Judging bias

[N.E. Brigand]

I think at times, the design commentary hurt more than helped. I remember a few years ago--I think it was Bluecoats with the '09 show--people on here had fun for weeks with the faux intelligentsia discussed.

Perhaps designers who can't explain what they're doing deserve such ribbing. On the other hand, if the work speaks for itself...

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Link to discussion threads for all 2013 World Class corps

Edited August 2, 2013 by N.E. Brigand

[Pete Freedman]

Every sheet is split 50/50 between the the show and the performance. Not sure where the 75/25 is coming from.

I'm no expert on this, but I think this interpretation is all wrong. It's neither 50/50 nor 75/25. The Content side of the sheets seems to me to be mostly about difficulty.

Imagine a pole vaulting competition in which the competitors are allowed to set the bar wherever they want, but in practice the coaches decide where the bar will be, so for example a coach sets the bar at 14.0'. The vaulter either makes it or doesn't make it. You could say the score (after many vaults) is a combination of coach and athlete, but really the athlete is doing all the work. The coach is merely setting the bar.

Granted, "setting the bar" is much harder in the performing arts, but I believe the Content side is geared to establishing how high the bar is set (which is also more difficult to determine). Not aesthetics.

Now, whether the judges are following the instructions correctly is something else.

Here is the Content side of the Visual Proficiency sheet. (I typed it in off the source because cut/paste is not allowed. Could be typos.):

- What is the depth and range of individual responsibilities of form, body and equipment, including those related to the other members of the unit?

- What is the depth and breadth of the layered responsibilities of playing an instrument, moving through forms and moving around the field manipulating the body position and handling equipment? (This requires a significant approach to sampling by the judge to understnd layering among instrumentalists and color guard members.)

- What is the range and quality of expression through body,equipment and form, given to members of the percussion, brass, and color guard?

- Are there musical challenges such as meter, pulse, tempo, and any of the wide variety of possibilities within pulse, tempo, and meter?

- How do each of these factors, collectively and individually, compare to each and all the other units in the competition?

Source.

It's all about the difficulty. As to GE, I'm too lazy to type in that sheet right now, but while there is clearly room for aesthetic qualities of the show design, even there I see a lot of room for the judge to interpret how well the members are expressing the design, as opposed to the design itself.

Conclusion: Maybe 10-20% design aesthetics, 80-90% difficulty & execution. Still, I would prefer 100% difficulty & execution; I agree on that point..

Edited July 31, 2013 by Pete Freedman

[SACMellos2010]

There should be at least as big a spread in Brass as there is in Percussion!!! There is Crown and then in a whole other division is everyone else.

[CrownStarr]

It would be really good for the sport in general. It was claimed on a thread once that corps don't want the judges' actual taped comments to be made public. At least not without warning/permission, as was allegedly done.

Still, even if you can't publish the actual judges tapes, having some kind of conversation between judges and designers (or even just multiple judges) would be great. Imagine a post-Finals event added to Fan Network. Each Finals performance is shown, but with commentary by three judges with multiple-caption experience. And yet another "event" on FN with commentary by that corps' director and lead staff. Either and both of these ideas would add value to FN and improve the sport for everyone involved, I think.

I got to see a little bit of this when Crown did the BOA Summer Symposium clinic from 2009-2012. There was usually a judging session, where the full corps would be on the field running movements of the show and a judging representative from DCI would be in the stands talking to band directors about how they judged it. There was a session for visual, one for music, one for GE, etc. Sometimes they would turn the speakers around so the corps could hear, or they would talk afterwards and we could hear what the judge was saying. It was absolutely fascinating, and I think it would be fantastic if DCI made that kind of content accessible to the general public. I can understand corps not wanting performance tapes to go out, since tapes are usually filled with (constructive) criticism—not exactly great publicity to hear someone picking apart everything wrong with your show, as useful as it is internally. However, I think it'd be totally possible to do a more neutral explanation from judges of how they judge, what things matter to them and what things don't, that kind of stuff.

[Farmboy]

I got to see a little bit of this when Crown did the BOA Summer Symposium clinic from 2009-2012. There was usually a judging session, where the full corps would be on the field running movements of the show and a judging representative from DCI would be in the stands talking to band directors about how they judged it. There was a session for visual, one for music, one for GE, etc. Sometimes they would turn the speakers around so the corps could hear, or they would talk afterwards and we could hear what the judge was saying. It was absolutely fascinating, and I think it would be fantastic if DCI made that kind of content accessible to the general public. I can understand corps not wanting performance tapes to go out, since tapes are usually filled with (constructive) criticism—not exactly great publicity to hear someone picking apart everything wrong with your show, as useful as it is internally. However, I think it'd be totally possible to do a more neutral explanation from judges of how they judge, what things matter to them and what things don't, that kind of stuff.

One possibility might be to provide the judges' tapes only for the winning captions at Finals, as extras on the DVD. So you would only hear what the brass judge had to say about the Jim Ott award-winner, etc. Those tapes, from finals, strictly for the caption winners, would presumably have very little by way of criticism, but would still be fascinating for us fans to hear.

[Wadep66]

One possibility might be to provide the judges' tapes only for the winning captions at Finals, as extras on the DVD. So you would only hear what the brass judge had to say about the Jim Ott award-winner, etc. Those tapes, from finals, strictly for the caption winners, would presumably have very little by way of criticism, but would still be fascinating for us fans to hear.

I found that on many of the tapes that the higher scoring corps had almost no negative comments and at times a bunch of silence. I liked getting to hear them too, especially for the captions like percussion and color guard that I'm clueless about. Why a corps would care that people saw the score but didn't hear the comments is baffling. Unless the designers thought that would let the performers hear about what THEY didn't do so well.

[drumno5]

Should content scores be removed from the sheet after the first regionals and corps be assigned a content rating for the rest of the season

Yikes!

What's wrong with DCI? Many of us contend it's inept judging... we all know... It's pathetic.

So 'you all' should take the test, put on the green shirt and hit the fields. What better way to ensure the integrity of the scoring system than to staff the panels with fair, unbiased, knowledgeable experts like yourself?

Maybe it is time to put term limits on DCI judges just like we have for the president of the US.

Are you for real?

It's a subjective sport with a subjective scoring system.

Thank You.

Peace,

Fred O.

[sagnasty]

Should the design and arranging work of paid adults - having their work judged by other adults who are often the designers' friends, co-workers, and in some cases, ex-lovers - really count as 50% of the scoring in a youth competition activity?

If this is true then whoa to DCI. You have parents shelling out thousands of dollars for their kid to march and fans paying big ticket prices for shows. Hell hath no fury like a fan scourned. Sounds like Washington DC with

special interests and lobbyists back room dealing.

[sagnasty]

Should the design and arranging work of paid adults - having their work judged by other adults who are often the designers' friends, co-workers, and in some cases, ex-lovers - really count as 50% of the scoring in a youth competition activity?

If this is true then whoa to DCI. You have parents shelling out thousands of dollars for their kid to march and fans paying big ticket prices for shows. Hell hath no fury like a fan scourned. Sounds like Washington DC with

special interests and lobbyists back room dealing.

[JamMan]

Just floating an idea, not fully formulated, for considerations.

Should content scores be removed from the sheet after the first regionals and corps be assigned a content rating for the rest of the season as content will not change dramatically unless they change songs or full arrangements?

Achievement would definitely fluctuate but maybe content would be given a fixed rating, similar to diving difficulty, figure skating difficulty, or State music evaluations.

No. You'll get shows that will bore you to tears because that corps feels like winning.