Does percussion affect Music Effect and Music Analysis scores?

[Jeff Ream]

This is probably the best place for me to ask this. For those of you more in the know and experienced with show design/judging - what exactly is meant when we talk about how well "integrated" the percussion book is? The impression I've gotten is that Crown's book is seen as not well integrated because they don't get a lot of features or moments on their own to shine, but that seems backwards to me. Shouldn't a well-integrated book be one that's combined smoothly with the brass book towards one cohesive musical product, rather than being segmented into "brass moments" and "percussion moments"?

For example, at the beginning of the closer, the quads are coming down the 50 playing a feature while the trumpets are playing a great fast melody off on side 1. Isn't that more "integrated" than if the quads were playing by themselves? Whether this style of writing leads to better scores is another question, but specifically the use of "integrated" has been puzzling me.

yes that's more integrated IMO. see the features upstairs...they're going to look more at how they get in and out of them than the actual performance.

[Jeff Ream]

Your comments are more dead on correct than you probably know. Your points ARE the issue.

I'm REALLY tired of hearing slams and non-correlated-percussion-writing-to-prove-our-chops books that stick out like a sore thumb and add virtually nothing to the musicality of the performance.

Crown's drum book is impressive BECAUSE it's NOT that.

IMO

correction....it's impressive for the upstairs sheets...where Crown is scoring well.

[charlie1223]

Percussion is an on field caption and music analysis and effect are in the box. From over 200feet awayup high a lot of the inconsistencies just aren't as apparent.

[wallace]

I agree with you that the focus on extreme hybrids (just for the sake of hybrids as opposed to using hybrids to create music) can get out of hand in the realm of rudimental drumming. However, it is this type of lack of caring by many concerning the complexity, clarity, technique, et al within the art of drumming which lead BOA to eliminate the percussion judges all together; which, in turn has lead to BOA battery books being nothing more than simple rhythmic patterns; which in turn has lead to a dumb-down education for youth on the art of drumming. There is a musical sound and feel difference between inverted flam taps and standard accented sixteenth notes, but it appears that as long as the battery provides some sort of pulse many people within the world of music, music education, and music judging do not care about musical sound and musical feel differences between various sticking patterns.

Exactly! Imagine if we complained that the complexity in Crown's hornline is just too much of a bother, and the art and technique of the instrument should be stripped away in the same fashion as percussion. People would lose their minds!

[wallace]

Wait. All due respect Mr. Drum Judge dude, but in another thread you proclaimed that Crown's problem is lack of integration with the corps and a comparitively simple book (Hannum's writing style) that were holding them back. Now you're saying it's execution at the field level?

How could that be? If Hannum's book is so simple (I disagree, and I watch sticks) wouldn't even a typical crown drum line be able to play it proficiently? After all, these are rookie players who just moved up from corps further down in the ranks. And, certainly, it can't be ALL of those.

I think NewJerseyCorpsGuy's description of "perceived" drum line weakness is dead on.

I actually hope you're right in that it IS their execution, because that's a lot easier to fix than Hannum's book.

It's not a perception of a percussion weakness. They are significantly worse in comparison to their peers. And, I disagree with Jeff. The dirt can be heard and seen up top, and it does affect Crown's ensemble performance. Using difficulty alone as the criteria to judge how a percussion section affects the corps' ensemble is just as bad as saying, "well, the accents go great with the music, so that's good enough for a first place MA score." Horsechips! If Corps X has a great drumline but a poor brass section their MA score would be lowered. It should be the same oppositely. Great brass and seventh place percussion should not equal a first or second caption placement in MA. It is intellectually dishonest.

The last I checked this was DRUM and bugle corps-the best of the best. One handed triplets and cleverly placed accents do not a champion make!

Edited August 8, 2013 by wallace

[skywhopper]

Exactly! Imagine if we complained that the complexity in Crown's hornline is just too much of a bother, and the art and technique of the instrument should be stripped away in the same fashion as percussion. People would lose their minds!

I think there have been moments in many top brass lines in recent years (Crown included, certainly) that could be considered over the top, out of place, show-off-y nonsense which probably helped their brass score at the expense of the MA and Music GE scores. That's okay, too--the sheets are designed to emphasize sometimes competing elements, and the challenge for the designers is to find the right balance, in more ways than one.

Edited August 8, 2013 by skywhopper

[Plan9]

I almost started a separate thread on this but percussion has been beat to death this year......so................here is one more metric to consider.

Here are the title winners "percussion placement" since 2000 / and the delta between their score and the #1 percussion section (if applicable) by year:

PERCUSSION OF WINNERS

2000 - 2nd place - .1 from 1st place Perc

2001 - 2nd place - .1 from 1st place Perc

2002 - 3rd place - .4 from 1st place Perc

2003 - 3rd place - .4 from 1st place Perc

2004 - 3rd place - .45 from 1st place Perc

2005 - 1st place - N/A

2006 - 4th place - .7 from 1st place Perc

2007 - 1st place - N/A

2008 - 1st place - N/A

2009 - 1st place - N/A

2010 - 4th place - .5 from 1st place Perc

2011 - 3rd place - .4 from 1st place Perc

2012 - 1st place - N/A

Based on last meeting of top 4 in Buffalo (understanding the imperfection of a TOC match up) here is the Percussion comparison:

SCV - 1st place - N/A

BD - 2nd place - .3 from 1st place Perc

Cadets - 3rd place - .4 from 1st place Perc

CC - 6th place - 1.3 from 1st place Perc

That is a pretty big kielbasa hanging out there......enormous actually! />

Obviously, this does not take into consideration GE, Viz & Brass spreads which will (in this case) need to be substantial for CC to make up the difference.....but it is very possible.

Bottom line: I only went back to 2000, but if CC wins with over a full point back from the 1st place perc score.....it will be very usual and quite an achievement.

OK Dinos................kick the #### out of my theory! />

Edited August 8, 2013 by Plan9

[actucker]

Maybe the music analysis judges are slamming Cadets and BD for having drum books that don't fit the rest of the music. Because that's what I hear (take it with a grain of salt, I'm a brass player): fiendishly difficult battery parts that don't match the actual music in several places. Just a bunch of notes to prove they can do it. In that situation, the Percussion judge would (and should!) be giving them great scores, but the MA judge docking them for it.

Really? Cadets battery book isn't musical? This is the most musical and appropriate book I've seen out of the Cadets in the last 15 years. McNutt has completely outdone himself. While I will agree, there are drum lines out there that play notes for the sake of notes, I get a little tired of the argument that a battery that plays notes is always guilty of that. How many brass runs are there in Crown's show that don't have to be there, but are there "because they can".

I can also say with some confidence that if the MA judge were talking about the Cadets' battery playing too many notes, there would have been changes to the book already. That staff isn't chasing a drum trophy, they want a championship.

[Jeff Ream]

It's not a perception of a percussion weakness. They are significantly worse in comparison to their peers. And, I disagree with Jeff. The dirt can be heard and seen up top, and it does affect Crown's ensemble performance. Using difficulty alone as the criteria to judge how a percussion section affects the corps' ensemble is just as bad as saying, "well, the accents go great with the music, so that's good enough for a first place MA score." Horsechips! If Corps X has a great drumline but a poor brass section their MA score would be lowered. It should be the same oppositely. Great brass and seventh place percussion should not equal a first or second caption placement in MA. It is intellectually dishonest.

The last I checked this was DRUM and bugle corps-the best of the best. One handed triplets and cleverly placed accents do not a champion make!

In a dome, with that hornline wailing and amps, that dirt is not going to be heard. it was not nearly as noticable up high at Allentown minus the exposed moments as it was watching them rehearse at field level earlier in the day.

Now..do I feel they should win MA? Nope, never said that. But I get why they are winning. I've had the same argument in marching band in the fall.

[perc2100]

Just curious, shouldn't Crowns weakness in percussion be affecting their ME and MA scores?

It seems obvious that guard performance affects visual effect and visual analysis, shouldn't it be the same for percussion in relation the music captions?

I've not read through all the posts so if I repeat, sorry...

In theory, yes a weak percussion section would negatively affect Music Analysis and Music Effect. Both of those captions evaluate the overall music performance & design so it seems logical that if a percussion section is significantly struggling it would negatively affect the other music captions

HOWEVER

There are reasons why a weak percussion section is not affecting Music Effect or Musical Analysis:

1) the biggest one is the percussion judge is on the field in front of the performers, while the MA and ME judges are in the box. Things might be "clean enough" sounding from the box so as to not adversely affect the music captions, but dirty enough right in front of the performers to kill the percussion caption scores. Moreover...

2) the judge on the field is looking at individuals and small groups while the judges in the box are looking at the full ensemble. The judge on the field will notice technique inconsistencies, inconsistent sound quality player-player, inconsistent approach, etc. that isn't perceivable from the box. The judges in the box are looking at the whole, and bad technique or approach aren't really a big factor if the overall sound is good.

3) Crown's brass could be making up for poor percussion. For all we know, their ME and MA scores would be SIGNIFICANTLY higher if the percussion was better

4) criteria for Music Effect is WAY different than criteria for Percussion. While overall music performance is half of the caption in ME, the criteria is significantly different than the strict "is it dirty or not" adjudicating of the percussion caption. The Music Analysis is also different from Percussion (as mentioned above in field vs box judging).

5) Crown's percussion isn't necessarily awful, it's just that a lot of units are spectacular. Sometimes you can be good, but if six other units are incredible good looks weak in comparison. Having not seen Crown live, or on the field in front of the performers, I can't speculate as to their level of proficiency. But BD, Cadets, SCV have incredible percussion programs, Cavaliers and Bluecoats have awesome percussion programs, Blue Stars seem to have a great percussion program; there is just a lot of amazing out there this season! Maybe Crown percussion is good enough for MA and ME but compared to the incredible talent in DCI for Percussion they just don't have the amazeballs talent a lot of other lines have.

Honestly, I was thinking this at the beginning of the season as well, but rereading the sheets and thinking about it I can see why poor percussion wouldn't necessarily kill the MA and ME scores. It's fairly unusual, to be sure, but I can see it happening