BRASSO Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies. -- Robert Kennedy " Fear not the path of Truth, for the lack of people walking on it " .......Robert Kennedy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie1223 Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 (edited) Relevant: Take a look at these Judging Ballots and Judging Criteria for the Toast Masters Speech Contest. http://www.toastmasters.org/sampleballot.aspx What I got to this is if a judge is qualified to judge the intricacies and development of a piece of music that those same skills can be used to judge speech at the highest level. Many of those speech judging criteria are relevant to how music, visual and GE communication is judged in DCI. So, DCI judges could be more than qualified to judge narration at the highest level if presented with the high level criteria here. I will say though that the grammar/language portion of the criteria is perhaps the farthest away from anything relevant to someone specifically trained in music. Edited April 30, 2014 by charlie1223 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRASSO Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 (edited) Relevant: Take a look at these Judging Ballots and Judging Criteria for the Toast Masters Speech Contest. http://www.toastmasters.org/sampleballot.aspx What I got to this is if a judge is qualified to judge the intricacies and development of a piece of music that those same skills can be used to judge speech at the highest level. . So, DCI judges could be more than qualified to judge narration at the highest level if presented with the high level criteria here. I will say though that the grammar/language portion of the criteria is perhaps the farthest away from anything relevant to someone specifically trained in music. I'm on record as stating that judges do not need any specialized training to " judge " narration at all. ( just a good set of workable ears). So sure, all these judges are sufficiently " trained ", experienced, etc to " judge " narration. It just comes down to their personal likes of the narration component in the show basically. Narration requires no marcher talent ( ok,so they need a confident, beaming personality, good pacing and clear enunciation skills.. I'll grant this ), nor any judge talent to " judge" narration. Certainly not in the realm anyway of the education, training, experience, etc that the brass judge needs in Music to properly judge the myriad of evaluation criteria involved in ( for one example ), the brass line playing in a Corps. Edited April 30, 2014 by BRASSO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie1223 Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 (edited) I'm on record as stating that judges do not need any specialized training to " judge " narration at all. ( just a good set of workable ears). So sure, all these judges are sufficiently " trained ", experienced, etc to " judge " narration. It just comes down to their personal likes of the narration component in the show basically. Narration requires no marcher talent ( ok,so they need a confident, beaming personality, good pacing and clear enunciation skills.. I'll grant this ), nor any judge talent to " judge" narration. Certainly not in the realm anyway of the education, training, experience, etc that the brass judge needs in Music to properly judge the myriad of evaluation criteria involved in ( for one example ), the brass line playing in a Corps. I don't think the Toast Masters criteria hinged on whether the judge "liked" the speech or not, there were a lot of distinct categories. I think its easy for anyone to point out a great speaker, and an effective speech. But if you're trying to choose between 10 of the best speakers and rank them in order with numbers... that's more challenging and that does require some level of training. And I think you proved that narration does require talent (right after you said it didn't). Public Speaking is not easy, in fact, what narrators do on DCI field is equivalent to what actors do on stage and I don't think you would say that that doesn't require talent! Edited April 30, 2014 by charlie1223 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRASSO Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 (edited) what narrators do on DCI field is equivalent to what actors do on stage and I don't think you would say that that doesn't require talent! Well, if DCI is going to judge their " narrators " in the same realm as how movie critics judge acting in a movie or play, then maybe the next batch of judges that DCI hires should come of the college Drama Class teaching realm ( which only kicks the " DCI is a competitive sport " crowd to the curb as we don't judge athletes in competition by their acting skills ). Oh well... this narration thread sure brought all of us DCP narrators out to talk up a storm, huh ? Edited April 30, 2014 by BRASSO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gak27 Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 To the (original) topic of this thread: I believe the designers are HOPING that narration is more acceptable, given its prominent usage in the current Championship show. Will it become more prevalent? Who knows. FWIW, my feeling is that there have been far more cringe-worthy uses of narration/voiceover than applause-worthy ones. As far as the current Championship show, it took me awhile, but I thought the counting voiceover parts fit very well. I still do not like the love story narration. At all. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frachel Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 in fact, what narrators do on DCI field is equivalent to what actors do on stage and I don't think you would say that that doesn't require talent! If the acting in a Broadway show was as bad as the narration in DCI has been to date, opening night would be closing night. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mello Dude Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 How do you know that they do ? I know one judge( from several examples I could utilize ) ) that judges singing and narration in shows that has a an undergraduate degree in Math, and an advanced MBA degree. How does this make him any more more qualified by schooling, by training, or by professional experience as a singer, etc and so forth, that makes him any more qualified to judge singing and narration than you or others on here in a DCI Corps show ? Frankly, he isn't more qualified to " judge " narration. than anybody else. It all boils down to whether he" likes it or not" in the show. Period. Spot on. I would also add about the AWFUL dance technique that happens on the field and not judged properly. The fact the DCI still lets this slide is beyond understanding. Again, it simply goes back to adding things to get "brownie" points whether it fits or not (or even well done) because it is what is being pushed by DCI judging. Oh, and BTW I can cherry pick narration that fits too (and is well done), but overwhelmingly it blows...pardon my french. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjeffeory Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 Ridiculous. Are there agreed upon norms for color palette selection? YES. http://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/where-to-study-color Are there agreed upon norms for rifle choreography? Yes, rooted in military and expanded upon in the marching arts and something that will be rewarded on the sheets. So those are norms and if you deviate, you don't score as well. Are there agreed upon norms for drill design? Yes, something that will be rewarded on the sheets. So those are norms and if you deviate, you don't score as well. Also, colleges that teach this stuff set the "norms". Staging is a factor, and that is taught in drill design courses at most of the major universities. And yet -- somehow -- without academic support -- judges manage to adjudicate all these things in band, drum corps, guard, and percussion shows all year long. How DO they do that? Because there is established criteria that judges learn about and if a corps deviates, then it doesn't score well. There are norms. I believe that this is related to a narration being judged topic, and I happen to agree that a music education degree will not help someone judge that aspect of performance, and it's more of a subjective thing and a matter of personal tastes really. I happened to think Crown was wonderful last year, but I'm not a huge fan of the spoken and amplified word on the field and the few people that I could coax into coming with me to a show absolutely HATED it, and they're not really that passionate about the marching arts. So I'm not sure how well it "works". I can put up with it, but they thought it was distracting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie1223 Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 (edited) If the acting in a Broadway show was as bad as the narration in DCI has been to date, opening night would be closing night. I didn't say the talent was the same, or that it should be, and i didn't mention Broadway shows. But the act of reciting memorized lines to a live audience is something actors in a play do that's all I was saying. Edited April 30, 2014 by charlie1223 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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