perc2100 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. I think that there's not so much a visual emphasis so much as emphasis on simultaneous demand. Yes, vis bleeds into the music captions at times, but the emphasis is more doing BOTH vis & music at the same time. Most drum lines can stand still and play lots of notes musically and clean. A lot of drum lines can march while playing lots of notes fast. Even fewer can add body movement and complex choreography while playing: that's what separates good from great. To be honest, I don't get why people freak out about that. Corps are playing more music, with better tone, WHILE DOING VISUAL STUFF, then they have in any other era. Why is that bad? Do we want to devolve back to the drum line arc'ing up for the solo while the brass marches behind them? Do we want to return to concert movements where there is visual stagnation for a few minutes?! If you're argument is arranging style, I won't necessarily disagree with you, but that's a separate issue than simultaneous demand/visual being a component of high-achieving music captions 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perc2100 Posted March 3, 2014 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 Interestingly, even this underwhelming non-scientific 9 year old DCP poll, the majority think Visual AND Music equally is most appealing (that kind of surprised me) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drumcat Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 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. Agreed. Complete agreement. Just like figure skating or gymnastics. They are so good, there's *never* any disagreement. Sorry about the sarcasm, but it's all fact what you put out there, and yet few people are satisfied. Not because the judges are doing something "wrong" - it's because most people don't feel closely aligned with the judging criteria. Restated another way, most of the ticket-buying public has an idea of what they believe they are seeing and how things should be holistically judged, and most of that public accepts some differences with more learned judges. However, if the "goalposts" are constantly in the "wrong" place for those paying to see the show, they will be unhappy. Nothing new, and nothing that can't be suffered through. Hell, no one understands how gymnastics are *really* scored. They just know they want to see the highest numbers go to the athletes that seem most proficient. That's really what sport is, right? Judged sports anyhow. My overarching point is that no one is going to suddenly be happy with judging. Rather, aligning outcomes with paid-viewers expectations is good business. That's all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drumcat Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 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". ICs in the paid sense, not independent thinkers. They are part-timers, just as NFL referees are mostly part-timers. They have skin in the game, to be sure. I don't know about the field judge... Are you talking about Boston? Either way, did it matter? I guess that's another topic.... shows for 8-9 weeks, but all we care about is the last one. It's an 8 week preseason, with a 3 day competition. That's what is weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 (edited) I think that there's not so much a visual emphasis so much as emphasis on simultaneous demand. Yes, vis bleeds into the music captions at times, but the emphasis is more doing BOTH vis & music at the same time. Most drum lines can stand still and play lots of notes musically and clean. A lot of drum lines can march while playing lots of notes fast. Even fewer can add body movement and complex choreography while playing: that's what separates good from great. To be honest, I don't get why people freak out about that. Corps are playing more music, with better tone, WHILE DOING VISUAL STUFF, then they have in any other era. Why is that bad? Do we want to devolve back to the drum line arc'ing up for the solo while the brass marches behind them? Do we want to return to concert movements where there is visual stagnation for a few minutes?! If you're argument is arranging style, I won't necessarily disagree with you, but that's a separate issue than simultaneous demand/visual being a component of high-achieving music captions That's exactly the point that I've tried to make several times in this thread. The vast majority of fans come to shows to hear music. Visual treats are a nice bonus, but don't reflect the fans' preference. So the drumline playing 64th-note padda-flahs while doing this year's "flamingo squat" is little more impressive or interesting than the flah's on their own. Only the designers think they appeal more to fans with the "simultaneous demand" crap. Only a small percentage of fans care about that (and, likely, that aligns nicely with the percentage of age-out guard members). It even applies to the MM's, I'll bet. Ask any musician why they come to drum corps and I'd bet very few or none do it to learn how to curtsy while holding a tone, or learning squat knee bends while playing rata's in a line of 10 of their most talented peers. Get rid of this "SD" dribble altogether. Spend the time cleaning brilliant musical passages, lines, and kids. That's all the fans want (well, most of them) and that's all the MM's want. Why is the judging community pandering to the designers and not the arrangers? Edited March 3, 2014 by garfield Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 That's exactly the point that I've tried to make several times in this thread. The vast majority of fans come to shows to hear music. Visual treats are a nice bonus, but don't reflect the fans' preference. So the drumline playing 64th-note padda-flahs while doing this year's "flamingo squat" is little more impressive or interesting than the flah's on their own. Only the designers think they appeal more to fans with the "simultaneous demand" crap. Only a small percentage of fans care about that (and, likely, that aligns nicely with the percentage of age-out guard members). It even applies to the MM's, I'll bet. Ask any musician why they come to drum corps and I'd bet very few or none do it to learn how to curtsy while holding a tone, or learning squat knee bends while playing rata's in a line of 10 of their most talented peers. Get rid of this "SD" dribble altogether. Spend the time cleaning brilliant musical passages, lines, and kids. That's all the fans want (well, most of them) and that's all the MM's want. Why is the judging community pandering to the designers and not the arrangers? The judges evaluate and score as they are told to evaluate and score. I bet there are MM who love the idea of both playing great and difficult musikc while performing amazing visual programs. Movement has always been part of the activity, only now there is a lot more of it than in the distant past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seen-it-all Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 (edited) The vast majority of fans come to shows to hear music. Visual treats are a nice bonus, but don't reflect the fans' preference. Only a small percentage of fans care about that (and, likely, that aligns nicely with the percentage of age-out guard members). It even applies to the MM's, I'll bet. Ask any musician why they come to drum corps and I'd bet very few or none do it to learn how to curtsy while holding a tone, or learning squat knee bends while playing rata's in a line of 10 of their most talented peers. Get rid of this "SD" dribble altogether. Spend the time cleaning brilliant musical passages, lines, and kids. That's all the fans want (well, most of them) and that's all the MM's want. Please don't speak for "the fans." You don't. You shouldn't even try. Because you can't. No one can. And let it be known that I would say the same thing if your position was that the only thing the fans cared about was the visuals. These are very ignorant broad-based proclamations to make (especially without any type of supportive empirical data), and I'd like to think that someone as knowledgeable about drum corps as you would realize that there are a variety of reasons people like and dislike what they do as fans of this great activity. Edited March 3, 2014 by seen-it-all 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 Please don't speak for "the fans." You don't. You shouldn't even try. Because you can't. And let it be known that I would say the same thing if your position was that the only thing the fans cared about was the visuals. These are very ignorant broad-based proclamations to make (especially without any type of supportive empirical data), and I'd like to think that someone as knowledgeable about drum corps as you would realize that there are a variety of reasons people like and dislike what they do as fans of this great activity. Sure, there are several reasons why fans come to drum corps shows. They include friends/family members participating, association with a corps, being a vet, or just an activity follower. But to the question of which they consider most important between music and visual, I don't speak out of my arse. The empirical data is clear that music trumps vis by a wide, wide margin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 The judges evaluate and score as they are told to evaluate and score. I bet there are MM who love the idea of both playing great and difficult musikc while performing amazing visual programs. Movement has always been part of the activity, only now there is a lot more of it than in the distant past. Sure, just as there are those fans who consider vis to be more important than music. The question is: why are the designers scoring vis as high or higher priority as music when the vast majority of fans think otherwise? Is it that the other 75% who value music need more education about what they should want? Isn't that just another sign of arrogance on the part of the activity's leaders (you know, the ones who tell the judges what to judge)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mingusmonk Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Sure, there are several reasons why fans come to drum corps shows. They include friends/family members participating, association with a corps, being a vet, or just an activity follower. But to the question of which they consider most important between music and visual, I don't speak out of my arse. The empirical data is clear that music trumps vis by a wide, wide margin. Look. I'm a music-first guy, but you are going to have to do better than "I read somewhere, that the numbers were convincing, and I think they were something like ... maybe" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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