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The TILTING in Massillon...Coats Homecoming


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That crowd reaction though......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8dHJNNNKwI

The guy with the grey hair and super 70s mustache at 3:11 ain't buying it though. Hah.

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I just saw this clip from the Bluecoats encore in Massillon.

Front Ensemble playing and the corps is SINGING their ballad - lyrics and all.

Incredible and haunting.

Hymn of Acxiom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOgnYlGMGX8

that...was...AWESOME! Love it!

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so maybe not so hard to get clean? Actually it really isn't but it looks impressive. There's the thing where content is less than achievement (because it is repeated in the same program)but the execution is rewarded and it affects effect.

If you really think about this... there is no such thing as the ease in repeating a formation or set. A group would have to go to and/or come from a different location on each instance... thus rendering it new material with respect to performance (i.e. the difficulty in presentation is never about a "set" it is about the movement between "sets"). Field shows are about form movement, not form placement.

The idea isn't only bunk in reality... it's also bunk conceptually as well.

Of course the converse fallacious argument then is made about so-called "scatter drill". If the difficulty is about movement between "sets", then scatter drill negates the difficulty. However... nobody ever considers that scattering is an "effect" rather than a means of transportation. In order for any "effect" to be effective... it has be worked out and performed consistently. Try following a path for a unit member in a scatter effect... it is never straight, therefore the field is always covered. There is actually such a thing as bad scatter drill.

And then there is drill that is called scatter... when it really isn't at all. This usually consists of forms that break down between sets and there is sometimes some sort of dance or body choreography associated with the motion. Just because the form breaks down and reorganizes doesn't mean that ANY amount of scattering has occurred.

I think that some people have grossly misinterpreted the first uses of some of these concepts in the 1990s... and have been perpetuating misconceptions ever since. It's so easy to spot a HS band that simply scatters differently night to night... in contrast with a DCI corps that has worked out every detail in dot drill for these effects.

The Devils have a great effect where the hornline form breaks down and pushes over a row of tables backfield. This is HARD to do... and requires lots of sub set timing and choreography to get clean. Then there is some bone head in the audience that says... "typical BD drill..."

Foolish.

(off soap box now)

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Cadets use that same form on 3 big brass hits. at least. Maybe more. what happened to the innovators of DCI ?

Uh... no they don't. Some of the stuff I read I just shake my head at in disbelief. Do people actually believe the crap they type?? lol

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This:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKKQjCW4uVY&list=UUpUydVbnl4QvMxxeSk87vrg

is exactly what I am talking about. The section concerning the the topic above begins at 6:40.

It is one of the Blue Devils periodical video episodes. They are all pretty interesting, but this episode demonstrates the point that I made earlier concerning drill.

EVERY world class corps operates this way... not just BD.

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I hadn't realized that the guard in the sequence they're calling "The Italian Dinner" are:

(a) supposed to be angry when they bang on the table--I thought they were like Madison's guard banging on the ground at the end of their 1989 show, awed by (or at least very much enjoying) what they see before them; or

(b) reading an imaginary script when they hold their hands in front of their faces.

Had anyone here been reading those two gestures as per BD's interpretation? (If not, what was your own interpretation?) Do you think the judges understand what BD's gesticulating there is meant to convey? Does BD tell them? If they don't know without BD telling them, is BD's effectiveness in any way diminished?

(That section of video, from there to the end, is quite helpful. Thanks for the link.)

Edit 1: What does the video's narrator mean at the end when he says, "No art passes through conscience the way that film does?" Did he perhaps mean to say "consciousness"? It doesn't really make sense as he says it.

Edit 2: The narrator refers to "spectacle that defies explanation" -- if it can't be explained, can it be judged?

Edited by N.E. Brigand
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I hadn't realized that the guard in the sequence they're calling "The Italian Dinner" are:

(a) supposed to be angry when they bang on the table--I thought they were like Madison's guard banging on the ground at the end of their 1989 show, awed by (or at least very much enjoying) what they see before them; or

(b) reading an imaginary script when they hold their hands in front of their faces.

Had anyone here been reading those two gestures as per BD's interpretation? (If not, what was your own interpretation?) Do you think the judges understand what BD's gesticulating there is meant to convey? Does BD tell them? If they don't know without BD telling them, is BD's effectiveness in any way diminished?

(That section of video, from there to the end, is quite helpful. Thanks for the link.)

Edit 1: What does the video's narrator mean at the end when he says, "No art passes through conscience the way that film does?" Did he perhaps mean to say "consciousness"? It doesn't really make sense as he says it.

Edit 2: The narrator refers to "spectacle that defies explanation" -- if it can't be explained, can it be judged?

first... you are welcome for the link...

second... I think you are thinking too hard about a few things... I'm not sure that the judges need to have the absolute definition of the interpretive movements... otherwise, they wouldn't be interpretive.

third... conscience is an inner sense of morality... the statement is to suggest that no art effects this the way that film does (a dubious claim... but good propaganda).

and last... most art (spectacle) presents non-propositional claims or truths. Therefore... many things defy explanation, however may be subject to adjudication. That is why GE is highly subjective. This isn't a fault in the system... it is merely the system that everybody agrees to be rated on.

Keep all of this in the context that the purpose of these little segments that corps put out is not SHOW PROPAGANDA... and shouldn't be viewed such a way. The segments are updates and corps ADVERTISING PROPAGANDA. The purpose of the segments are "feel good" in nature... with little points of information and organization highlights.

Now that you watched the last half that I pointed to... go back and watch the first half that highlights the food truck and transportation people.

Anywho. I was just showing that all of that "clutter" is worked out in precise timing for a visual purpose. So much of that choreography is performed in the context of maintaining a form... not in "scattering" to a new set. My favorite statement (and it might be in the first half of the video) is when one of the visual instructors is caught talking about guiding the form and maintaining "cover" while jumping off of a prop... Now THAT's attention to visual detail. And it's all typical of how these corps operate.

Edited by cfirwin3
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This:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKKQjCW4uVY&list=UUpUydVbnl4QvMxxeSk87vrg

is exactly what I am talking about. The section concerning the the topic above begins at 6:40.

It is one of the Blue Devils periodical video episodes. They are all pretty interesting, but this episode demonstrates the point that I made earlier concerning drill.

EVERY world class corps operates this way... not just BD.

?????

Such a focus on individualism ( "visual" ) versus community/large group (drill). Just supports my feeling that there's WGI feeling today their shows.

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