Slingerland Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 (edited) You can still judge performers for simultaneous responsibility and complexity as a factor - it's not ticks. The reason ticks were eliminated was your point; too simple. It was who could play cleanly with no need to make things too hard. When that was changed to involve complexity, you saw complexity vault ahead in the early 1980s. I think that's a little simplistic. Both brass and percussion had build-up captions that gave credit for difficulty, so that even if a line was clean, but playing a relatively simple book, they weren't going to get the number of a line that played clean and had a lot of meat in the book. And "demand" as a concept, is a lot easier for people to agree on than "effect," simply because the judges almost always had personal experience writing, teaching, and performing themselves - they know what's hard to do and what's not. Judging "effect" is a slippery eel to begin with, but it's only made harder when the activity says that the design and instructional staffs can essentially dictate to the judges what is and isn't good design. Edited March 3, 2014 by Slingerland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drumcat Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 I completely agree that it's simplistic and oversimplified. No need for a thesis on it, though one could probably have content to spare. Ticks -> Build up -> Boxes, and now emphasis on context, and multi-dimensional demand. The problem is to make it as simple as possible, but no more. 40+ years, and still people aren't happy. The thing with judging is that no one will ever be happy. The problem is that those who judge are the ones that set the direction of the activity. It's so strange as a business, but sports leagues are similar in that they basically have little control over who their better and worse teams are. However, instead of wins and losses, this apex activity is one that anyone who wants to succeed needs to become effective emulators of who is winning. Winning is set by judges. Judges therefore have an inordinate amount of control of the *entire genre* of drum corps. Directors vote for how they want to be judged, but in the end, those decisions are still left up to independent contractors. Imagine if, on one night, a judge was about to retire and decided that it's about time to use all 5 boxes for finals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perc2100 Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 The thing with judging is that no one will ever be happy. The problem is that those who judge are the ones that set the direction of the activity. It's so strange as a business, but sports leagues are similar in that they basically have little control over who their better and worse teams are. However, instead of wins and losses, this apex activity is one that anyone who wants to succeed needs to become effective emulators of who is winning. Winning is set by judges. Judges therefore have an inordinate amount of control of the *entire genre* of drum corps. Directors vote for how they want to be judged, but in the end, those decisions are still left up to independent contractors. Imagine if, on one night, a judge was about to retire and decided that it's about time to use all 5 boxes for finals. But the judges base their rankings/rankings on criteria that is typically discussed, voted on, and approved by DCI member corps: who are the directors of the individual corps. This process allows an "instructor caucus" to has out and amend any rule changes, and if instructors don't agree on a rule change, it doesn't even get to a Board vote. The process is essentially: * instructors propose & discuss rules changes * if a rule change is supported by instructors, it is moved on to DCI Board * DCI Board discusses rule change * If Board approves the rule is adopted * judges are trained on rule change * judges implement rule change at appropriate time depending on when rule is officially adopted for a season The judges are ONLY ranking/rating based on criteria adopted by the corps: they aren't some sort of outsiders who control the activity. The corps make the rules and then decide what direction is best for their organizations (i.e. BD has a significantly different style than Boston Crusaders when it comes to design, teaching style, etc), and then the judges evaluate performances based on the criteria of the sheets adopted and approved by the BoD. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 I think that's a little simplistic. Both brass and percussion had build-up captions that gave credit for difficulty, so that even if a line was clean, but playing a relatively simple book, they weren't going to get the number of a line that played clean and had a lot of meat in the book. And "demand" as a concept, is a lot easier for people to agree on than "effect," simply because the judges almost always had personal experience writing, teaching, and performing themselves - they know what's hard to do and what's not. Judging "effect" is a slippery eel to begin with, but it's only made harder when the activity says that the design and instructional staffs can essentially dictate to the judges what is and isn't good design. I read some data once that showed that the vast majority of fans (IIRC, something like 90%) consider the musical components of a drum corps show (brass, horns, and pit) to be most important, while only something like 20% or 25% of fans claim that the visual aspects (guard and "ballet" from musicians) of a show are what's important to them. Presuming that the shift to visual emphasis on the sheets is as a result of designers telling the judges what's to be judged, it appears that they are on the opposite side of what the fans consider to be important. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 (edited) I completely agree that it's simplistic and oversimplified. No need for a thesis on it, though one could probably have content to spare. Ticks -> Build up -> Boxes, and now emphasis on context, and multi-dimensional demand. The problem is to make it as simple as possible, but no more. 40+ years, and still people aren't happy. The thing with judging is that no one will ever be happy. The problem is that those who judge are the ones that set the direction of the activity. It's so strange as a business, but sports leagues are similar in that they basically have little control over who their better and worse teams are. However, instead of wins and losses, this apex activity is one that anyone who wants to succeed needs to become effective emulators of who is winning. Winning is set by judges. Judges therefore have an inordinate amount of control of the *entire genre* of drum corps. Directors vote for how they want to be judged, but in the end, those decisions are still left up to independent contractors. Imagine if, on one night, a judge was about to retire and decided that it's about time to use all 5 boxes for finals. There's a Dan Potter video out there from this year's annual meeting, where one of the important goals of the meeting is said to be that "...drum corps are being judged how they want to be judged..." (maybe slightly paraphrasing). Judges are hardly "independent contractors". They spend hours in meetings and training so they they judge how the directors want them to judge. You can be sure that a judge who doesn't toe the line and, instead, chose to use all 5 boxes would be held accountable and "helped" to retire whether he was ready to do so or not. One just needs to look at last year's semifinals field drum judge, and the furor that ensued, to see that judges are hardly "independent". Edited March 3, 2014 by garfield Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mingusmonk Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 I read some data once that showed that the vast majority of fans (IIRC, something like 90%) consider the musical components of a drum corps show (brass, horns, and pit) to be most important, while only something like 20% or 25% of fans claim that the visual aspects (guard and "ballet" from musicians) of a show are what's important to them. Presuming that the shift to visual emphasis on the sheets is as a result of designers telling the judges what's to be judged, it appears that they are on the opposite side of what the fans consider to be important. Completely underwhelming non-scientific 9 year old DCP poll --> http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/forums/index.php/topic/71172-music-visual-or-both Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perc2100 Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 However, instead of wins and losses, this apex activity is one that anyone who wants to succeed needs to become effective emulators of who is winning. Winning is set by judges. Judges therefore have an inordinate amount of control of the *entire genre* of drum corps. Directors vote for how they want to be judged, but in the end, those decisions are still left up to independent contractors. I guess so, but that's kind of how EVERYTHING is life is, when you think about it. At my job there are expectations based on what is successful in my field. I can choose to conservatively strive to emulate that successful model, or I can choose to blaze my own path and suffer whatever ramifications come from that independence. In our activity, ultimate success (DCI Champions) comes from corps doing their own thing for the most part. Emulation can get you only so far in our activity Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 Completely underwhelming non-scientific 9 year old DCP poll --> http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/forums/index.php/topic/71172-music-visual-or-both Umm... I don't quote DCP polls. Who does? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 I guess so, but that's kind of how EVERYTHING is life is, when you think about it. At my job there are expectations based on what is successful in my field. I can choose to conservatively strive to emulate that successful model, or I can choose to blaze my own path and suffer whatever ramifications come from that independence. In our activity, ultimate success (DCI Champions) comes from corps doing their own thing for the most part. Emulation can get you only so far in our activity Granted on the emulation being part of life. Except for the fact that you weren't allowed to write the "rules of success" at your job - your bosses did. Unlike drum corps where the "employees" are the bosses, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 Umm... I don't quote DCP polls. Who does? EDIT: Well, I guess you do quote DCP polls, considering that link is to a thread you started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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