV is .5 off in GEV and .8 off in GEM. Good news is they are withing striking distance, better news is it even't even the southwest regional where a lot of changes are being introduced into the program. with things left to introduce, i could see SCV improving on BD and Crown whom i feel have a lower ceiling for how much changes will improve their shows.

What I mean is. You watch/listen to SCV's show and you say, "that was good, now only if they could change this part and if they could use this in their show more, and etc" and if they make those improvements their GE scores will improve. you watch/listen to crown and you think, "that was amazing!" the only real improvements I could see to their show is eliminating some voice over (not going to happen) but this is very subjective, just my opinion on how they could improve their show... there isnt much. You listen to BD and depending on who you are you say, "This was weird?" or "this was great!" or "Why is that on the field!" Well whatever you think, the judges give them high scores. Since putting on the ending their score has fallen behind Crown, and there will likely be a change to the ending because of it. That being said, what improvements could be made beyond the ending? and will they end it "right" (and i dont mean "right" as in causing a riot) or should i say rite? They could do more things with the props, but i feel that would distract people even more. As i said, I feel that the SCV show has a higher ceiling in terms of improvements that can be made to the show, if done correctly their GE scores could improve on the scores set by Crown and BD.

Last are visual scores. Watching the show, it is a spectacle. There are props but they arent really used at this point beyond the solo in "let him live" I wonder if they will use them more (i personally dont want them to, but I trust them to do it without distracting people if they so use them more) But when it comes to the top 6 corps SCV might be the dirtiest, although their drill definitely seems to be among the most difficult. Their visual design is great, in my opinion. They got second in Color Guard (beating BD's guard) on saturday. The judges however are down on VP and VA. .9 off the leaders in each caption. This will be tough to get over. BD is always top notch in their visual scores, Crown has surprisingly been besting them. SCV could win overall by winning GE, winning Music and losing Visual... but they need to be close. This is the challenge. And we won't really have a feeling until atlanta after most changes have been implemented and cleaned.

But its doable. its still really early. No offense to BD but I would LOVE to see either Crown or SCV win this year, as I have gone to finals in 2010, 2011, and 2012 and have seen 2 BD wins and a cadets win. seeing Crown's first world class win or SCV's first win since 1999, and first outright since 1989, would make this a year to not soon forget. If SCV and Crown tie for first that would be even crazier.

But oh well. just some thoughts.

If i have repeated things people have said... oh well. Didn't read all of the replies.

[fsubone]

With seemingly no regard to form or interval,

There is no regard for the form. Everything is to the dot. Mentioning dressing the form is a joke to the kids on the field. It's a great system to just use the dot marching, but is does take a long time for everything to get clean. But given the staff, they'll be fine. Still a month left in the season. They're a long-shot for a medal, but it could of course happen. I think they have a better chance of medaling than falling down to 6th or 7th. Small improvements can be all that are needed to get SCV back on the top spot. Fiedler promised to get the corps back in championship contention, and he will get them there soon. The staff is in place, the talent level of the kids is getting there.

[Cleveland1]

Does anyone else see this opportunity: when the brass and percussion go behind the backdrops, what about a full corps costume/uniform change? They could come out dressed as the students/peasants. it would fit the music, since they are playing Do You Hear The People Sing. Thoughts?

that would be awesome, especially if they change up Do you hear the people sing?, by slowing it down a bit and making it more dramatic. it is this great emotional part of the musical, and instead SCV is choosing (at least right now) to play it up tempo and very old school like.

If they come out at allentown, or even better finals week, with that change, it would make everyone erupt.