Does percussion affect Music Effect and Music Analysis scores?

[actucker]

you can og there for 20 years. Inside, certain things will just not be heard as clearly. Plus inside, the goo is more amplified. You lose bass drums the higher up yo go. same with some tenors.

Crown designed thedrum book to fit within the big picture. That's the MA sheet. It's not designed OR performed well enough for the percussion sheet.

I understand what you're getting at, and to a certain degree I understand. However, there are a couple of holes in the argument.

You argue that the dome has some effect on the possibility of the judges in the box hearing the issues in execution heard from the field. There are several issues with that statement. First, even if it were true, that doesn't explain the fact that this discrepancy in ranking and spread has been fairly consistent all season. There have been plenty of shows outside where at least some of the performance issues would have been apparent. Second, half of the MA sheet is composition based. A large spread exists in the composition between Crown and first place in percussion. The dome isn't going to keep those issues from being apparent in the box. Again, much of the wording on the two sheets overlaps in both the content and the achievement sides of the sheets.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that there should be impossible to win music ensemble with a weakness in one area or another. I find it pretty hard to justify a consistent one point spread in a music caption and a nearly perfect music analysis score.

I'll ask you this. If the situation were reversed, and they were winning drums, but 7th in brass, could you still justify them winning music analysis? If not, then how do you expect percussion designers, staff members and performers to be accountable to the rest of the ensemble. That would make them the only caption that can get away with being a glaring weakness, and not hurt the corps in any other caption.

Again, all of this is said from purely a numbers analysis perspective. I don't really have a horse in the race, as I don't really have a "favorite" and the show I like the most is unlikely to win a championship, or ensemble analysis. I'm not trying to bash on Crown, but trying to find any real justifiable reason why the numbers would be that far out in one caption and have no effect on any others. I just don't buy any of the explanations I've seen.

[skywhopper]

I'm not trying to bash on Crown, but trying to find any real justifiable reason why the numbers would be that far out in one caption and have no effect on any others. I just don't buy any of the explanations I've seen.

A couple of things: one, the points assigned are relative. So Crown's 99/99 last night was more to do with numbers management than being close to "perfection".

But to address your point in the part I quoted, you don't buy Jeff's theory that the MA sheets judge entirely different things than the field sheets. Do you have a competing theory? Other theories that have been put forth are that perhaps Crown is overachieving in other areas of the MA sheet. Or maybe percussion just isn't that important. In terms of the overall musical ensemble only about a third are percussionists.

I dont know the answer but the results have been too consistent all year to deny. Likewise I don't understand how BD could be doing so well in VA or Vis GE but there it is.

[CrownStarr]

I'll ask you this. If the situation were reversed, and they were winning drums, but 7th in brass, could you still justify them winning music analysis?

One possibility (not sure whether it's true at all) would be that field-level brass issues are more noticeable in the box than percussion ones, since it's already been noted that lots of the detail of a drumline's performance is lost from the field to the box, especially while the brass is playing. That would mean that MA scores could be more heavily correlated with brass than with percussion, without the MA judges giving undue influence to the brass section in their judging. But I don't have nearly enough experience to feel like I could say whether that's true one way or the other.

[Jeff Ream]

I understand what you're getting at, and to a certain degree I understand. However, there are a couple of holes in the argument.

You argue that the dome has some effect on the possibility of the judges in the box hearing the issues in execution heard from the field. There are several issues with that statement. First, even if it were true, that doesn't explain the fact that this discrepancy in ranking and spread has been fairly consistent all season. There have been plenty of shows outside where at least some of the performance issues would have been apparent. Second, half of the MA sheet is composition based. A large spread exists in the composition between Crown and first place in percussion. The dome isn't going to keep those issues from being apparent in the box. Again, much of the wording on the two sheets overlaps in both the content and the achievement sides of the sheets.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that there should be impossible to win music ensemble with a weakness in one area or another. I find it pretty hard to justify a consistent one point spread in a music caption and a nearly perfect music analysis score.

I'll ask you this. If the situation were reversed, and they were winning drums, but 7th in brass, could you still justify them winning music analysis? If not, then how do you expect percussion designers, staff members and performers to be accountable to the rest of the ensemble. That would make them the only caption that can get away with being a glaring weakness, and not hurt the corps in any other caption.

Again, all of this is said from purely a numbers analysis perspective. I don't really have a horse in the race, as I don't really have a "favorite" and the show I like the most is unlikely to win a championship, or ensemble analysis. I'm not trying to bash on Crown, but trying to find any real justifiable reason why the numbers would be that far out in one caption and have no effect on any others. I just don't buy any of the explanations I've seen.

sure ranking is consistent. recaps are readily available. your're trying to compare upstairs to downstairs. two totally different sheets and vantage points. Crowns percussion book is designed to fit well with the whole package, and it does. thats what ensemble looks at. the field judge is looking at something totally different, and he's right there on top of it.

now, go back and read in another post where I said I get why they are winning MA, but not that i entirely agree with it. and if they had a 7th place brass line, it would depend on the design...but I doubt they would. most MA judges are brass guys. it's no secret. if they weren't, you'd see drum sheet like spreads

[jjeffeory]

looking at his and others horrible numbers management, no wonder...he had nowhere else to go

One thing I don't understand about the "numbers management" theorists around here is the Boxes on the sheets. If a corps is in the bottom of Box 5, for example, do they sometimes get bumped down to high Box 4 because of numbers management? I mean that sounds much worse than having ties in subcaptions to me.

I don't care if two corps have the same scores, they can do that in my mind.... Anyway, just something I thought about recently with all the talk of number's management on here.

Edited August 10, 2013 by jjeffeory

[Jeff Ream]

One things I don't understand about the "numbers management" theorists around here is the Boxes on the sheets. If a corps is in the bottom of Box 5, for example, do they sometimes get bumped down to high Box 4 because of numbers management? I mean that sounds much worse than having ties in subcaptions to me.

I don't care if two corps have the same corps, they can do that in my mind.... Anyway, just something I thought about recently with all the talk of number's management on here.

sometimes...but in general, he started high, had no chance to adjust and just tied people left and right to get a bottom number that didn't tie.

[perc2100]

I understand what you're getting at, and to a certain degree I understand. However, there are a couple of holes in the argument.

You argue that the dome has some effect on the possibility of the judges in the box hearing the issues in execution heard from the field. There are several issues with that statement. First, even if it were true, that doesn't explain the fact that this discrepancy in ranking and spread has been fairly consistent all season. There have been plenty of shows outside where at least some of the performance issues would have been apparent. Second, half of the MA sheet is composition based. A large spread exists in the composition between Crown and first place in percussion. The dome isn't going to keep those issues from being apparent in the box. Again, much of the wording on the two sheets overlaps in both the content and the achievement sides of the sheets.

It's not just domes (though domes are more favorable in this situation). The judges in the box have a SUBSTANTIALLY different read than the judges on the field. Not only that, the sheets are significantly different, as are the duties of the judge. I thought I mentioned that earlier, but if not the key difference is that judges in the box are sampling the full ensemble (be it musical or visual), while the judges on the field are sampling individual or small ensemble (small meaning snare line or battery, cluster of trumpets, etc). Two TOTALLY different responsibilities and reads.

Not to mention the percussion section is less than half of the brass section, and, say, a dirtyish snare line is less than half of the percussion section. So a legit musical sample of the entire ensemble (brass + battery + front ensemble + random instrumentalists such as the timpani and tam-tam musicians scattered throughout the field) should not weight heavily on one small section of the corps if the other sections are outstanding.

I'll ask you this. If the situation were reversed, and they were winning drums, but 7th in brass, could you still justify them winning music analysis? If not, then how do you expect percussion designers, staff members and performers to be accountable to the rest of the ensemble. That would make them the only caption that can get away with being a glaring weakness, and not hurt the corps in any other caption.

Percussion is the smallest section of a drum corps, I think (my math = awful, I've had a long day & I'm not willing to count to much to be definitive ) so statistically speaking they should be able to get away with the most as long as the other larger sections are incredible

To answer your specific question, I think it would be harder to have 6th place brass, 1st place percussion and still maintain 1st place Music Analysis. If the percussion section is roughly 1/3rd of the musical ensemble, then a low-achieving 2/3rds of the musical ensemble will not be overcompensated by the other spectacular 1/3rd. I suppose it is still a possibility, but IMO a LOT more difficult to pull off than what Crown is doing.

Plus, we're talking about a 4th place percussion tonight, so that's still ballpark.

What is far more interesting tonight, IMO, is Blue Star's MA placement. They were 12th in brass, 8th in percussion and 16th in MA! THAT seems a little funky!